Author Archive for Waldo Jaquith

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Biscuit Run Would Turn into Resellable Tax Credits

Published by Waldo Jaquith on December 29, 2009 in Development, Government and Taxes. 2 Comments

Bryan McKenzie and Brandon Shulleeta explained the mechanism behind the likely tax benefits of turning Biscuit Run into a state park in yesterday’s Daily Progress. After paying $46M for the 1,200 acre parcel four years ago, owner Hunter Craig is looking to minimize his losses in this wretched housing market (though I have my doubts that it was ever viable to sell 3,100 houses here in that manner), and would surely be looking for a financial benefit in giving it to the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation. McKenzie and Shulleeta explain that the idea is to receive tax credits, which can be resold. So if Craig got (say) $46M in tax credits, he could resell those, probably for about eighty cents on the dollar. If I wanted to save $1,000 on my state taxes, I could pay Craig $800 for that $1k tax credit, netting myself $200 in savings. Tax credit transactions are not a matter of public record, so unless Craig chooses to disclose those numbers, we’ll never know precisely what the arrangement is. (Which isn’t to say that we ought to know.) Virginia is moving quickly to close on this deal, and the transaction may happen in the next day or two.

There’s one heartening note in the story. So far we’ve seen county officials lamenting the loss of the $325k in annual property tax revenue from the land, ignoring the $222M price to taxpayers, $134M out of county coffers. (For perspective, the county’s entire annual budget is just over $300M.) Turning Biscuit Run into a park would be great economic news for the county. The first acknowledgement of that fact comes from the county comes in this article:

However, Albemarle Supervisor Kenneth C. Boyd said no longer receiving the $38 million worth of proffers might not be as bad as its sounds, considering that much of what was proffered “offset the expense of the development there.”

“If you don’t have the development, you don’t have the expense,” Boyd said, adding that any future developments that might be done in place of Biscuit Run would likely require proffers as well.

Good for Ken Boyd.

Boyd Elbowing His Way to BoS Chairmanship

Published by Waldo Jaquith on December 28, 2009 in Government and Politics. 12 Comments

Republican Ken Boyd may be the new chair of the Albemarle Board of Supervisors, Brandon Shulleeta wrote in the Progress on Saturday, in a rather unusual move. By tradition, members of the BoS take turns being chair, with a process of succession—the vice chair becomes the chair after the chair finishes his turn. The current vice chair is Democrat Ann Mallek, who represents White Hall. The prior chair was Democrat David Slutzky, who just lost reelection. That would normally leave Mallek as chair. That is how the BoS has operated for many decades. But Ken Boyd, who already took his two year turn as chair, wants the position back. (Boyd is running for the Republican nomination to run against Democratic Congressman Tom Perriello, and presumably knows that it looks better to be chair of the BoS than a mere member; Boyd argues it’s a handicap, because being chair would take time away from his campaign.) Boyd argues that Mallek is only halfway through her two-year term as vice chair, and that a year from now, he’ll be happy to let her be chair, although that does nothing to explain why he ought to be the chair right now.

Republican Rodney Thomas, who unseated Slutzky, supports Boyd’s bid; the board’s third Republican, Duane Snow, isn’t saying how he’ll vote. Ostensible Democrat Lindsay Dorrier, a reliable Republican vote, says he hasn’t made up his mind. The remaining member of the board, independent Dennis Rooker, strongly supports Mallek, arguing that if he’d known that it was going to be a partisan matter, Boyd wouldn’t have been allowed to be chair four years ago. The BoS will go into a closed session on January 6 to figure it out amongst themselves.

Bell Proposes Transferring $3M from City to County Schools

Published by Waldo Jaquith on December 26, 2009 in Education, Politics and Taxes. 27 Comments

Brandon Shulleeta had a story in the Daily Progress a week ago that went largely unnoticed in the snowstorm, but that warrants attention. Del. Rob Bell is introducing legislation to take $3M in school funding from Charlottesville and give it to Albemarle County. The state’s school funding formula gives differing amounts of funding to different localities, depending on how wealthy they are—the more money that they have to fund schools, the less that they need from the state. The formula doesn’t take into account the revenue sharing agreement between the city and the county, by which Charlottesville agreed to stop annexing chunks of the county to expand the city tax base if Albemarle would agree to give them a chunk of their tax income. Bell wants the state to consider that money when handing out education funds, which would hack millions out of the city’s education budget. In doing so, Bell has tossed a can of kerosene onto the small fire that is city/county revenue sharing, which began to heat up again in March of 2008 when Supervisor Ken Boyd threatened to simply stop making payments to the city.

Everybody that you’d expect to be upset is upset, along the lines that you’d anticipate. The city says that the effect would be laying off forty teachers, with Mayor Dave Norris saying that “needs of our city school children will not be held hostage to these kind of desperate measures by Albemarle County.” Members of the county school board voted 4-3 in support of Bell’s legislation, with one member saying of Charlottesville: “They have our money. We need money.” Norris argues that revenue sharing went into place years after the school funding formula was agreed on, so this funding process was a part of the implicit agreement at the time of the initial revenue sharing agreement. Albemarle School Board Chairman Brian Wheeler opposes Bell’s bill, telling the Progress that he just doesn’t think that the legislature is going to pass the bill, anyhow, meaning that the county may badly damage its relationship with the city, but to no effect.

There’s also a political aspect to this. Del. Bell, a conservative Republican, stands to lose little from filing this bill. His district, the 58th, doesn’t include any of the city. Charlottesville is reliably the second-most-liberal locality in the state (only Petersburg provides a higher percentage of vote for Democrats), so it’s not like he has to worry about many Republicans in the city turning against him, ceasing to volunteer for his campaign or contribute money. When it comes time for reelection, Bell gets to say that he brought in $3M to Albemarle schools; better still, he took it from the city, since some county residents are angry that a chunk of their taxes goes to fund the city. Even if the bill fails, he still “fought for Albemarle schools” (as the postcards will say), and he’ll earn some political capital.

Photos of Snowpocalypse 2009

Published by Waldo Jaquith on December 21, 2009 in Weather. 1 Comment

Lots of great photographs of the weekend’s snowstorm are circulating online, which are great for those of us still snowbound (which is to say, most of us) who want to know what the outside world looks like. Here’s a slideshow of some of them:

You can add your own Flickr photos to this slideshow by tagging them with “charlottesville” and “snowpocalypse.”

(Via Jim Duncan)

“Snowpocalypse” Stopped Being Funny at Some Point

Published by Waldo Jaquith on December 19, 2009 in Weather. 69 Comments

Lady Bird Swims Through the Snow

We’re in the midst of getting a metric pantload of snow. There are 17″ of the powdery stuff on the ground here in the northeast corner of Albemarle right now, which seems to be the average in the area. This is the biggest December snowfall here in recorded history. The National Guard has been called out in response to the states of emergency declared by the state and the county, with dozens of them currently searching for stranded motorists along 29S and 20S. Twitter is full of people reporting that they’re trapped in their cars, most of whom have been stuck since last night. Hundreds of cars have been abandoned on the major roads alone. Rescue crews are trying to get to these people; many are being sheltered at the Monticello and North Garden fire stations, and a new shelter is being set up at AFC. Dominion’s map shows hundreds of homes without power (a number that might start to look pretty good). The city, putting Twitter to great work in the past 24 hours, has called for volunteers with 4WD vehicles (who know how to use them—your Subaru Outback doesn’t count).

If you’re looking to go anywhere, don’t. If you haven’t bought all the stuff you need to for Christmas, don’t—you don’t need it that much, and everybody else is in the same boat. Everything is closed, anyway.

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