Local Politics
Apologies and Ramblings
Feb 25th
We have a lot of potential here, but for some reason, our leaders won’t make the best of it. Portland looked just like Norfolk in the 70s. They had blocks of vacant parking lots. New construction was taking place in the Portland suburbs and the central city was decaying. This is where our regions split. Hampton Roads kept spending money on new highways and infrastructure designed to facilitate new suburban construction. Portland, however, fought the idea that unrestrained growth was good for the region. Their biggest concern? That this new growth was destroying vital farmland, forestland, and other open space. They took their concerns to their legislatures and, after much debate, enacted some of the most comprehensive growth control regulations in the country. This accomplished their goal: protecting open spaces. It also had an unintended consequence. It forced growth back into the city. All of the money that would have been spent on suburbs was then available for the city. They opposed new highways and even fought to get some torn down. They used the savings from that to build a first class public transit system. One of the most important aspects of the new Portland was that they came up with a real comprehensive plan and stuck to it. For this reason, Portland is a well run, well designed city.
Back to Hampton Roads. While Portland was engineering a new city, Norfolk decided the best course of action was to tear ours down. Hampton Roads as a whole, spent a fortune building new highways to allow for quick driving to and from the suburbs. While Portland worked and grew as a region, Hampton Roads cities decided to compete against one another. Each city had to fight for its share of new development, for is share of tourists, even for its share of defense dollars. For this reason, we live in a region with a half-dozen “downtowns,” each of them only a fraction of what they could be if they were built as one. We now live in a region with no pattern of employment or housing centers but rather a sprawling mass of congestion. While cities like Portland are the places-to-be amongst todays young people, Hampton Roads is not. Without finding some way to attract new younger residents, our problems will only get worse.
We need to get more forward thinking people in our elected offices from local to state levels. We need to learn from places like Portland and act accordingly. They aren’t perfect, but they still have alot to teach us. Projects like the Southeastern Parkway are a waste of money. New highways only serve to promote new suburbs at the expense of the rest of the region. Positive investments would include a true all-encompassing master plan for the region. This plan would include a well thought out fixed guideway mass transit system like light rail. It would also work to rezone the areas around transit stops to encourage high-density developments. An emphasis should also be put on expanding freight rail to take more trucks off the roads. Above all, Hampton Roads needs to formulate a plan to share revenue between cities, preferably by merging into one jurisdiction. People should not be afraid of a merger. They will still live in the same place. Taxes can even stay the same for each segment of the new city. The goal, however, is to create a region where growth in one part is good for the whole region. It won’t matter if a new tower is but in Downtown Norfolk or at Town Center. The increased tax base will pay for both areas. Once we have a region that can function as a region, we should split our collective economic development money between attracting the relocation of large companies and creating new businesses, preferably start-ups owned by recent graduates of local colleges and universities. The opportunity presented to graduates will encourage them to stay in the area. If they stay, their friends are more likely to stay and/or move to the area.
Hampton Roads can do this. We have to make our leaders know we will accept no less.
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Building To Be Demo’d for LRT
Nov 11th
Norfolk City Council: Stop Pretending. The safety issue could have been fixed with a couple of flashing lights and a sign for under $1,000.
The city is buying this property to satisfy the claim of the owner that he lost value. Although, I am not sure that he has a claim. If he does, would that mean I could sue a neighbor for monetary damages because their house looks trashy? Regardless, if you want to buy it to satisfy his claim, then fine. Tell the truth though. If the city had said they wanted to buy it for a park, that would be fine. Don’t justify it because you think it would be safer.
Finally, our new councilman Mr. Protogyrou needs a lesson in regional administration. The Pilot stated:
“Let HRT pay for this,” Councilman Andy Protogyrou said. “This is their fault. It’s their mistake. I don’t see why Norfolk taxpayers have to pay for this.”
While I disagree that this is anybody’s fault and think that the city just wanted to pay back a property owner, I have to explain why it doesn’t matter who’s pocket this comes from. Since we have no tax stream dedicated to transit, HRT must get its money from four main sources: 1)Farebox revenue, 2)City Government, 3)State Government, and 4)Federal Government. Additionally, the current light rail project is structured to lay all extra costs on the city, so that Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, etc. are not paying money toward our project. That means, Mr. Protogyrou, that if the city made HRT pay for this, they would add their markup for management and then bill the city.
HRBT, US460 Both Get Private Proposals
Oct 30th
HRBT
The HRBT plan calls for a new, four-lane bridge/tunnel from the Peninsula to Norfolk. The existing lanes would be used for westbound traffic. Additionally, the Monitor-Merrimac Bridge Tunnel and the James River Bridge will also receive upgrades. It would cost $4.5 billion and use tolls as high as $6 each way. These tolls would apparently be applied to the HRBT, the MMBT, and the JRB.
While nobody can argue that an expanded HRBT would ease traffic flow, I also do not think that anybody would argue that tolling all three crossings would not hurt our economy. As described, this project would give the Southside a serious disadvantage over the Peninsula. It would also negatively impact what weak regional drive for mass transit that we have. Alternatively, the “Third Crossing” would most certainly benefit our regional economy, even with tolls. Its multi-modal design would take cars and trucks off the road by allowing freight traffic and transit. The HRBT plan is designed simply to make money for those involved. The “Third Crossing” was designed to improve our regional competitiveness in the global economy. Money would still be made in a public-private partnership, but the impacts would be positive for the region.
US 460
Turning US 460 into an interstate-grade highway is a noble goal… if it were 1960. While it would certainly improved travel time to Richmond and aid in evacuations, it would not serve to increase the region’s competitiveness. The 460 project would make the Western Tidewater communities more appealing to industry and business, but at the expense of Norfolk, Virginia Beach, and Chesapeake. The new highway would only serve to expand the sprawl of Richmond towards Hampton Roads. I think it would be fair to define our region as anything within a 45 minutes drive. The US 460 project would make Isle of Wight County a mere 30 minutes away from Petersburg.
The money would be better invested in High Speed Rail. It has already been estimated that if we had true HSR from both Norfolk and Newport News, that we could operate with profits exceeding $30 million a year. That money could pay for a lot of transportation projects. The economic development that HSR would bring would also benefit the entire region, not just the outlying counties.
I am not against public-private partnerships. On the contrary, I think that they can bring much-needed capital to a tight state budget. We do, however, need to spend it wisely, in a way that will allow us to grow our tax base. This way, in the future, we will not have such a tight budget.
Farewell Ms. Williams
Oct 23rd
Regina V.K. Williams: Why is she still here?
Sep 28th
The International City Managers Association (ICMA) has a Code of Ethics that it expects its members to follow. Number 3 on their COE list states:
Be dedicated to the highest ideals of honor and integrity in all public and personal relationships in order that the member may merit the respect and confidence of the elected officials, of other officials and employees, and of the public.
The guideline for Public Confidence further expands on this:
Members should conduct themselves so as to maintain public confidence in their profession, their local government, and in their performance of the public trust.
I do not want to detract from Ms. Williams’s past contributions. She has been City Manager for eleven years because, at one time, she had something to offer to the City of Norfolk. Until recent years, I would have agreed that she was doing a fine job. Unfortunately, times have changed. I firmly believe that in almost any situation, a person should not hold a position of authority for longer than ten years. What was good for an organization ten years ago may no longer be in its best interest. This is one such case. As such, Ms. Williams is operating the City of Norfolk in a way that is eroding the public’s trust in her and her office as well as the trust in City Council and government in general.
