Year: 2012
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BOV Day Reality Check
By Peter Galuszka In today’s run up to the decision on the future of University of Virginia President Teresa Sullivan, two printed items are of merit. Reading them sets the stage for the moment when we know if Rector Helen Dragas “gets it” or not, in the words of another blogger. One is an Associated…
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Finally, Good News on Immigration
By Peter Galuszka Long-simmering immigration issues are starting to bubble over now that the U.S. Supreme Court has given a partial victory in opposing Arizona’s racist law. The ruling follows a bold action by President Barack Obama to allow law-abiding young people who happen to be undocumented aliens to stay in this country. The court…
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Is Anyone Prepared to Tame UVa’s Bureaucracy?
by James A. Bacon Governor Bob McDonnell has delivered an ultimatum to the University of Virginia Board of Visitors: Get the Teresa Sullivan mess straightened out by Tuesday or he will replace the entire board. The governor, who long seemed disengaged from the controversy stemming from the forced resignation of the UVa president, now has…
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U.Va.’s Strange Greenwich Connection
By Peter Galuszka Although momentum grows to reinstate Teresa Sullivan, the embattled president of the University of Virginia, there are still some strange threads left hanging. One of the most curious involves the role of two Wahoo grads that are big deal hedge fund managers and live in tony Greenwich, Ct., the Gatsby town for…
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Addendum to the Pocahontas Parkway Post
I omitted from the original draft of the “Lessons from the Pocahontas Parkway Fiasco” one of the most important lessons learned. Having appended it to the original post, I reproduce it here for the benefit of those who might otherwise miss it: Lesson No. 4: Public-private partnerships create transparency. As a publicly traded company, Transurban…
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Lessons from the Pocahontas Parkway Fiasco
by James A. Bacon Transurban, the majority investor in the Pocahontas Parkway (Route 895) has learned the hard way that human settlement patterns hit a major inflection point during the 2007-2008 recession. Unlike most planners and politicians in Virginia, whose policy prescriptions presume that nothing fundamental has changed, the Australian infrastructure company has taken a…
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Incremental Change — or Glacial Change?
by James A. Bacon Many University of Virginia stakeholders have worked themselves into a righteous froth over the idea of privileged, out-of-touch political appointees on the Board of Visitors imposing their brand of corporate-style restructuring upon Mr. Jefferson’s University. University administrators are the best judges of how to allocate finite resources between competing academic priorities,…
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CTB Talks Tolls on Interstate 95
by James A. Bacon The Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB) is normally a pretty docile bunch, rubber stamping everything the McDonnell administration submits to it. So, when members pushed back Wednesday on a proposal to start tolling Interstate 95, it’s an indication that the Virginia Department of Transportation has a long slog ahead. “I’ve been getting…
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CTB Agrees to Subsidize Loudoun Real Estate Venture
by James A. Bacon The Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB) approved Wednesday an $80 million loan from the Virginia Transportation Infrastructure Bank to pay for transportation improvements relating to the 400-acre Kincora real estate development north of Washington Dulles International Airport. The proceeds will be used to extend Gloucester Parkway and Pacific Boulevard for the purpose…
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CTB Approves $80 Million Line of Credit for 460 Connector
by James A. Bacon The Commonwealth Transportation Board approved Wednesday the granting of an $80 million line of credit for the U.S. 460 Connector project. That sum will be subordinate to any bonds issues to pay for the road, meaning that if toll revenues fail to meet projections, the state funds will be tapped to…
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Cville Bypass Contract Approved
by James A. Bacon The Commonwealth Transportation Board awarded yesterday a $135 million contract to Skanska/Branch Highways for the design and construction of the Charlottesville Bypass. Board members voted without seeing a conceptual design, asking anything about cost-benefit trade-offs made by Skanska to submit the low bid, or knowing what changes may be required by…
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Reinstate Sullivan Now
By Peter Galuszka The best way the University of Virginia can get out of its surrealistic nightmare is to ask Rector Helen Dragas to resign and reinstate President Teresa Sullivan. It is possible to do so, provided Dragas is gone and the board votes again on Sullivan’s future by June 27. From the start, the…
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MWAA Gets its $150 Million in Extra State Funds
The Commonwealth Transportation Board approved Wednesday the allocation of $150 million in state funds to the Rail-for-Dulles project in fulfillment of a financing agreement worked out with the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, Fairfax County and Loudoun County last year. Of that sum, $100 million will come from old balances from Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT)…
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Online Degrees: The Rodney Monroe Case
By Peter Galuszka The tragedy of Teresa Sullivan at the University of Virginia has brought forward a number of arguments critical to the future of higher education. Some have merit; others do not. One of the squishier topics being pushed is that somehow Internet classwork is the future of colleges. It is being touted as…
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Exurbs in Agony
Here’s more data, as if it were needed, that the recovery of housing prices is very lumpy across the United States — not just uneven between metropolitan regions but within regions. Drawing upon the Zillow database, the Wall Street Journal plots the zip code-by-zip code disparity in changing housing prices. “The data paint a picture…