Bacon's Rebellion

Transportation, as many would agree, is shaping up as the No. 1 policy issue in Virginia this year. Yet when presumptive Republican nominee Jerry Kilgore publishes his comprehensive strategy for addressing the Commonwealth’s transportation needs, it warrants two bullet items at the tail end of an article buried on the inside of the Richmond Times-Dispatch. I guess we’re doomed to have the gubernatorial campaign treated as a horse race with the emphasis all on process–campaign signs, polls, debates, etc. What a shame.

Kilgore has proposed some good ideas and some bad ones. They all deserve to be debated. Here are the highlights:

Regional transportation authority. Kilgore will enable metro areas to create authorities to address transportation on a regional basis, empowering them “to issue bonds, hold referenda to involve taxpayers in certain financing decisions, sign private maintenance contracts, enter into public-private partnerships, and use other financing mechanisms to fund new road, bridge and mass transit projects over and above existing funding from the state. “

Transportation trust fund. Kilgore will push for a constitutional amendment that would prevent the gas taxes paid into the transportation fund to be raided for other purposes.

Public-private partnerships. Kilgore will streamline the process for establishing public-private partnerships for the purpose of funding new transportation projects, and would direct VDOT to seek out such partnerships.

Intelligent transportation system. Kilgore will”seek private sector proposals to create the most comprehensive, state-of-the-art, statewide traveler communications network in the nation. In addition, he will employ technology to improve mobility by converting all toll facilities to electronic tolls by 2008, synchronizing traffic signals, and use of modeling to improve our access management strategies.”

I have problems with this platform: Public-private partnerships make me queasy, and the plan ignores the critical connection between land use and transportation demand. On the plus side, Kilgore is pushing solutions that don’t require a statewide increase in taxes. And he’s serious about employing techology to increase the capacity of the existing transportation system. All in all, these are serious ideas and they deserve a serious airing. Read the full platform here.

Suddenly, everyone is jumping through hoops to get the dump at False Cape State Park cleaned up.

The Virginian-Pilot goes into Earth Mother mode in this editorial about the dump. They ought to just be asking why it took their reporter, Jason Skog, to discover this dump and the shameful lack of any action over the course of years to clean it up.

Skog deserves an award.

Grading legislators is an inexact science practiced rigorously by interest groups. The latest organization to try and make a splash by rating General Assembly members is Virginia21, an “action-tank involving young people across the Commonwealth in the political process by providing information, directing advocacy and coordinating political action on a non-partisan issue agenda.” As with any group, some might quarrel with the “non-partisan” claim.

Virginia21 graded legislators on “student and higher education issues.” On the Dean’s List were such notables as Delegates Vince Callahan (R), Frank Hall (D), Joe May (R), and Democratic Lt. Governor candidate Chap Petersen. They received a score of over 4.0.

At the bottom of the list was Del. Mark Cole, R-Spotsylvania. He received a 0.7. Predictably, he challenged the “non-partisan” issue ratings: “I consider it a badge of honor, considering Virginia 21. In general, I think Virginia 21 has a very liberal bent to it. So I bet they scored very liberal General Assembly members higher than they did the conservative ones.”

Del. Viola Baskerville, also running for the Lt. Gov. nomination, received a 4.0. Del. Robert McDonnell, running for the Republican AG nomination, got a 1.7.

Senators weren’t rated, apparently because they’re not running for re-election this year.

The Kaine campaign, as with most campaigns that are behind, is fixated on debates. Because Jerry Kilgore hasn’t agreed to any specific debates, they are trying to get mileage out of the theme that he is “ducking” debates.

Lots of organizations probably would like to host a debate among the candidates and naturally one would think that candidates would be selective about which debate venue proposals they will accept. I haven’t seen a list of all the debate proposals that might be floating around, but it occurred to me that the UVA Center for Poltics might be a strong contender, either as a host and or with their leader, Professor Larry Sabato, as moderator for someone else’s debate.

I asked Matt Smyth, Director of Communications for the Center, if they had submitted a proposal. His answer: “With regard to the VA GOV debates, we’re actually working on that right now. We’re in the early stages of developing plans, and certainly hope to play a role in the debates that take place, but as of yet we haven’t determined or specifically proposed what role that might be.” What this tells me is that if the Center for Politics doesn’t have a proposal ready, it’s awfully early to be worried about debates. We don’t know how many proposals are out there for the campaigns to consider right now or how many more will be submitted. Maybe Jerry Kilgore is “ducking” some proposals that are on the table now, but he also might be waiting to pick the best from the widest array of alternatives.

I will make one prediction: no matter how many debates, no one will compare them with Lincoln-Douglas. The pundits are already bored with these candidates.

Jeff Schapiro of the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a by-lined story on Tim Kaine’s early use of television ads, plus what will probably be regular feature, “Campaign Spot Watch.” “Spot Watch” examines each ad in detail, here and here.

I find the difficult role of Kaine’s wife, Ann Holton, to be interesting. As a district court judge, she is banned from participating in election campaigns, but she got permission to appear in one of the ads as long as she did not speak. I wonder if there will be other strained situations for her down the road.

While his wife could not speak, Kaine’s children do vouch for their Dad. I’m uncomfortable with a candidate bringing his/her family too much into the campaign and I hope to see the ad to gauge whether it trips my comfort meter. Mark Earley did an ad with his kids and Ukrop grocery bags in 2001 that I don’t think did him any good.

Update: Norm at One Man’s Trash, the go-to guy in the Virginia blogosphere on all things advertising and message related, has his take here. I incorrectly attributed both “Spot Watch” write-ups to Schapiro; Norm, showing much more attention to detail, noted that Tyler Whitley evaluated the biographical ad. Schapiro evaluated the tax reduction ad.

My good friend Frank Green has published a front-page story in today’s Richmond Times-Dispatch proclaiming this in the first paragraph: “State and federal prison populations continue to grow to record levels, but the effect on the dropping crime rate is unclear.”

Here are the facts that leave sundry law school professors, criminologists and miscellaneous do-gooders scratching their heads, wondering if there could be a connection:

• Virginia’s prison population has increased 35 percent in the 10 years ending June 30, 2004.
• Crime rates have been falling steadily since 1992-93, according to one source quoted by Green, or about 15 percent in the decade of the 1990s, according to another.

While some of the soft-on-crime weenies quoted in the article concede that putting criminals in jail might have contributed in some small way to tumbling crime rates, they also cited a strong economy, the aging of the population and other factors. Jonathon Turley, a professor at the George Washington School of Law, is dubious that packing crooks in jail–the “warehousing approach”–has done much to lower the crime rate. “I expect there is some impact, but the population of criminal actors in society is so large that it would be difficult to show a pronounced effect.”

Let my friend Bubba spell it out for you, Mr. Turley: When you put criminals in prison, you take them off the streets where they commit crimes. It’s not hard to understand.

At least one source in Green’s story stated the obvious. Said Richard P. Kern, executive director of the Virginia Criminal Sentencing Commission: “We’ve shortened a lot of criminal careers.”

Last month the Newport News Daily Press did an investigative series on four failed economic development projects in the Commonwealth. The companies had received incentives from the state, primarily grants from the Governor’s Opportunity Fund, to locate or expand. When the companies left town, the article alleged that the money had not been paid back.

Today Secretary of Commerce and Trade Michael Schewel was given the chance to respond on the op-ed page. He did a good job of placing the deals in context, performing damage control, and putting a positive spin on the Warner Administration’s efforts. Highlights:

To put it another way, over the 12-year period of Governor’s Opportunity Fund grants, only 2.7 percent of funds appear to have been spent without significant benefit to the state.

Since the inception of the GOF program in 1993, the state has collected $5.3 million from companies that failed to live up to the commitments they made when they received a Governor’s Opportunity Fund grant.

Of that amount, $5.17 million, or more than 97 percent of the total, has been collected since Warner took office in 2002.

We are in the process of collecting $1.8 million more.

Too bad this retort is appearing so late after the fact, although in “newspaper time” it isn’t so long. Imagine if Schewel had blogged some of his concerns with the story as soon as it appeared.

I talk a little about the superior immediacy of blogs in my Virgina Pundit Watch post on today’s Bacon’s Rebellion.

In case there was any doubt, Democrats now control absolutely everything in Alexandria.

Good luck to Democratic Chairman Kerry Donley in his new position as Athletic Director at T.C. Williams High School. If ever there was a thankless job where party affiliation doesn’t matter, this is it.

This dump at one of Virginia’s most beautiful parks needs to be cleaned up and a continuing appropriation made for regular debris pick-up.

Is it possible to re-develop a Virginia monument to suburban sprawl? Fairfax County appears to be serious about changing the character of Tysons Corner, using a planned Metro stop as the impetus. Stay tuned for “raucous” debates on competing plans.

Why does an Attorney General candidate have a plan for transportation?

Move on over Betty Crocker! … Because the special interests contributions are flowing like hot gravy over this pork barreled Attorney General candidate. AG candidate Steve ‘Bisquick’ Baril is promising more road funding than any other politician at the General Assembly’s Store! Yes siree Bob McDonnell, it’s time to wake up! Because Steve ‘Bisquick’ Baril is trying to match your campaign — dollar for dollar with his promised mega-road recipe for higher taxing disasters! Wondering what’s for dinner tonight?

MARSHALL PLAN MENU: Hampton Roads Traffic-Spam cakes [Bisquick Baril and Special Interests Spam – Now there’s a flavor combination]; Outer-Washington beltway pork-barreled tenderloin; Foot long-hotdog served Western Corridor style; I-81 Starsolution-sauce and ‘Hot Tolls’; Rt. 29 Bypass-mashed rural Countryside potatoes; And for dessert, VDOT-Bureaucratic pie alamode.

Yum-yum! And there’s something for every lobbyist’s appetite on Steve “Bisquick’ Baril’s table tonight. Best of all! There’s NO charge for Virginia’s Highway builders, Land Developers, Real Estate Brokers, Construction companies and lifelong government burueacrats… Because Virginia’s taxpayers will ultimately pay your ‘meal ticket’ with more roads + more funding, which = higher taxes.

In a recent campaign email, Steve ‘Bisquick’ Baril said, “The only way to solve Virginia’s transportation problem is with a sustained 10-year commitment of $1 billion per year.”

Yes, I see the tax dough rising! Bisquick Baril Is Creating Special Interest FAVORITES with higher taxes on the road horizon!

Happy Trails ~ the blue dog

Stay tune next week for Blue Dog lesson on Democratic “Deeds, Wills and the Virginia’s Death Tax”

Snoopy over at River City Rapids and I have been posting on the Richmond Mayor Wilder proposal to cut funding to the Greater Richmond Partnership (GRP), a regional economic development organization. [Note to Snoopy: I’m not saying economic development posts put me to sleep; I’m saying they appear to put our readers to sleep.] Maybe next year the Shad Planking could be about the politics of economic development signs.

Anyway, Snoopy’s at it again, covering Wilder advisor (and former Bacon’s Rebellion contributor) Paul Goldman’s broadside against the GRP.

I’m with Snoopy on this one. Goldman’s criticism of the Partnership smacks of a variance on class warfare: “The public has been shut out, and a handful of power brokers have had their way for too long.” Of course, he is as sharp a political advisor as there is in Virginia, so maybe he’s made all the calculations before embarking on this track. Goldman’s contention that the city’s own economic development team could better use the money now sent to the GRP, however, is dubious at best. The city’s current economic development team, not exactly the most highly regarded in economic development circles, is also getting cut.

There’s a case to be made for examining duplication and resource allocation among state, regional and local economic development organizations, but it’s not being made. It’s just cut and run.

Commonwealth Conservative got to it first, the Richmond Times-Dispatch coverge of still-another campaign kick-off for Del. Viola Baskerville, D-Richmond. She’s running for the Democratic Lieutenant Governor nomination in the June 14th primary. Despite offering no beer and staying only 30 minutes at the Shad Planking, the Blue Dog’s tout sheet has Ms. Baskerville winning, based on a predicted strong showing in the City of Richmond.

Del. Baskerville has a laudable interest in helping small businesses and one of her campaign planks is having the Lt. Governor chair the state’s Small Business Commission. Unfortunately, from my point of view, Del. Baskerville has it all wrong. She is a champion of set-asides or quotas for woman and minority businesses doing business with the state. She is part of a faction that somehow thinks state contracts are the way for these businesses to succeed.

I daresay that right now there are more state employees trying to get small, woman, and minority-owned businesses to bid on state contracts than there are state employees trying to help existing Virginia businesses of all kinds through economic development programs. State agencies are tied in knots trying to find qualified small, woman, or minority-owned vendors in the percentage goal assigned to them, not to mention complete all the required reports. Some state agencies are even adding employees to handle this additional procurement burden.

Someone needs to tell well-meaning individuals like Del. Baskerville that the state contract pie is finite. Give one person a contract and you take one away from another person. That’s not economic development. There’s a big world market out there for Virginia’s businesses and the concentration on this tiny piece of the market really isn’t the best use of state resources designed to help businesses grow.

Of course, that’s not to say that small, woman and minority-owned shouldn’t have full and fair access to state contract bids. The state has an on-line system where bids and awards are available for all to see. A tremendous effort to get the word out to these potential vendors and to help them market to the state has been made. It’s been successful, but state contracting isn’t for every business and it’s certainly not the kind of broad-based help that one would expect to be the centerpiece of a business-friendly candidate’s platform.

Commonwealth Conservative is picking Del. Chap Petersen in the Democratic primary and I’m with him, even though Del. Baskerville’s William and Mary alumna status makes me want to root for her.

GOP gubernatorial contender George Fitch has borrowed a page from the Democratic Party play book, attacking Jerry Kilgore for obscuring his role in the infamous eavesdropping scandal.

“Jerry Kilgore is trying to be all things to all people on the important issues of taxes and spending, and he is unwilling to discuss his possible connection to the eavesdropping scandal that hit the Republican Party in 2003,” Fitch said in a recent press release. “No wonder Jerry Kilgore is afraid to debate me, no wonder he is afraid to debate Tim Kaine.”

“Jerry Kilgore has already spent $4 million and he’s preparing to spend that much and more to mask over questions about whether his actions as Attorney General were on the up and up,” Fitch continued. “That’s why he won’t release his phone records and that’s why he won’t debate. Virginians are entitled to know the full story about Jerry Kilgore’s possible connection to this scandal and the voters are entitled to examine that story in a public debate with me or with Tim Kaine. But Jerry Kilgore can’t afford to do that…”

The eavesdropping scandal itself was real. The extension of that scandal to Kilgore, by contrast, always struck me as contrived, little more than a partisan Democratic effort to taint the future Republican candidate. But, truth be told, I never followed the issue that closely, so I don’t pretend to know. However, it’s hard to imagine that criticisms of Kilgore long made by Democrats will resonate among the GOP stalwarts who vote in the primaries. My instinct: This issue is a loser for Fitch. He needs to stick with his strength, as the candidate who’s serious about cutting spending and taxes.

Under the tread “Empathy is not Enough” by Will Vehrs (20 April 2005) and in response to question by Paul, EMR suggested that the way to reduce travel demand and travel costs would be to follow The Third Way and create “functional, balanced regional plans.” (New Urban Regions consisting of Alpha Communities each with a relative balance of jobs/housing/services/ recreation/amenity.)

This application of Fundamental Change was outlined in our column “The Shape of Richmond’s Future” 16 February 2004.

In a subsequent post in this thread Ray Hyde dismissed this strategy in a single paragraph. This dismissal was based on his statement that the strategy would:
“reduce the eventual (sic) traffic demand by 15 to 20%. The demand meanwhile will have grown by 50%, even considering steep gas prices.”

Our calculations suggest that at the Alpha Community scale the total cost of the (40 +/-) location variable services would be reduced by from 50 to 67 times these rates.

While the total trip demand in the community would remain the same or grow (to maintain or enhance the quality of life), the vehicle trips and the VMT (Vehicle Miles Traveled) would be greatly reduced. This has been demonstrated in study after study.

Since mobility is one of the most costly components of contemporary urban services, the cost reductions should be at least as high as the overall average for all services.

Perhaps Mr Hyde could provide the calculations upon which his “traffic demand” numbers were based.

EMR