In
your article, "It's
a Start," (January 5, 2004) you wrote
favorably about pouring $1 billion in R&D
expenditures at the state universities. Have you
ever evaluated the return on investment of taxpayer
dollars spent for research at State
universities?
My
employment experience includes nine years in
industry, 10 years as a faculty member in
the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Department at the University of Delaware, and 28
years back in industry after I abandoned my
tenured position at Delaware. I have been
involved with and an observer of research and
development in industry and in academia. I have
not met one company representative that expects
a significant return on investment from academic
research.
Companies
will fund academic research only to have a
pipeline to the students. The pressure to
publish is so great that academic research
concentrates on small incremental advances that
produce many papers over many years at a rate
too slow to keep up with industrial needs.
Industry relies on industrial research and
development.
Fredrick
A. Costello, Ph.D.
Oak
Hill
President
Frederick
A. Costello Consulting Engineers
fac@facinc.com
Tax
Cigarettes... And Liquor, and High-Fat Foods
I
really appreciated the tax analysis in "The
65 Percent Solution" (December 15, 2003)
and the "reluctant fairness" attributed
to the Warner analyst. I do not understand your
reluctance to raise money by raising cigarrette
taxes, as their consumption is by choice and
results in HUGE medical costs, largely defrayed by
the non-smoking majority of taxpayers who bear the
burden of medicare and medicaid payments.
Anything
that can be done to discourage smoking, and to
shift the cost of the diseases caused by smoking
to the smokers themselves (rich or poor) should
be applauded. If the tax is born
disproportionately by the poor, the cost of the
diseases are born disproportionately by
non-smokers, it seems to be the fairest example of
a "use" tax that I can imagine. We
should further tax liquor and luxury items as
well, and if it could be devised, tax fat in foods
-- the most expensive foodstuffs are the lowest in
fats and nutrition and the cheapest staples are
those that are the most highly processed and
highest in fat. We aren't thinking clearly about
this.
But
thank you for your magazine...I love it!
Wendy
C. Ault, M. D., M.A.(Ethics)
WCAult@aol.com
More
Dirt on Unpaved Roads
Edwin
Clay’s very good article on unpaved roads
("The Dirt on
Unpaved Roads," January 5, 2004) brought
back lots of memories. When I was VDOT
Commissioner (1986-1994) unpaved roads in Virginia
got a lot of attention.
At
the time, there were about 10,000 miles of unpaved
roads in Virginia. One fact surprising to me was
that the county with the most unpaved roads was,
and I guess still is, Loudoun County in Northern
Virginia. The county with the least unpaved miles
was Wise County in the far southwest -- about a
half mile that the resident engineer wanted to
preserve as a historic artifact.
In
Loudoun, it was nearly impossible to get agreement
from residents along the roads to pave them.
Pavement was too hard on horses and there were too
many old stone walls. My first involvement with an
unpaved road was a Loudoun County Board proposal
to pave a road that carried a fairly high volume
of local traffic. As I recall, it functioned as a
connector between two active commuter routes.
One
group of residents wanted it paved and convinced
the Board of Supervisors to put it in their
six-year improvement program. Our resident
engineer agreed. When the horse owners and
preservationists learned it was to be paved, they
started a very vocal protest. For a variety
of reasons — personality and procedural — the
issue was raised to my office. I made about a half
dozen trips from Richmond to the neighborhood, met
with both groups, toured the road, asked for
information on traffic growth, accidents, and
right of way needs — and concluded it should be
paved. Not so said the opposition and they made it
a pretty visible political issue! To make a long
story short, the road is still unpaved and I
learned that all dirt roads are not unpopular.
At
the end of my first term, I visited a family in
Penhook, a very rural community in Southside
Virginia. It was my practice to visit every
1,000th group that adopted a road for
trash pick-up and help clean up their adopted
section to promote the “Adopt a Highway”
program. Several of my staff went with me.
We started to pick up trash on an unpaved road. On
one side, in the ditch line, we found hundreds of
glass bottles — so many we used up all the trash
bags we had brought with us. bout a month or
two later, law enforcement raided what was then
the largest illegal still every found in Virginia.
I guess we had cleaned up their unusable bottles.
Roads
certainly do serve lots of purposes — and
driving on them is only one. Sometimes it is not
the most important one.
Ray
D. Pethtel
University
Transportation Fellow
Virginia
Tech
Blacksburg
rpethtel@vt.edu
Inner
Suburbs Offer Opportunity, Too
I
have a comment or two on your Op/Ed entitled
"Inflection
Point," (January 19, 2004). Recently,
in September, the Richmond chapter of the Urban
Land Institute had Bill Lucy as one of two guest
speakers on the subject of inner ring decay. The
other speaker was the Bill Hudnut, former
congressman, four-term mayor of
Indianapolis and now a resident fellow and
ULI/Joseph C. Canizaro Chair for Public
Policy at the Urban Land Institute. He
wrote a fine book on the subject of inner ring decline
called "Halfway to Everywhere". I wish
you had checked this book out before writing
this op/ed.
It
is a reality that decline is occurring in many
US cities' inner suburbs. While these two
intellectuals didn't disagree, the difference in
their approach was interesting. Lucy seemed to
present a half empty glass, predicting doom in
Richmond's inner rings, his premise primarily
based on income statistical analysis.
Hudnut
was more optimistic and served a wake up call to
the opportunities these areas present for
redevelopment and revitalization. He showed
example after example around the nation where
decline existed and why. Then he showed us
examples of municipalities capitalizing on the
opportunities presented by such decline. Finally
he demonstrated key elements and factors to
consider in redevelopment strategies.
Lucy's
comments and predictions sparked quite a
reaction from the public sector attendees and
members of ULI. So, we had a follow up program
in December that permitted the planning
directors from Chesterfield and Henrico to
present their perspectives on the issue facing
their older suburban areas. ... I can personally
vouch for efforts made by Chesterfield County to
proactively stem the tide of decline as I
participated in a very intense planning exercise
on Cloverleaf Mall that helped set the stage for
the county developing and acting on a strategy
to bring about the upgrading, redevelopment of
the area.
David
M. Smith, CCIM
Thalhimer
Cushman
& Wakefield Alliance
Richmond
david.smith@thalhimer.com
The
Case for Regional Cooperation
Great
article! ("Inflection
Point," January 19, 2004). I have
been preaching for months that the City was on
the way back, but had only a few examples to
point to as proof. Your statistic makes
the case. Your article also makes the case for
regional cooperation.
Last
decade's city problems are next decade's
county problems. We can only solve them by
working together. Despite political
boundaries, our community is one organism. Until
we start thinking of and treating it like one,
we cannot effectively address the
problems of low-income housing, crime, education
and the other social ills of our community.
John
W. Bates, III
jbates@mcguirewoods.com
Got
Farm?
I
was glad to see Barnie Day's "Got
Milk?" column (January 5, 2004). This
really hits home for me, as my best friend’s
dairy was sold this year and her cows were sold
over many tears. But the bottom line was, my
friend could not turn a profit.
First
poultry and now dairy. Our poultry farm is
currently up for sale for the very same
reason... Tears, but not for the turkeys! The
bad news is that 70 percent of Virginia farms
will change ownership in the next 15 years
because of the aging population of farmers.
Their children see the situation and don’t
want to farm because it is not profitable.
Next
thing you know we’ll be saying… Got food?
Scary!
Joan
Hollen
Bridgewater
hollenjs@jmu.edu
Will
You Guys Ever Get Over the Civil War?
As
a former journalist and national consultant who
has, over the decades, immensely liked my
400-plus trips to Virginia, and who numbers
close friends among your fellow Virginians, I
consider your remarks about "300,000 dead
Yankees," ("God,
Guns and the American Flag," December
15, 2003) in recent reference to your pride in
Southern Culture, extremely tasteless.
Back off from your alarming fervor. The war is
over.
Judson LaFlash
Eagle, Idaho
