The Board of Supervisors is already taking a sharp turn to the right under its new conservative majority, Brandon Shulleeta wrote in yesterday’s Daily Progress. Saying that the county is insufficiently friendly to businesses, they passed a resolution in support of a six-point action plan, apparently based on the recent campaign promises of Duane Snow and Rodney Thomas, that includes making economic development “the top fiscal priority” for the county, directing county staff to work with the Chamber of Commerce, a private pro-business organization, “to develop a plan…to significantly increase non-personal tax revenues…[without] increased taxes to our business community.” (Charlottesville Tomorrow provides an account of the meeting, complete with audio.) The resolution passed along ideological lines, with Ann Mallek and Dennis Rooker dissenting.
As evidence of the county’s anti-business attitude, local developer Wendell Wood complains that the county wouldn’t approve the development of a new Walmart directly next to the existing Walmart, a project that would have required spending $25M to build a bridge across the Rivanna River just to be able to get to it, and it would have meant rezoning Wood’s functionally worthless rural Hollymead land into super-valuable commercial land, basically handing him millions of dollars in land value. Wood laments the loss of the $9M that Walmart was prepared to put up to defray the cost, but no word on where the other $16M was supposed to come from. Supervisor Ken Boyd says that he wants to reconsider providing that giveaway to Wood. Which would appear to be exactly the opposite of the stated goal of reducing taxes. Elections have consequences, and a more conservative BoS is perfectly sensible, but this is the kind of stuff that gives politicians a bad name.
Math error, $16 mil. Thanks for posting this nice little vignette of the new county politics.
The problem with “conservative” is that it is little more than “big government to benefit rich people. And the morally uptight.”
But when anyone tries to balance it out on the other end (working poor/middle class) then it’s wasteful government spending, socialism, fascism, etc,.
It’s all B.S.
Look at the bonuses on Wall St right now. It seems liberalism is also as you say, ” little more than “big government to benefit rich people. And the morally uptight.”
As to the morally uptight part, can you imagine the uproar there would be in the MSM if Palin had said what Reid said about Obama?
The Wall Street bank bailout crap was authored by the Bush administration. True free marketers should’ve let it all fail- no bailouts for anyone.
Race isn’t one of the morally uptight issues. The morally uptight is soley focused on increasing big government in the bedroom. Not WWJD. But WWJF.
What Reid said about Obama, is a distraction. Conservatives are trying to make it into something it is not.
What Reid said was true. Where’s the scandal in saying what’s true?
And don’t try to compare what Reid said to what Trent Lott said. There is a huge difference between saying “someone who speaks proper english is more electable than someone who doesn’t” and saying that
“the world would be a better place if Jim Crow were still the law of the land.”
Palin’s problem is she suffers from dumb blonde syndrome. She’s the female Dan Quayle. And you can’t blame that on the liberals. They didn’t pick her as McCain’s V.P.
Thanks Waldo for connecting the dots on this story. I think it’s an important connection in need of some public awareness.
Thank you for catching that, Colfer. What did read “$14M” now reads “$16M.”
I never can figure out when people say the county is unfriendly to business. Seems like anytime someone wants to build a new shopping center or subdivision they get the go-ahead. Go up 29- it seems like every few feet you see a sign saying the land is owned by Wendell Wood’s firm or Dr. Hurt’s Virginia Land Co. And 250 East past Pantops is beginning to look the same way. Maybe these guys don’t get everything they want every time they want it but development interests certainly get what they want most of the time.
For the very good reason that Reid had the best of intentions, with insult the furthest thing from his mind, while Palin would have the opposite intent.
Have I mentioned your shining wit?
In the race for Rio both Slutsky and Thomas said that the land your speaking of should be rezoned to the growth area. It was probably one of the few things they agreed on. Isn’t it a little early to say this is a give away deal? What if Wood put up half the money for the bridge. It’s just a proffer like any other deal.
It would be great if Berkmar went all the way to Airport rd. It would get some traffic off 29. I would also like to see what any such road would cost the taxpayer before supporting it. For example how much in taxes and sales revenue might the new land generate.
Even if Slutzky would have voted for it, I don’t think Sally would have supported it, and that’s a big difference. So it’s not a Democrat Republican issue per se, but the shift in power has enabed a situation where it could happen with very little discussion at all and with no need for consensus from the opposition.
Personally, I think it’s extremely valuable to have significant greenspace, especially bordering a river like that. It just doesn’t make any good sense from a planning perspective to line the entire road right up to the county line with trashy commercial development.
I hope some of this “economic development” involves filling the empty storefronts around town.
Indeed elections do have consequences. I fear that those consequences may seriously damage our public school system, reduce public safety, etc. so that folks can save a relatively small amount on their taxes. Seriously, paying taxes is just part of being a grown up.
Like what you said about taxes, Gail. What do you think of the story reported in the DP about the General Assembly proposing to repeal the corporate income tax?
The state has had fiscal problems since the voters fell for the “no car tax” slogan of Jim Gilmore.
The axiom about not getting something for nothing used to be a cardinal tenet of conservative thought. But the Gilmore Republicans abandoned it when they asured the voters that the loss of this revenue would not hurt state funding..
Its one thing to say lets cut taxes, they are being spent on unnecessary things. Yet another to say cut but continue to run state programs as usual, that somehow the lost revenue would be made up.
How ’bout we let Wendell build a toll bridge and he can charge all those who want to cross over to the new and improved Walmart?