The $40 million question

What is it about $40 million and Virginia Beach?

As I went to sleep last night I was haunted by that number. After all, that's the approximate amount of money the city's schools need to slash from next year's budget.

When I got up this morning and Googled "$40 million" and "Virginia Beach" I stumbled on an amazing coincidence.

It was just three years ago that the Resort City spent - you guessed it - $40 million to buy a 10.6 mile right-of-way from Norfolk Southern, for a light rail system that the voters said no to more than a decade ago. (Here's a thought: Sell the right-of-way. School funding problem solved.)

That's not all. One of the city's self-promoting websites claims its Open Space Acquisition Program has saved 1,922.5 acres valued at - wait for it - $40 million.

And back in October The Pilot reported that the cost of the Laskin Road Gateway project - you know the improvements a local developer stomped his feet and demanded - had blossomed to, yep, $40 million.

Wait. There's more.

Guess how much money city politicians have taken back from school funds over the past three years to pay for "critical" projects like an animal shelter and another rec center for Bayside? Nope, not $40 million. It's actually more - $41.4 million. (Here's an idea: Give the money back. School funding problem solved.)

Look, any municipality that just tried to shake down taxpayers for more than $60 million for a hotel ought to be embarrassed to see headlines about teacher layoffs and the abolition of junior varsity sports and summer programs. Do you suppose they think we forgot already?

Even the bean counters at City Hall should understand that quality schools are a better investment than hotels, underground utilities and light rail.

Tax hikes? No thanks. Put a "For Sale" sign on the right-of-way instead.

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RIP Uncle Pete

I'm trying to imagine the world without Pete Decker in it. Sorry, can't do it.

This Norfolk lawyer - who seemed to be on a first-name basis with the world - literally raised untold millions for charity. His smile, his generous spirit, his infectuous laugh and, of course, his singing will be missed by everyone who knew him and millions who never had the privilege.

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Long-distance lady

What is it about Sandra Smith-Jones?

After she was shamed into resigning from the Virginia Beach School Board - because she'd accepted a job 7,000 miles away, in Saudi Arabia - she finds herself now on the governor's Council on the Status of Women. A state advisory board. Emphasis on "advisory."

According to news reports, that 19-member volunteer group meets about five times a year to deal with matters important to women.

Right.

If they did anything of actual importance, do you think the governor would plop a woman on there who lives half a world away?

The only redeeming aspect of this appointment is that it comes with no pay. No expense account .

It's a resume enhancer, though. And a blunder by Bob McDonnell. 

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What's in a name?

Town Center STATION?

Looks like the bring-light-rail-to-Virginia-Beach-at-any-cost crowd got the naming rights to the little strip mall next to Town Center.

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That was close...

Well what do you know.

It looks like the mayor of Virginia Beach has been counting noses. When he couldn't get to six on City Council, he hastily pulled the plug on that $109 million boondoggle of a convention center hotel project.

"The deal that is in front of us now just does not have the support of council," said Sessoms.

Hallelujah.

Not to worry. This feckless project will be back. With a few insignificant tweaks and a marginally smaller public investment, no doubt.

In the meantime, the mayor has proposed that next week's public hearing on the hotel project be scrapped.

Bad idea.

Politicians need to hear from the outraged public. Especially those who are seething with anger after reading the Dec. 31 Wall Street Journal piece "Have We Got a Convention Center to Sell You!"

Sounding the alarm in the Journal is Steven Malanga, who skillfully rips apart the feeble arguments being made by disciples of development across the country. The weird part is that the tales of convention center waste - from Chicago to Atlanta to Virginia Beach - follow eerily similar patterns: As the convention industry crumbles, bureaucratic buffoons insist on throwing more and more public money at bad investments. 

Who loses? Not the developers, of course. The taxpayers.

 If you only have time to read one article today, make it this.

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Hurricane hype

Uh-oh.

Looks like a couple of prominent hurricane predictors are getting out of the cyclone crystal ball business.

The Ottawa Citizen is reporting that William Gray and Phil Klotzbach are calling it quits after a couple of decades of scaring the bejabbers out of coastal dwellers.

Apparently trying to guess how many named storms will whirl through the Atlantic every year is Category 5  fools' errand.

Gee, who would have guessed?

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Old news

Well, whaddya know, Slate Magazine, that mildly entertaining online publication I once read faithfully but rarely bother with anymore, has just learned that Virginia law does not allow public schools to open until after Labor Day.

Stop the presses!

Furthermore, Slate reporter, Dahlia Lithwick, has just discovered that the legislation was crafted at the behest of the commonwealth's theme park owners, who rely on teenage workers during tourist season.

Ah, memo to Ms. Lithwick: This law was passed about 25 years ago and was immediately dubbed the "King's Dominion Relief Act." It's a perennial talker here in Virginia when educators clash with tourism types over exactly when school should start.

And yes, it is true that the theme parks pour money into Richmond to ensure that their platoons of young workers can stay on the job until the tourists leave in September. Can you blame them?

What Lithwick and others - who sneer that Virginia is a state more concerned with rollerocasters than the Three R's - never mention is that just like other, more enlightened places, the Old Dominion mandates that public schools be open for a minimum number of teaching days a year.

That number is 180, but most divisions build a couple of extra days into the calendar as protection against school-closing blizzards or hurricanes.

Remind me again, why are 180 teaching days that begin before Labor Day any more beneficial than 180 that begin after?

The timing of Lithwick's online article is curious. She appears to be attempting to link Virginia's backward school schedule to Newt Gingrich's recent blurtage about school kids taking jobs in their schools, perhaps as janitors.

Nice try, Slate. But one has nothing to do with the other.

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Legal beagles frolic with furballs

After a week of unrelenting rants - with one more to come on Sunday - it's nice to find some news that's, well, heartwarming.

And here it is: According to The Washington Post, law students at George Mason University are destressing before exams by playing with puppies.

Seems canine therapy isn't just for nursing homes anymore. Law students have discovered that inhaling breathing puppy breath is mood adjuster. Shoot, it may even boost grades.

It's tempting to make some kind of lawyer/pitbull joke here, but I won't.

For those who have never seen a law student and puppy combo before, here's a link.

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Good money after bad?

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Beach blanket buses

Where did you spend the Fourth of July in 1999?

If you were in Virginia Beach you're a survivor of what we was unquestionably The Worst Holiday Weekend.

Ever.

That was the year the masterminds of the Municipal Center became frightened by unexpectedly huge crowds that arrived in town for Memorial Day. So what did the city honchos do? They closed a two-mile stretch at the Oceanfront to traffic for the Fourth.

That meant locals had to pass through police checkpoints to get to the supermarket while tourists were herded over to Camp Pendleton where they were forced to abandon their cars. The visitors were then frog-marched onto shuttle buses with all their beach gear and later deposited on an approved piece of sand.

It was a holiday in Hades. Never to be repeated.

Until now, that is. According to a story in The Washington Post, concern about Chincoteague beach erosion has caused the feds to consider an ill-conceived plan to shut down parking lots and beaches in that tiny town and herd visitors onto buses.

To a resort destination dependent on tourism, this will be a costly decision.

The Post reports that, "Town residents point to a local survey that found that 82 percent of respondents said they would not come to Chincoteague if they had to load their beach stuff onto a shuttle."

I dunno about that. 

Frankly, I'd like to meet the 18 percent of sun worshippers who would be willing to load their blankets, chairs, coolers and Coppertone onto a bus. 

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