How Does Your Garden Grow?

Sometimes I think gardening is the only thing that keeps me going. It is great therapy to go out and work in the outdoors, breathing deeply. We get a lot of joy from our garden, and since it is a family project, it helps with family togetherness. We might even learn a few things along the way.

Of course, nothing is better than fresh vegetables right out of the garden. Tomatoes, beans, corn; they all taste better when they have only traveled the 200 feet from the garden to the house. Better for curbing energy use too, with the average produce traveling as much as 1500 miles to get to the grocery store.

Gardening is better for you, and you do something to help the environment too. Who could argue with that?

Tomato plants bask in the sunshine.

One of the kinds of beans we grow.

Butterfly bushes line the driveway.

Blueberries ripen in their corner of the garden.

Who Is Running The DPVA?

In recent days, we have heard about the hiring of many fine people for Creigh Deeds campaign. Several of them are veterans of political campaigns in Virginia and elsewhere. Some, however, are top-level officials with the Democratic Party of Virginia (DPVA). This is troubling to me for several reasons.

When the never-ending election season turned to the 2009 elections for Delegates, Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and Attorney General, there was a lot of talk about winning back the other house in the Virginia Legislature, the House of Delegates. Since then, we have seen a carnival-style primary election season that sucked all the money and air out of the activist base in Virginia. After what seems like years between January and June, our question was answered and we have a ticket of great, qualified and dedicated people.

My good friend Vivian Paige published an article last night that spurred this train of thought. I had been thinking along the same lines, although in the recesses of my brain. Vivian asked some of the same questions I am, namely, “Who will ensure our majority in the House of Delegates?” We both agree that of equal importance to electing a Democratic Governor is electing the majority status in the House of Delegates.

The House of Delegates has more contested races this year than it did in 2007. Today, I believe the total is 69.

Here’s a question. With the large number of House races this year, who will be doing the usual jobs of Levar Stoney and Jared Leopold? These races need to be worked by the party, and from what I have seen in previous House election years, they couldn’t cover the races they had with a full complement of people at DPVA. In one instance at the end of the election season in 2007, a literature drop was scheduled at little or no cost to the party. Unfortunately, unless you lived in Northern Virginia, Roanoke, Danville/Martinsville or Hampton Roads, there were no events listed. This is inexcusable.

The whole of western VA, aside from a few areas like Roanoke and Danville, are routinely written off. Prince Edward County went for Obama last year. Will we see any sort of focus on Southside areas outside the ones I mentioned? Not likely.

Without the House of Delegates, there is a real good chance that redistricting would happen under the rules and carving knife of the Republican majority. We can’t let that happen to Virginia for ten years, because we couldn’t adequately staff our organizations. We can’t let it happen to Virginia’s people either, they are pushed to the economic limit now, along with the usual headaches. We especially can’t allow it to happen to the children that have no say in any of this. They deserve a good education and good health care, and a reasonable government that does the things that help people.

Will we rise to the occasion? I am hopeful, but I am not optimistic.

[Edit: Text was added that had been inadvertantly left out. Also, categories were added. 06-19-09]

Increments of Health Care Change So Small, You Can Barely See Them

James Ridgeway of unsilentgeneration has a very good article out tonight about the state of the health care reform we were promised. It is an eye-opening look at how centrist Democrats are undermining the public option and other good parts of the original plan. The latest? Health Co-ops.

True to this spirit of bipartisanship, the co-op scheme is a weak, tired, nearly meaningless idea that would represent no real alternative to business-as-usual in the health insurance industry. In the best-case scenario, which is far from guaranteed, the co-ops might have a less corporate governance structure than other insurers and receive federal subsidies for startup costs and more expansive coverage. In the worst case scenario, they would in effect be private insurance companies by another name. And at least some of the initial capital, in all likelihood, will come from the members. You can be sure all the Americans who are out of work and too poor to buy insurance people will appreciate that—and with the lower subsidies in the Finance Committee’s draft bill, most of them will still be on their own.

Much is being made of the fact that the co-ops would be non-profits. But really–so what? Almost half of Americans with private health insurance are currently covered by non-profit plans. As a whole, they haven’t proven themselves much—if any—better or cheaper than the for-profit insurers, and they still fail to cover 50 million Americans.

The giant Kaiser Permanente is a non-profit. And while some of them have privatized, many of the Blue Cross-Blue Shields are still non-profits as well—and, in fact, got started as co-ops. Some of these non-profit insurers are well known for paying huge executive salaries and hoarding huge reserves, while charging the same high rates and offering the same rationed care as private plans—and enjoying tax exemption to boot. One report by the Consumers Union found the non-profit “Blues” hoarding cash even as they raised premiums and co-pays:

As of December 2003, the 38 nonprofit Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans across the country retained approximately $20 billion in surplus, an increase of 30 percent since 2002. Concerns about “excess surplus” in nonprofit “Blues” plans have recently arisen in several states, including Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and in Washington, D.C. In Pennsylvania, for example, the state’s four nonprofit Blues plans and their for-profit subsidiaries hold more than $6 billion in surplus, by one estimate. At the same time, 1.4 million Pennsylvanians are uninsured.

Ridgeway seems to really lament the absence of Ted Kennedy in these times of carving this bill up. He thinks it wouldn’t be being gutted wholesale if Kennedy was there. He also notes that one of the Senators at the head of the bill negotiations is Max Baucus of Montana. He also happens to be the #1 recipient of money from health related concerns in the Senate.

Ridgeway writes primarily about the politics of aging. He is a great writer, and has good stories to tell. I highly recommend that you check him out.

Herberton/Poplar Hill Sued for Non-Payment of $75,000

Sources have told me that the company that runs all or a portion of the ‘Manor’ development in Prince Edward County has been sued for non-payment of $75,000 for work done developing the ‘Manor’ (previously known as Poplar Hill). Suit was filed April 24, 2009, against Herberton-Poplar Hill Development, for work performed. The case is #CL09000086-00

The work performed consists of conservation easement creation, which allows for certain tax breaks for the company or individual forming them. The Poplar Hill CDA might be named in this suit.

Cumberland Supervisor Chair Bill Osl Batting .000

A recent newspaper article in this area remarked that Bill Osl had done everything but kneel down and beg Farmville to rejoin the Commonwealth Regional Council (CRC), an organization purportedly involved in helping localities with planning and economic development issues.

Farmville had declined to renew their membership in the organization in April of this year, after a year of ‘trial’ membership to see if it was still worth the money that the town had contributed to them. Buckingham County had also declined to renew, leaving the organization short of its operating budget for this year.

The CRC is the invention of Mr. Osl, who forced the previous group out of existence by subverting its mission from within. Jack Houghton was the chair of the Piedmont Planning District, until he was fired in the interest of a different organization, the CRC, take it’s place. Sources have told me over the years that they could not figure out what the CRC had been doing, especially with the amount of money that was contributed to their organization. Rumors of the President of the CRC (Danny Fore, nephew of the Prince Edward County Board Chair) taking expensive trips overseas, and other suspicious activities, were abundant.

Dr Edward I. Gordon, a Town of Farmville Councilor, remarked when this was being discussed by the council, that the CRC had never done anything to help the town, so he couldn’t see any reason to continue to pay the money to the CRC.

Ever since the Town of Farmville dropped out, Mr. Osl has been back several times, pleading his case with the Town Council, to no avail.

A few weeks ago, the Richmond Times Dispatch had an article about the counties involved in developing Cobb Creek Reservoir in Cumberland County. The counties, Henrico and Powhatan, declined to continue to participate in this project. The reservoir would have stored water during high river levels, and released water for downstream partners during drought conditions.

These counties all said that the price Cumberland County was asking for the water was considerably more than they want to pay, and the payment was in a strange form as well. Powhatan County Board of Supervisors Chair Robert R. Cosby stated, “We don’t have that kind of money. Cumberland just wanted more than we could afford.”

“They were trying to make it an economic benefit of having it in Cumberland County”, Cosby said.

Cumberland County had requested annual payment, which Henrico and Powhatan Counties balked at, in lieu of taxes to cover various planning activities, staffing positions in the Sheriff’s Department and general government, training and equipment. This would be on top of capital costs based on their projected use of the facility.

“It’s over,” said Cosby said of Powhatan’s involvement.

For our next failure, we have rumors of the operator of the proposed landfill in Cumberland County taking a look at the economic viability of the project. Sources tell me that Republic Waste, which bought Allied Waste and Waste Management late last year, may pay the penalties involved in saying no to this project. The original contract was with Allied Waste, and all manner of things were promised to the citizens of Cumberland County in return for their right to do business hauling garbage and storing it forever in Cumberland County.

There is an interesting timeline on all this of course, in terms of projected revenue from a landfill being spoken for to fund projects large and small in the county. In December of 2006, a meeting of the Board of Supervisors was held, at which the decision for guaranteeing the loans needed to build new schools was made.

At that meeting, after some embarrassing public number-crunching, the Supervisors agreed that the contract for the new schools should be signed, based on future revenue projections of taxes on equipment at the not-as-yet-approved landfill. The Supervisors also agreed, that in a ‘worst case scenario’, $.05 on the taxes (property) of the county would be enough to cover what they needed for debt service.

Throughout the next year and a half, that $.05 figure changed many times, ending with the last known public comment being that of Bill Osl to a reporter concerning the opening of the schools last August.

The county will pay the debt service on the school with money generated by a landfill planned for Cumberland. Some leaders say they would not have been able to build the school without landing the landfill.

“It would have been impossible,” said William Osl, chairman of the county’s Board of Supervisors. “We would have had to have a 50 percent-plus property-tax increase to pay the debt service. Remember, that would be on a community with a $15,000 per-capita income and 15 percent of its people below the poverty level.”

Source: RTD article (archive) by Jamie C. Ruff, 2008.

Between those two dates, Bill Osl and sometimes his number one mate Cliff White, tossed out figures in a scare campaign just in time for the 2007 local elections. I had written a letter to the Editor of the Farmville Herald which was published, asking which figures were right. This is from October, 2007:

Towards the end of the meeting, there was a discussion about what would happen if the landfill did not materialize for some reason. The figure of five cents ($.05) increase in the property tax was discussed, and it was agreed before they took a vote on the construction contract that this would be an acceptable level of increase, and one that would cover the needs of the debt service on the school financing.

The reason I bring this up now is that Mr. Osl, Mr. White, and their supporters have recently taken to throwing figures around in newspaper accounts and public appearances that do not match the above scenario. Both Mr. Osl and Mr. White have been quoted as saying that a $.24 increase in the property taxes would need to be instituted in order to balance the books in case the landfill did not locate in Cumberland County. At least one of their supporters, in a letter to the editor, claimed that property taxes would need to be raised by 50% to accomplish these payments on the debt. At the current rate of $.59, that would be an additional (slightly more than) $.29 added to the property tax rate, for a total of $.88.

These claims are irresponsible and harmful to the true needs of our county, and sound a lot like a fear campaign to me. If their goals of improving our county and providing for its citizens are to be believed, then these tactics do not serve those goals. If the ideas are sound, and the deliberations are sincere, why would fear be needed to accomplish these goals?

I hope that all citizens will contact their supervisors and find out what the true figures are. The only thing worse than the county being in substantial debt, is to be mislead and taken down a path of fear, misinformation and feeling like we have been taken advantage of.

I have only one question now for the Supervisors in Cumberland County.

Were you lying then, or are you lying now? We should be told since we will be paying the bill for your actions in these matters.

PPP: Deeds 40%, McAuliffe 26%, Moran 24%

If this holds up, and there is some question about that, it will be one of the largest shifts of voter preference in Virginia history.

Public Policy Polling: 6-6,7-09 (previous 6-3-09)

Deeds 40%

McAuliffe 26%

Moran 24%

Undec 10%

From Tom Jensen of PPP:

Among the reasons for Deeds’ ascent are:

-A remarkable increase in support in northern Virginia in the wake of the Washington Post endorsement. More Democratic primary votes are cast there than anywhere else, and in the last two and a half weeks Deeds has gone from polling at just 11% there to a surprising lead in the region with 38% to 35% for Moran and 20% for McAuliffe. The endorsement is not inherently a game changer but the Deeds campaign effectively milked it for all it was worth with signs, mailers, and a late media buy. All of that paid huge dividends.

-He finally consolidated the anti-McAuliffe vote. Even though Terry McAuliffe has always had higher negatives than his two opponents combined, for most of the campaign voters with an unfavorable opinion of him were splitting almost evenly between Deeds and Moran, resulting in both of their polling behind McAuliffe. In the closing weeks though much of that has gravitated toward Deeds as he now has a 58-35 lead on Moran among voters who don’t like the former DNC chair. Since those folks comprise 40% of the electorate, it is a very important group to do well with.

-He made the most of the Democratic primary being pretty much the only game in town for Republicans and independent voters. Deeds has a 10 point lead with primary voters who are Democrats, but we also project 20% of the folks who turn out on Tuesday to be independents and 6% to be Republicans. Among those voters Deeds has a 26 point lead, with 48% to 22% for McAuliffe and 19% for Moran. His support from them pushes his overall lead to 14 points.

Go read it, I think it is fascinating. Not just because the candidate I like seems to be on top, but from a political science standpoint.

Research2000: Deeds Has The Lead at 30; McAuliffe Falls Back

Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 6/1-3. Likely voters. MoE 4% (5/18-20 results)

Democratic Primary voters MoE 5%

Creigh Deeds (D)     30 (13)

Brian Moran (D)      27 (22)

Terry McAuliffe (D)  26 (36)

Undecided 17 (29)

I agree that a strong field operation can help the second and third place finishers here, but McAuliffe has lost 10 points in the last two weeks, while Deeds has gained 17. No field operation I know of can overcome bad momentum and being in third with 4 days to go.