Bacon Bits: Bristol, Big Ships, and Blue on Blue

Petersburg, Meet Bristol. The City of Bristol has been identified as “City A” in the recent report by the state Auditor of Public Accounts that scored even lower than Petersburg in a rating of fiscal stress, reports the Bristol Herald-Courier. Bristol hasn’t experienced the dramatic budget deficits of its fiscally challenged counterpart on the Appomattox River, but the city of 17,000 on the Tennessee state line is burdened by general-obligation bond debt of more than $100 million stemming from its backing of the failed The Falls commercial center.

Here Come the Big Ships. The CMA CGM Theodore Roosevelt, the largest ship to ever call on an East Coast U.S. port, docked Monday in Norfolk, reports the Richmond Times-DispatchThe vessel, which carries the equivalent of 14,400 containers, made its way to Virginia via the widened Panama Canal, Served by the deepest channels on the East Coast, Norfolk is the logical first stop for a generation of massive new ships; after unloading cargo there, ships rise in the water enough to navigate shallower channels in other ports. As part of a $670 million expansion plan, the Virginia Port Authority is ordering four massive cranes capable of reaching across a vessel that is 26 containers wide.

Blue on Blue. In the aftermath of the fatal white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, city government has descended into vituperative in-fighting almost as anarchic as the protests and counter-protests themselves. The proximate cause is a controversy over who to blame for the police department’s failure (or unwillingness) to intervene to shut down the demonstrations before violence broke out. Did someone order the police to “stand down”? Mayor Mike Signer, City Manager Maurice Jones, and Police Chief Al Thomas are all in major ass-covering mode. Angry citizens shut down a Council meeting. Documents are leaking. Fingers are pointing. Read the latest installment in the Daily Progress here.