Public hearing brings advice for Beach on where to spend

No, this story hasn't gone to personal barbs - yet. (We did get nasty on Thursday's editorial.)

If this site wants to reintroduce their one comment/one person/one story rule, I wouldn't complain. However, if they're going to give us the latitude to debate, I will.

Maybe we could have a donation that would fund the bridge and in return they would get to have the bridge named after them. A real public/private partnership. Pembroke owners are you listening?

Pembroke Mall Bridge...It has a good ring to it! And you can take it off your taxes and use that revenue to reinvest in your mall. Win-Win in Town Center!!!

Welcome to err....umm.... Talknet!

This is NOT Talknet.... there was a reason they did away with it!!

Haven't contributed here in a while but it's refreshing to see the issues take a sidestep and the usual " Reid versus Henry" bashing sessions continue.
Honestly gentlemen, everyone else knows you guys don't agree or like each other, can we just read about your views about the issues and NOT have to read the barbs every post out of the box?

Funny that some four years later we're still talking about our understaffed Fire/EMS Departments and we continue to watch the pet projects of our Council members as they chug along.... When will the madness end?

Now we're talking of building a bridge to a privately owned mall, whose future is suspect at best! Let those folks who own the mall build their ivory tower and use our tax money for what it was promised...... FOUR YEARS AGO.

Light rail? Down the RR ROW? Puhleeze!! Don't get me started again!!

I semi-regularly make that crossing. No, it's not out of laziness.

Jason, no one needs to cross Virginia Beach Blvd. There is plenty of parking in the 4 parking decks and 1 parking lot. The only reason people park at Pembroke Mall and walk across is laziness.

Come on Capt. Bailey, you know as well as I do that its not in the budget for an officer to sit in the median all day for that crap. Hell, we barely have enough cops to cover the city during the day as it is. We regularly have officer from Kings Grant responding to Lake Edward and farther up for priority calls.

And Pembroke Mall building the walkway? Please. I went there the other day looking for a birthday gift for my wife and came across maybe 10 people. On the lunch hour during a weekday. The mall is on it's last legs.

Honestly, we do need to improve safety at that area. However it is cheaper to park a cop car in the median everyday, lower the speed limit to 25 mph AND increase the time/length of the cross walk lights. The traffic at Town Center isn’t as bad as it is at Rosemont Rd and the blvd or Kempsville and Witchduck Rds but nobody is talking about the pedestrians at those busy intersections…. Safety is important but they cross the streets everyday in NY, Philly and Washington DC and before we spend the 3.5 million, we should try other options...

Maybe one day the economy will pick up and we can build the walkway but if the budget is so tight we can't hire much needed ambulance drivers and street gang police officers, then we can't afford this bridge. Now if Pembroke Mall's owners want to pay for it and protect their customers, then let’s build it now!

Jason says that this new foot bridge is not a particulary expensive project; I have to disagree with you, Jason, especially when it affects tax payers. And it would be great if both pedestrians and drivers would actually obey the law. Independence is indeed one of the worst intersections in the city for red-light runners(I support the idea of a red-light camera). And in the past, I've seen pedestrians jay-walk-Indpendence Blvd. is the worst possible place to attempt jaywalking. If these two situations could be solved, then there would be no need for a $3mil footbridge in my opinion. So please less, and help keep city employees employed.

I know how much LRT would mean to some people - especially those of us who are poor - that I'm going to try to do what I can to help get it done.

I wonder if the VBTA (Reid is their Transportation Chair) would accept LRT if conditioned on:

1. The local share shall be no more than $75 million. Included in that figure would be the actual construction, bus purchases, and rail car purchases.

2. All major roadways would be bridged.

3. Since Reid's such a TIFs for Transportation fan, how about a special tax district a quarter mile on each side of the rail line (i.e. TOD zone) to cover the local share debt service?

Hey, at least I tried.

Alan,

Listen to the citizens on what? Not only is LRT polling positive now, but 3-4 Council elections would be between starting and construction Plenty of time for the public to sound off.

Reid,

Do the math. LRT should generate about $1.25 billion in redevelopment. Calculate the Property Taxes on that. Then figure the BPOL, Sales Taxes, Meals Taxes, Rooms Taxes, etc.

Feeder buses will cost nowhere near a billion. The new hybrids are under $500,000 each.

Finally where did you get the $10 million O&M figure from?

With the many people hit by cars on Independence, one of which I know, I support the pedestrian bridge project. It's rather insane to have a business center like this and send crowds of people across 8 lanes of 45MPH traffic. The other choice would be to slow it down to the standard business zone speed of 25MPH but that would just make the traffic backups bigger. It's not a particularly expensive project as it's a non-recurring expense. Divide it by it's lifespan before comparing to annual recurring expenses to get a true idea of cost.

Spend less.

If I knew about it, I would have been there. By the way, if this ridiculous pedestrian bridge is built, it should be clearer than ever to all Virginia Beach citizens that our council needs to go!

So Henry. Do you agree with William that city council should listen to the wishes of the citizens?

I don't know why anyone would object to billing the insurance companies for ambulance transports. They do it in every local city in our area and folks still call 911 for ambulances. Virginia Beach insurance rates are not cheaper than those in surrounding communities because we don't bill for the service so why not collect our money back for our streets or general fund?

All we are doing by not billing is allowing the insurance companies to keep 6-8 million of our money every year while the homeowners have to pay 2-3 cents more on their real estate tax bills just to make up the revenue left in the insurance companies pockets. I guess if you love Sentara, Blue Cross or Blue Shield, then it makes sense to not bill for an ambulance. Otherwise I understood the goal was to take the burden off the homeowners and put it on those using/misusing the ambulance service. If Portsmouth, Chesapeake and the other local wealthy local cities do it, we should collect our share and reduce our RE-tax bill.

Henry, whay about the annual cost to operate Light Rail and to replace the cars and maintain the system, not to mention the upwards of a Billion Dollars for a feeder bus service?

How much "revenue" will Light Rail generate each year?

Yes to LRT, No to ambulance fees. And for the record, I doubt any case could be made to the VBTA that would cause them to support LRT.

The local share for LRT Newtown Road - convention center would be about $60-65 million. When you look at the debt service on that amount (under $3.5 million/year) versus the new tax revenue generated, it's a net plus for the City treasury.

Granted, the Feds will be lucky to ever see their money back, but the City of Virginia Beach makes out pretty good.

I agree on ambulance user fees, it seems like a no brainer to anyomne that actually thinks about it. As Mr. Bailey stated, it is money left on the tabel that the insurance companies pocket.

Light Rail is Va Beach running down the old NS rail line? I feel that the business case hasn't been made that this is worth the cost.

Like I said, it is about priorities. Spending hundreds of millions of tax dollars on light rail in hopes of it's spin-off TOD development bringing a few more dollars in property taxes and some sales taxes from retail sales doesn't seem to be the brightest "investment'.

I agree on ambulance user fees; if you remember, I spoke about them at the Budget Public Hearing at Kellam High School 5 years ago.

Where I disagree is on the SGAs. The $3.5 million is for the Master Plans. Those can be done to let private infill begin. BTW, the 3rd SGA is Burton Station/Northampton Blvd. I've particpated in the Resort Area process, and have already told Planning Department Staff I hope to participate in the Town Center/Pembroke process. (Our apartment complex is about 300 yards from the SGA.)

Finally for (yes, Reid) light rail, we need to secure the ROW as the land isn't going to sit there vacant forever. As actual LRT construction is still probably 6-7 years away, ROW acquisition is the only large expense in the short and medium term.

Yes I do. And the hotel was a Will Sessoms project and not the Mayor's...

Do you really expect the Virginia Beach city council to listen to citizens?????? They have proven they don't care what we think about our tax money. Jim Spore has everything approved he sends to the city council, no questions. The only way I can remember Spore is removing signs in his $75,000.00 Corvette to support the mayors hotel.

I'll support cuts in the budget for raises and benefits when the budget cuts things that can be delayed a few years until the economy picks back up. Employees are being asked to be patient for a couple of years while tens of millions are projected outside the budget cycle for a light rail path, a new convention center hotel and the dome site development. BTW: All worthy projects if we have the revenue. Additionally 3.5 million for strategic growth areas (oceanfront and town center to name two of the three) could also be delayed until better budget years.

We as a city are supposed to be a team. I'd like to see the city council take control of the manager's budget and make it their own. My vision of "shared pain" applies to taxpayers, employees and developers/the business community.

Together, we can all make the next two years of the budget less painful. Real cuts, real user fees (billing for ambulance transports) and consolidation services such as fire/ems into one cost saving department demonstrates the reality of tight financial times. Talk is cheap but real belt tightening proves the economic realities of our times.

I attended last night's hearing on Council's desire to raise the tax rate higher than the lowered rate automatically set by state code. What was clear to me was that Council has exibited too many years of misplaced priorities. The $3.5M Town Center footbridge was an icon that was used to point out the misplaced priorities that have resulted in over $1B in city debt; for speculative "economic development" that failed to yield a meaningful return on the taxpayer's "investment".

I pointed out how in the past few years Council squandered over $60M in "surplus" on low priority items in spite of citizens begging them to set the money aside for higher priority needs. Now the chickens have come home to roost. Citizens are hurting due to sky-high property taxes and instead of stopping Corporate welfare, Council is discussing millions more for a HQ Hotel for the $200+M Convention Center and a Dome site entertainment venue. Enough already.