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Category: Virginia News

■ 11 December 2009 | 12:09 PM

Drake said she's not in line for top VDOT post

Former congresswoman Thelma Drake said Friday there’s no truth to a report circulating on the Internet that she may be Virginia’s next Secretary of Transportation.

It’s a “totally untrue rumor,” Drake said in a phone interview, adding that someone must misunderstand what she is doing as a senior adviser to Gov.-elect Bob McDonnell.

Drake and Tom Davis, another former Virginia member of Congress, are leading a transportation transition team that is reviewing VDOT, state funding and other transportation issues. The panel is expecting to give McDonnell a report next month, she said.

Drake represented Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District from 2004 to 2008 and was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates from 1996 to 2004.

- Bill Bartel

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Wanted: A Magician

Submitted by Mike Barrett on Fri, 12/11/2009 at 3:47 pm.

The next Secretary of Transportation needs to be a magician. That is, this person will be required to restore funding to local governments, open the closed rest stops, restore public funding to the PPV’s that would have gone forward but did not for lack of public dollars, increase maintenance around the Commonwealth, fund interstate projects in Hampton Roads and other parts of the state, increase state match funding so we don’t lose our Federal share of our own gas taxes, all with a tax structure that produces less than 50% of the purchasing power it had when last increased in 1986. Further, the current plan is to fund transportation increases from the General Fund which now faces about a $3,000,000,000 shortfall in the next budget cycle. Still want the job, former Delegate Drake?