Category Archives: Central planning

Virginia’s Certificate of Public Need Program – A New Sheriff in Town

Posted on August 15, 2023 by | 25 comments

by James C. Sherlock

Everywhere counterproductive to competition, innovation and cost, Virginia’s Certificate of Public Need (COPN) program also has proven antithetical to quality and safety in nursing homes.

A thorough 2022 report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine on improving nursing home quality had this to say about state Certificate of Need (CON) programs:

Certificate-of-need regulations and construction moratoria do not appear to have had their intended effect of holding down Medicaid nursing home spending; rather, these laws can discourage innovation and decrease access.

Certificate-of-need regulations may contribute to the perpetuation of larger nursing homes.

Despite the prominent role of nursing home oversight and regulation, the evidence base for its effectiveness in ensuring a minimum standard of quality is relatively modest.

The role of Virginia’s COPN program is as counterproductive to nursing home quality as is imaginable. Remember, COPN decisions happen before the state and federal regulators of the operations of nursing homes even get into the game.

Virginia’s COPN program is a statutory incumbent protection regime across all of its regulated targets. But it has gotten especially bad results with nursing homes, which by nearly every measure are among the worst in America.

In Virginia, the only realistic way to increase the size of a nursing facility is by COPN approval of the transfer of beds from one facility to another, often from one region of the state to another. Continue reading →

25 Comments

Posted in Central planning, General Assembly, Governance, Government Oversight, Health Care, Long Term Care and Nursing Homes

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Slush Funding Housing

Posted on July 22, 2023 by | 15 comments

by Jon Baliles

There has been a lot of talk about the affordable housing crisis in the region in recent years, but it has been constant in 2023. The entire region needs 39,000 units as fast as it can get them; but interest rates are high, the market is stalling — every week there is a new twist or turn in the drama. And this week is no exception.

Em Holter at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a disturbing story about the meeting this week of the city’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund (AHTF) Board that drew an overflow crowd reacting to the reckless idea by Mayor Levar Stoney and his administration for dissolving the Board and creating a commission instead, that allegedly would allow for raising more money from other sources and involve other partners. The mayor’s and the administration’s argument is that because there is more money to be allocated, there should be more oversight. But what they are proposing is not more sunlight, but less.

The AHTF Board is tasked with oversight of the money in the fund to help support and spur more affordable housing projects. Just last year, the Mayor and Council finally approved a commitment of putting $10 million per year in the fund for five years. Who doesn’t need more money and more partners to help tackle an issue as large and complex affordable housing? Sounds sensible, right? Except…

As the Times-Dispatch article points out, what this is really about is who controls the money and who gets to pick the “partners”:

But with more funding comes more oversight, which city administrators are hoping to achieve. To do so, City Hall wants to eliminate the board and establish a commission that would allow for more money and more partners.

Those in opposition argue that administrators are overstepping their bounds, which could lead to an imbalance of power, loss of control of funds and elimination of public input.

Continue reading →

15 Comments

Posted in Central planning, Governance, Government Oversight, Housing, Uncategorized

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What’s in a Name?

Posted on May 5, 2023 by | 4 comments

by Joe Fitzgerald

I have previously written much about the Bluestone Town Center from a logistical and political standpoint, much of which can be summed up by saying the people planning and approving the project do not understand logistics or politics. The planners and approvers show an understanding of and ability to manipulate governmental processes, which is a skill on the level of getting a stubborn toddler to give up a favorite toy if you could pick and choose your toddlers through low-turnout elections and rampant cronyism.

Today, however, I am writing about design, marketing, and labeling. First, some background.

The Harrisonburg Redevelopment and Housing Authority (HRHA), has formed a partnership with EquityPlus (EP) to build Bluestone Town Center. That partnership is an LLC, a limited liability corporation, a legal entity designed to protect the owners of a project from responsibility. The entity is owned 51 percent by HRHA and 49 percent by EP. A wild guess about the split is that having a government entity as the (barely) majority owner adds the shield of sovereign immunity as well as the exemptions to government rules that government entities give to themselves.
Continue reading →

4 Comments

Posted in Blogs and blog administration, Business and Economy, Central planning, Economic development, Land use & development, Planning, Uncategorized

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RVA 5×5: Behind in the Count

Posted on April 29, 2023 by | 6 comments

by Jon Baliles

Baseball season is in full swing and I have already been to three games to celebrate spring, sport, and sun. And because this is Richmond, I sometimes wonder how much longer I will be able to repeat this ritual in Aprils in the future. This week, the city announced it had reached final terms with developer RVA Diamond Partners to build a new stadium and the massive Diamond District project. But the news was something of a mixed bag for a variety of reasons.

Baseball is all about timing. When the pitcher starts his motion, when the batter cocks and decides whether to swing or not, and whether you can make contact. But after a few days of looking at the deal and reading about it, I realized something about the timing of it is off. This post is not a deep dive into the financials of the deal (that will come soon but not today).
Continue reading →

6 Comments

Posted in Blogs and blog administration, Budgets, Business and Economy, Central planning, Economic development, Infrastructure, Uncategorized

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RVA History: Merging Manchester

Posted on April 24, 2023 by | 5 comments

by Jon Baliles

I often joke with people when I am asked about Manchester that it was an independent city until 1910 when they merged with Richmond — and they have probably regretted it ever since.

Em Holter has a nice piece in the Richmond Times-Dispatch about the merger of the city nicknamed “Dogtown” that is worth the read.

On the day of the vote in 1910, pro-merger pamphlets were distributed that promised lower taxes, better infrastructure, and free passage into Virginia’s capital city (no more toll on the bridge). Opponents cautioned that annexation would mean increased taxes and inferior services. History can certainly be ironic. Continue reading →

5 Comments

Posted in Blogs and blog administration, Central planning, Economic development, Uncategorized, Virginia history

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Unaffordable Housing, Redux

Posted on April 19, 2023 by | 10 comments

by Joe Fitzgerald

Proposed housing construction in the city of Harrisonburg could add about 1,200 students to the Harrisonburg City Public Schools, with housing already under construction in Rockingham County possibly adding 400 more.

A quarter of the 1,600 potential students could be absorbed by the opening of Rocktown High School, leaving the city to build however many new schools it takes to educate 1,200 elementary and middle school students.

This projection is based on my using other people’s multipliers on a compilation by the invaluable Scott Rogers on HarrisonburgHousingToday.com. The housing count is Scott Rogers’; the school estimates are mine.

The multipliers in question come from Harrisonburg City Public Schools (HCPS) and from Econsult Solutions Inc. (ESI). HCPS came up with its numbers based on who lives where in the city, and ESI does it for a living. They vary, somewhat. ESI thinks a townhouse will generate .52 students and the HCPS method forecasts .45 students.
Continue reading →

10 Comments

Posted in Central planning, Children and families, Education (K-12), Housing, Land use & development, Schools and Public Recreation, Uncategorized

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Strategic Insanity Off the Coast of Virginia

Posted on April 18, 2023 by | 36 comments

by James C. Sherlock

As I warned in three columns in late December, the Pentagon has now objected to Department of the Interior plans to develop offshore wind farms along the central U.S. coast.

It has warned that almost all of the areas planned for development of the huge turbines conflict with current military operations.

That is the public pronouncement.

DOD also knows that, because the wind farms are designed to provide a high percentage of the electric power on the East Coast grid, it will be charged to defend them against attack.

And it knows that defending those sitting ducks clustered together in fixed positions in international waters against modern weapons is not just a problem, but as a practical matter impossible.

But DOD apparently won’t admit that publicly. Yet. It is not clear that the Department of Homeland Security, with oversight of the Coast Guard, has even thought about it.

But if the turbines are built, DOD and the Coast Guard will be tasked to try to protect them. Their defense can’t even be attempted without a cost to the defense budget that will dwarf both in acquisition and ongoing operating costs the cost of building and operating the fields themselves.

The Navy and Coast Guard will need far more ships and the Navy more submarines, and the personnel to operate them, than they currently have.

The additional resources will need to be used for defense of the wind farms, not to meet our under-resourced national defense obligations overseas.

And the attempt will still fail against modern weapons. Continue reading →

36 Comments

Posted in Central planning, Defense, Energy, Infrastructure, National Security, Threat Assessment

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Maglev & Light Rail: Once-Shiny Objects Now Tarnished By Reality

Posted on March 23, 2023 by | 23 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

Gosh. It isn’t often the local newspaper provides two examples of “shiny object stupidity” in one week.

But The Virginian-Pilot delivered.

On Wednesday the newspaper quietly reported on the absolute demise of the failed maglev system at Old Dominion University. That’s magnetic levitation technology for those of you who weren’t around here to experience Shiny Object Fever in the late 1990s that cost taxpayers millions of dollars.

The promise of maglev was that beginning in 2002 students would zip around campus on this raised train using futuristic technology. Problem is, it never worked. The rails were sold for scrap years ago and according to a report in The Pilot, the rest of the structure is being demolished without ever transporting a single student.

The thing the reporter failed to mention in her brief story is that the developer borrowed $7 million from the commonwealth — that’s you and me — to build this monument to snake oil. As best I can tell, the loan has not been repaid.

It could have been worse. In 1999, Virginia Beach City Council came close to spending between $20 and $30 million on a maglev line along the oceanfront. Continue reading →

23 Comments

Posted in Business and Economy, Central planning, Transportation, Uncategorized

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RVA 5×5: Incentivizing Derelicts

Posted on March 11, 2023 by | 2 comments

by Jon Baliles

Housing has become a vital issue all across our region; it is a pressing need, but not simple to resolve. It will be with us for some time to come and we have to seek out a multi-prong strategy to address it. But there are some steps that can be taken to set the conditions of success, one parcel at a time. Joseph Maltby in the Henrico Citizen had an interesting story with wider implications about one of those solutions.

He writes about a development along Chamberlayne Road just north of Azalea Avenue in Henrico County that will see a new, 186-unit, affordable housing development with density (three and four story buildings) along with other amenities. The interesting part of the story is that the eight-acre property was “declared derelict in 2019 and put on the county’s list of properties designated for redevelopment,” and the former Days Inn motel was demolished.
Continue reading →

2 Comments

Posted in Business and Economy, Central planning, Economic development, Housing, Land use & development, Uncategorized

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Universal Recognition Will Help Stem Virginia’s Migration Woes

Posted on March 2, 2023 by | 16 comments

by Conor Norris and Edward Timmons

From pristine beaches to rolling hills and picturesque mountains, Virginia has a lot to attract residents. Combine that with a strong economy and Northern Virginia’s close ties with Washington, D.C., Virginia should be an attractive destination.

But surprisingly, that’s not the case. Despite strong economic performance and a high quality of life, more people are leaving Virginia than moving into the commonwealth. There may not be one silver bullet to reverse this trend, but the legislature just took an important step helping people move to Virginia by recognizing out-of-state professional licenses.

In 2021, Virginia experienced net out-migration. Many of us are puzzled by this trend, blaming some combination of housing prices, remote work, taxes, and weather for enticing people to leave Virginia. Unnecessary barriers for those considering a move into Virginia are also a contributing factor.

If you work in a licensed profession and wanted to move to Virginia in the past, it wasn’t easy to start working in your new home. First, you would have to reapply for a license, paying fees and waiting months for the application process. Sometimes, you would even have to go through training or education again and retake exams, no matter how long you’ve been working, adding time and money to an already expensive process.

The hassle created by the need to reapply for licensure had a real effect on people’s decision to move. Economists estimate that occupational licensing reduces migration by seven percent. Anyone who has moved knows it’s a costly and time-consuming process. Making it difficult to start working is enough to push some people over the edge and prevent them from moving entirely.
Continue reading →

16 Comments

Posted in Business and Economy, Central planning, Economic development, General Assembly, Labor & workforce, Public safety & health, Regulation, Uncategorized, Unemployment, Virginia Law

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Forget Waldo! Where is ERIC?

Posted on February 25, 2023 by | 31 comments

by James Wyatt Whitehead, V

In 2012, seven states, including Virginia, formed the Electronic Registration and Information, Inc. (ERIC), with assistance from the Pew Charitable Trusts. Today, ERIC’s membership has risen to 32 states and the District of Columbia. ERIC’s mission is to assist states in maintaining accurate voting rolls.

Every 60 days, states that are members of ERIC send voting roll data to ERIC for analysis. Reports are generated and returned to the states who can then take any necessary action. The data sent appear to be the garden variety of voter information one would expect: who has moved in? Who has moved out? Who has died?

Security of the data seems to be of high importance to the leaders of ERIC. Membership in ERIC requires a one-time fee, plus annual dues. The budget requirements for ERIC are modest. What is not to like? ERIC provides a useful service to state election officials. Accurate voting rolls advance the common interests of all citizens.
Continue reading →

31 Comments

Posted in Central planning, Democracy and Western Civilization, Demographics, Elections, Individual liberties, Open Government, Politics, Public corruption, Uncategorized

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362 is more than 273

Posted on February 22, 2023 by | 5 comments

by Joe Fitzgerald

Take our word but not our numbers, Bluestone Town Center (BTC) backers seem to say

The moral of this story is: what the City Council doesn’t know won’t hurt the HRHA.

When I first heard about the scope of the BTC, I did some quick arithmetic and came up with an astronomical estimate of how many new K-12 students it would generate. I was wrong; the total was merely stratospheric.

Perhaps unwilling to accept the blog post of an ex-mayor, HCPS created its own model and discovered my revised numbers were pretty close. (For the record, proving me right is not why they created it.) They came up with a model that said 322 new students.

Worth noting, HCPS provided two sets of numbers. One was if they applied their model to 900 new housing units in Harrisonburg, and the second if they applied it to 900 in the southwest corner of town. The difference wasn’t significant. What was significant was the effort to share all relevant information.

In October, HRHA pointed out to HCPS that 60 of its units were for seniors, so HCPS reconfigured the estimate. (Because there’s a hell of a lot of H’s in this history, let me help: HRHA is Harrisonburg Redevelopment Housing Authority, and HCPS is still Harrisonburg City Public Schools. HRHA is partnered with EquityPlus, or EP, to apply for a rezoning to build BTC.)

The new estimate from HCPS was down to 273. A little more than half an elementary school.
Continue reading →

5 Comments

Posted in Blogs and blog administration, Central planning, Education (K-12), Housing, Land use & development, Planning, Uncategorized

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Something Is in the Water

Posted on February 15, 2023 by | 19 comments

by Joe Fitzgerald

Those aren’t wood chips or bark in the cow pasture.

David Foster Wallace tells the story of two young fish swimming along when an older, wiser fish swims past and asks, “How’s the water?” One of the young fish looks at the other and asks, “What’s water?”

Absurdity is the water that proponents of the Bluestone Town Center (BTC) are swimming in. Like the young fish, they’ve been in it long enough and deeply enough that they don’t know that’s what it is.

Consider this scenario. A city council member who serves as the council’s representative to the planning commission listens to a long recommendation from the planning staff. She then makes a motion to more or less accept the recommendation. Four weeks later, she asks the planning staff what their recommendation meant.

Yes, this really happened. So did the argument that building apartments in a cow pasture would preserve farmland.
Continue reading →

19 Comments

Posted in Business and Economy, Central planning, Economic development, Efficiency in government, Environment, Government Oversight, Housing, Land use & development, Regulation, Uncategorized

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Child and Adolescent Mental Health and Virginia Public Schools – Dangerous Children’s Services Act Changes Proposed

Posted on February 13, 2023 by | 13 comments

Credit JAMA Pediatrics, April 6, 2020

by James C. Sherlock

One of the key elements of state and local efforts to support children with behavioral health, educational disabilities, and other challenges is the Children’s Services Act (CSA) (the Act).

In education, its primary role has been paying for placement of children and youth with educational disabilities into private special education schools (PSES).

CSA funds support those students whose educations are judged by the public schools themselves to be too demanding for them to accommodate.

The local CSA Community Policy and Management Teams, appointed by the governing body of the participating local political subdivision, send their own children to those private schools.

I will describe Virginia’s network of PSESs in a follow-on article.

Changes proposed. In a 2020 report, the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) had found a long list of seemingly disqualifying flaws in public school special education that would prevent them from accepting students with more severe disabilities than the ones they already try to serve.

Yet there is a movement to remove some severely troubled kids from PSESs back into public schools that have already admitted that they cannot properly serve them.

JLARC, in a disturbingly superficial report in that same year, recommended CSA money be taken away from PSESs and made available to public schools, which is not currently permitted under law.

And that all of the then-fungible CSA school money be administered by the Department of Education, not the Department of Health and Human Resources.

This recommendation was made in the face of the fact that JLARC, in both 2020 reports, admitted the public schools are not equipped to handle these children, much less for the average of 271 days a year they attend PSESs.

So some combination of progressive ed-school dogma, as yet undefined fairy dust and widely non-existent qualified mental health providers and trained special ed teachers are apparently to be sprinkled on the public schools to transform them to be ready to accept children whom they have already referred out to PSESs.

Most of the proposed changes are dangerous, dogmatic and thinly researched nonsense. Continue reading →

13 Comments

Posted in Central planning, Children and families, Culture wars, Education (K-12), General Assembly, Governance, Health Care, Mental illness and substance abuse, Psychology, Social services

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School Discipline in Virginia – Part 2 – Positive Options Trumped by a Race Card

Posted on January 31, 2023 by | 60 comments

From social media video of school fight

by James C. Sherlock

I have found both surprise and confusion among some readers when I use the term “valid studies” in discussing the avalanche of doctoral theses and studies produced annually by schools of education.

The federal Institute for Educational Sciences established What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) in 2002 to sort the wheat from the chaff for school divisions and state education agencies before they choose a particular intervention to pursue to solve a problem.

Since I discovered WWC a few years ago, I check it in my own research in an attempt to make sure I don’t go down a rabbit hole with some study that is flawed.

On the subject of Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS), WWC shows in assessments of interventions to solve problems of social-emotional learning and behavior management:

  1. strong evidence that PBIS offers no measurable improvement, and
  2. that there are alternative approaches to PBIS that do show strong improvement.

One study of PBIS, conducted in Maryland (which will come up again later), was the only one ever to meet strict WWC standards of quality and strong evidence.

Strong evidence from that trial — in 2010 — found that PBIS did not work to improve social-emotional development and behavior in K-5 children.

There were no positive findings. None.

Yet a very large number of Virginia’s largest school divisions use it anyway.

And all of them started using it after that 2010 study.

But then again, so did Maryland. Continue reading →

60 Comments

Posted in Central planning, Children and families, Discipline and disorder, Education - Early Childhood, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), teacher education

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