Tag: Dick Hall-Sizemore
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Exercising Your Second Amendment Right
Interesting scenario: You are doing some shopping in Walmart. Alarmed by the recent nationwide shootings, you are carrying your recently legally authorized concealed handgun. A man walks in, carrying an assault-style rifle and a handgun strapped to his side, along with several magazines of ammunition. This also is legal in Virginia. What do you do?…
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Recidivism Revisited
As has been noted in previous posts on this blog (here and here), the latest three-year recidivism rate of offenders released from the Virginia Department of Corrections (DOC) was the lowest in the nation. In fact, DOC had the lowest rate in the nation for the last three reporting periods. DOC can justly be proud…
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Speaking of Mental Health–Virginia has a Crisis
The Commonwealth is experiencing a crisis in its mental health system. The situation is the result of some positive initiatives of the General Assembly, coupled with the legislature’s reluctance to provide the funding needed to deal with the results of those initiatives. The crisis is an acute shortage of mental health treatment beds. Around the…
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Weldon Cooper Revisited
In a recent post of Steve’s, members of this blog got into an extended discussion of the methodology used by the Weldon Cooper Center at UVa. to evaluate the effect of tax incentives, specifically its projecting the “impact of raising income taxes by the amount exempted.” As promised, I contacted a senior executive at…
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JLARC and the Virginia Cloud
Some years ago, the General Assembly made considerable use of the time between sessions. There were special study commissions that met fairly frequently, as well as meetings of subcommittees of standing committees. For various reasons, that does not happen much now. As a result, the legislature has struggle with tough issues, with little time for…
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Density as an Answer
It seems that our leader, Jim Bacon, is on the cutting edge of new thinking about how to address the rising cost of housing. (Of course, this is no surprise to BR readers.) An article in yesterday’s New York Times describes how planners, economists, and environmentalists across the country have begun to advocate more density.…
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Constitutional Officers–The Solutions
As I indicated in an earlier post, I will propose some alternatives to the elected constitutional officer system currently in place in Virginia. Commenters to that post have already suggested the same solutions I will set out, with the exception of one office. Treasurer and Commissioner of the Revenue—abolished, with each city and county authorized…
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Constitutional Officers–The Problem
Our recent discussion of the primary elections and an incidental comment by Steve Haner were the catalysts to get me to develop a posting that I had been mulling over for awhile. The system of elected administrative officers established in the Virginia Constitution for local governments needs to be abolished. These officers, called constitutional officers…
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What is Going On?
Can someone from Northern Virginia please tell me what is going on when almost a million dollars is being raised in each of two primary contests for Commonwealth’s Attorney? I can understand the money being raised, as reported by VPAP, in the primary for chairman of the Fairfax Board of Supervisors. That is a political…
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The Waters Increased Greatly upon the Earth
Over the past decade or so, as I traveled with my family to Sandbridge Beach, I watched in amazement, and a touch of disbelief, as large, upscale houses sprouted from the landscape that was once flat, treeless farmland. The development was Asheville Park. It was approved in 2004 for 499 homes on 474 acres. The…
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Ain’t No Negatives Here
In the recent past, the website of the Virginia Economic Development Partnership (VEDP) featured a prominent dashboard or scoreboard showing the cumulative number of jobs “created” since the beginning of the current administration. Governors used these numbers when touting their economic development programs. It did not matter that these were jobs projected, not necessarily available…
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Staying Within the Debt Capacity
I am following up on an earlier post discussing the capital budget recommendations of the Governor and the Commonwealth’s debt capacity. Jim Bacon’s recent post discussing Secretary of Finance Aubrey Layne’s worries about increasing debt also dealt with this general issue. Guided by Secretary Layne, the Governor’s introduced budget was relatively conservative in its capital…
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Tourist Storm Protection
According to a story in Saturday’s Virginian Pilot, Virginia Beach is slated for more beach widening this summer. The total cost of the project is $22.6 million, with the federal government providing $14.7 million (65 percent) and the city of Virginia Beach paying the remaining $7.9 million. The newspaper article says that this project is…
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Dumping, Again, on the Lowest-Paid Folks
A recent article in the Washington Post highlights an issue I alluded to in my recent post on government outsourcing functions. To summarize: The Alexandria school superintendent’s budget proposal called for eliminating 30 custodian positions and outsourcing the jobs to a private company. (The system already contracts with private companies for custodial services in many…
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Contracting Out MH Transportation Not Best Choice
The Richmond Times-Dispatch has a front-page article today that raises many questions. It reports that the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services (DBHDS) has entered into a two-year, $7 million contract with a private company to transport persons, who have been temporarily detained, to hospitals or mental health facilities for evaluation of being involuntarily…