Commercial RE Tanking in D.C. Too
The commercial real estate crash has been coming for a while.
The Washington Examiner reportst that as much as a quarter of D.C.-area commercial real estate space is empty.
The Washington area’s office buildings are being abandoned in droves, with some vital business areas seeing up to one-quarter of their space empty, and experts are predicting it will be years before the market rebounds.
About 15 percent of office space is vacant across the Washington area, but some major business corridors are seeing vacancies as high as 25 percent, according to analysts at the commercial real estate firm Grubb & Ellis.
More than 26 percent of space in the biotech corridor in Gaithersburg and Germantown is empty, the Route 7 corridor from Alexandria to Loudoun is more than 25 percent vacant, and the information technology-heavy Herndon and Reston have 23 percent vacancy rates, Grubb & Ellis found in its most recent study of the area.
In Northern Virginia alone, some 60 buildings have no tenants at all.
The trouble is that, unlike the housing market, which at least shows signs of having bottomed out, commercial real estate continues to slide.
Rappahannock River Canal
Took the doggy for a long walk along the Rappahannock River today. We usually head downstream toward the confluence with the Rapidan, but today I decided to wander upstream to check out the old canal locks that are usually hidden by the forest.
Now that the leaves are down, the going is a lot easier.
Here are some pics of two of the locks that were on the canal, which was built prior to the War of Northern Aggression (that would be the Civil War for you Yankees).
A lock on the old canal, looking downstream.
Same lock from the other direction.
Completed about the time of the war and intended as a means of bringing grain and other agricultural products from Central and Western Virginia to Fredericksburg, the canal never made a profit.
The advent of the locomotive was the final nail in the coffin and the canal went bankrupt and was eventually abandoned.
All that remains are the locks and the earthen embankments, now well hidden along the river. Most of the larger rapids on the Rappahannock from above Kelly’s Ford to Fredericksburg are the remains of dams that were built to aide navigation.
Close up of the stone work on the lock
Here’s another lock a little ways up river from the one above. This one had about foot of water in it from recent rains.
Water filled lock on the Rappahannock River
Finally, another shot of the first lock.
A lock on the Rappahannock River canal
More stone work
Across the river from this area are the ruins of a grist mill that was in operation in the mid-19th century. Only the foundation stones remain.
The locks are located here.
Two Out of Six
According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch two of Virginia’s six Democrats voted against SanFranNan’s healthcare debacle. All five of the Commonwealth’s Republican representatives voted against the bill.
Two of the six Democrats in Virginia’s congressional delegation last night voted against President Barack Obama’s 10-year, $1.2 trillion health-care reform plan.
Reps. Glenn Nye, D-2nd, and Rick Boucher, D-9th, were the only Virginia lawmakers to break ranks with their parties.
Nye, who serves Hampton Roads, said in a statement that the bill does not sufficiently cut health-care costs that are harming families and small businesses.
“Although this version of the bill takes important steps to lower the deficit in the short term, the [Congressional Budget Office] has said that it does not address the fundamental problem of reducing skyrocketing health-care costs,” Nye said.
Boucher, in his 14th term serving Southwest Virginia, gave the briefest of floor statements, saying: “I rise in opposition.” He requested permission to revise and extend his remarks in the written record.
Democrats Robert. C. Scott, D-3rd, Tom Perriello, D-5th, James P. Moran, D-8th and Gerald E. Connolly, D-11th, backed the measure.
All five Virginia Republicans voted against the bill. They are Reps. Robert J. Wittman, R-1st, J. Randy Forbes, R-4th, Robert W. Goodlatte, R-6th, Eric I. Cantor, R-7th, and Frank R. Wolf, R-10th.
Elections have consequences, and one of the big results of last weeks GOP landslide in Virginia is a new nervousness among the state’s Democrat caucus to support The Obama and his policies.
Maybe last night’s passage of the healthcare bill will be a watershed moment leading to a complete removal of the current Congress at the 2010 elections.
VA Congressional Delegation on ObamaCare
The Washington Examiner checks on Virginia’s congressional delegation and how they plan or have voted on the SanFranNan’s healthcare bill.
Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., who represents Northern Virginia, announced he will vote for the health care bill. Connolly had been on the fence, in part because his district is a bit purple. It voted for Republican Bob McDonnell on Tuesday by a healthy margin after being solidly Democratic in recent cycles.
But Connolly, president of the House freshman class, said Saturday that the bill was needed to protect families from bankruptcy caused by catastrophic illness and being denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions.
Virginia’s 11-member House delegation is getting lots of attention today as people watch for fallout from Tuesday’s landslide win by McDonnell.
All six Republicans are opposed and liberal Democrats Bobby Scott and Jim Moran are enthusiastic yes votes. Add Connolly to that mix and you have six nays and three yeas. The remaining three Democrats are where things get interesting. Southwest Virginia’s Rick Boucher, and freshmen Democrats Glenn Nye and Tom Perriello, who both represent districts that switched from red to blue in the Obama surge last year, all represent districts in which McDonnell rolled up big victories.
Nye announced today that he was voting against the bill because of concerns about costs to small businesses and cuts to Medicare.
Perriello, considered one of the most vulnerable Democrats in the nation next year, has been on the fence for weeks but has made some approving gestures in recent days, agreeing with Connolly’s argument that liberal voters will stay home if Democrats fail to act on health care.
But unlike Connolly, who represents one of the wealthiest districts in the nation, Perriello represents a mostly rural district in which black voters surged to the polls to cast their ballots for Barack Obama, carrying the Yale-educated NGO executive to victory. McCain only won the district by 3 points, as opposed to George W. Bush’s 13-point margin there in 2004.
Boucher has been less encouraging about the Pelosi bill. He’s more conservative in general and though he’s not really considered vulnerable after eight terms, his mountainous district went almost 70 percent for McDonnell and almost 60 percent for John McCain in 2008.
Right now, it looks like the Virginia Democrats are three yeas, one nay, one leaning against and one leaning for.
UPDATE: Boucher just made it official on the House floor. He’s a no.The Virginia Democrats are three yeas, two nays and one undecided.
I sent an email to my representative, Rep. Rob Wittman (R-1st) asking him to vote against the bill and to vote for any bans on abortion funding.
Vote Fraud in N.J.
John Fund of the Wall Street Journal speculates on the role of absentee ballots and vote fraud in tomorrow’s New Jersey governor’s race:
The race for governor in New Jersey is so close in final polls that it may well end up in a recount — the 1981 election did and was decided by less than 1,800 votes. If there is a recount, you can bet disputes about absentee ballots will loom large. Moreover, if serious allegations of fraud emerge, you can also expect less-than-vigorous investigation by the Obama Justice Department — which showed just how seriously it takes such allegations when it walked away from an open-and-shut voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party in Philadelphia earlier this year.
Plenty of reasons exist for suspecting absentee fraud may play a significant role in tomorrow’s Garden State contests. Groups associated with Acorn in neighboring Pennsylvania and New York appear to have moved into the state. An independent candidate for mayor in Camden has already leveled charges that voter fraud is occurring in his city. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party in New Jersey is taking advantage of a new loosely written vote-by-mail law to pressure county clerks not to vigorously use signature checks to evaluate the authenticity of absentee ballots, the only verification procedure allowed.
The state has received a flood of 180,000 absentee ballot requests. On some 3,000 forms the signature doesn’t match the one on file with county clerks. Yet citing concerns that voters would be disenfranchised, Democratic Party lawyer Paul Josephson wrote New Jersey’s secretary of state asking her “to instruct County Clerks not to deny applications on the basis of signature comparison alone.” Mr. Josephson maintained that county clerks “may be overworked and are likely not trained in handwriting analysis” and insisted that voters with suspect applications should be allowed to cast provisional ballots. Those ballots, of course, would then provide a pool of votes that would be subject to litigation in any recount, with the occupant of New Jersey’s highest office determined by Florida 2000-style scrutiny of ballot applications.
According to Fund, a member of the Atlantic City council and 13 campaign workers were indicted in September of conspiring to commit vote fraud with absentee ballots. One worker pled guilty in October, Fund wrote, and in Newark, N.J., five others were indicted on similar charges.
The column goes on to talk about Camden, N.J., where more than 15 times the normal number of voters are voting absentee this time around. In 2000 when Camden voters chose both a mayor and governor, only 200 absentee ballots were received, this time around 3,700 votes have been received.
Fund says at least four voters have complained that an absentee ballot was sent to them without their having asked for one, or ballots were cast without their permission.
There are additional reports from Camden that Hispanic voters have been misled into voting absentee ballots. So-called bearers who are allowed to collect and carry absentee ballots are said to have encouraged voters to fill out applications for absentee ballots. A few days later, the bearers reportedly return with the actual ballots, which they offer “assistance” in filling out.
I smell that vast criminal enterprise known as Acorn…
Elsewhere, an investigation is being conducted into a report that people wearing Acorn T-shirts entered an East Orange hospital near Newark carrying blank absentee ballots and left with completed ballots. New Jersey law allows anyone to pick up an absentee ballot for someone else — these are called messenger ballots.
Thought so.
Although I don’t know for sure, but I suspect similar shenanigans are going on here in the Commonwealth of Virginia given the large number of absentee ballots that have been cast ahead election day tomorrow.
Vote Fraud in Va?
Washington Times has a story today claiming that more absentee votes were filed in this year’s Virginia governor’s race than four years ago.
More voters had submitted early ballots in Virginia’s gubernatorial election before Saturday, the final day for in-person absentee voting, than had cast early ballots in the state’s 2005 contest, officials say.
The increase from about 76,000 total ballots cast early in 2005 to nearly 80,000 votes cast as of Friday, according to the Virginia State Board of Elections, could signal a higher turnout for this year’s contest between Republican Robert F. McDonnell and Democrat R. Creigh Deeds.
Nancy Rodriques, secretary of the State Board of Elections, said, “Were hoping for at least a 50 percent turnout,” but she added that the board would welcome a higher number of voters.
The reason for the increase in ballots could be changes to Virginia’s voting laws and that more people know they can vote absentee, Ms. Rodrigues said.
Despite polls showing Mr. McDonnell leading Mr. Deeds comfortably, voters came out to cast absentee ballots in Alexandria and across the state Saturday.
Absentee ballots are one of the chief sources of last minute, come-from-behind votes that have propelled losing Democrat candidates to election wins. And, 80,000 votes are enough to swing an election, especially if it’s a tight one.
Bob McDonnell’s lead over Creigh Deeds right now seems great enough to offset any Democrat chicanery, but who knows. With their history of stealing elections, you can never be sure.
Would not be a huge surprise to see a decisive win by McDonnell this coming Tuesday whittled down in the subsequent days as absentee ballots are counted, recounted, and counted again.
All the more reason for conservatives, Tea Party folks and Republicans to overwhelm polling places on election day. It’s much harder to steal an election against an opponent who winds by a landslide.
The Obama Effect
The Obama wandered across the river the other day to spread a little HopeNChange on the Creigh Deeds for governor campaign.
The result?
Republican Robert F. McDonnell has now opened a 13-point lead over Democrat R. Creigh Deeds with less than a week to go in the race for governor of Virginia.
The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the state – taken last night just after President Obama made a campaign appearance for Deeds in the state – shows McDonnell ahead 54% to 41%. Only four percent (4%) remain undecided.
Prediction:
Should McDonnell prevail next week, the election will be viewed by the media and liberal punditry as a sign of a poor candidate (Creigh Deeds) and his ineffective campaign, not as a referendum on The Obama’s dreadful first 10 months in office. Nor will McDonnell’s win be seen as the result of a conservative groundswell in opposition to the president and congressional Democrats.
If Deeds should manage to pull off a miracle and win the Va. governor’s race, the election will called a stunning public affirmation of The Obama and his agenda. Conservatives and tea party folks will be written off as powerless cranks.
Shocka: WaPo Endorses Deeds
As Gomer Pyle would say, “surprise, surprise,” the Washington Post today endorsed Democrat Creigh Deeds for governor of Virginia over Republican Bob McDonnell.
If the current campaign for governor has clarified anything, it is that state Sen. R. Creigh Deeds, the Democratic nominee, has the good sense and political courage to maintain the forward-looking policies of the past while addressing the looming challenge of fixing the state’s dangerously inadequate roads.
Translation:
Forward-looking policies of the past = raising taxes.
Addressing the looming challenge = raise taxes.
What a winning platform, and one likely to draw the votes of forward looking progressives in Northern Virginia, Richmond and Hampton Roads.
In fact, it is Mr. Deeds whose ideas hold the promise of a prosperous future.
Prosperous future = more taxes.
Yep, that’s the key to a thriving economy, raising taxes during a depression.
Dirty Deeds
Now here’s an example of how to fight politically.
The Republican Party of Virginia produced this spot on Democrat gubnatorial candidate Creep Creigh Deeds, who’s been slinging some pretty heavy mud these past several weeks.
From NRO:
When your name is Creigh Deeds, your opposition is going to be awfully tempted to use the AC/DC song.
When you run a negative campaign, you kind of invite it.
And:
Look, if Deeds had prompted the opposition to play “Highway to Hell,” that’s the closest he would have come to generating an actual transportation plan.
Nice.
Moron Vs. Moron…
Errr, sorry typo, should have read Moran vs. Moran…
Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) is OK with The Obama’s plans to bring terrorists held in military jails overseas home to Alexandria, Va., just a stone’s throw from the Nation’s Capital.
His brother, Brian, also a Democrat, who also wants to be governor of the Commonwealth, is a regular portrait in political courage. Asked about his brother’s position on bringing terrorists to Va., Brian boldly declared he’d decided not to decide.
From The Washington Times:
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Brian Moran declared Wednesday that he won’t decide whether to oppose detainees coming to his state until he sees what President Obama has to say, refusing to take a stand on an issue that his elder brother, Rep. James P. Moran, put into play last weekend.
Mr. Moran’s gubernatorial competitors have sought to capitalize on an op-ed by James Moran, who wrote that residents of his Alexandria district should be willing to see some of the terrorism suspects detained in a local facility if that proves necessary.
But Brian Moran, pressed for two days to comment on his brother’s article, provided a written statement to The Washington Times saying, “I have tremendous confidence in the leadership of President Obama. I look forward to his recommended plans and will evaluate them once they are released.”
Now, I think we should not be holding the detainees indefinitely, either overseas or at home. Try ‘em, convict ‘em and shoot ‘em. Or let them go — somewhere else besides the U.S. of A.
In any case, I certainly don’t want them in Virginia. Not in my part of Virginia. But the Democrats in No.Va. are as stupid as the one in the White House.
Virginia’s Share of the Pork
Stimulus Watch has a state-by-state breakdown on “shovel ready” projects funded by the federal pork bill.
Here’s a link to what Virginia’s getting from the bill, which includes funding for a Rappahannock River Heritage trail system, the Embry Dam/Canal trail, and the Riverfront Park in Fredericksburg.
The bill would fund 400 projects in the Commonwealth, which puts Virginia pretty much in the middle of the pack in terms of the number projects funded.
States with the greatest number of projects are California with 1971 projects, Florida with 1752, and Illinois with 1031. Here’s the list from Stimulus Watch with links to each state’s projects.
Alaska (46 projects) Alabama (318 projects) Arkansas (199 projects) Arizona (743 projects) California (1971 projects) Colorado (201 projects) Connecticut (449 projects) Washington, D.C. (8 projects) Delaware (7 projects) Florida (1752 projects) Georgia (266 projects) Hawaii (316 projects) Iowa (51 projects) Idaho (348 projects) Illinois (1031 projects) Indiana (713 projects) Kansas (139 projects) Kentucky (524 projects) Louisiana (433 projects) Massachusetts (266 projects) Maryland (54 projects) Maine (72 projects) Michigan (782 projects) Minnesota (335 projects) Missouri (403 projects) Mississippi (552 projects) Montana (57 projects) North Carolina (319 projects) North Dakota (61 projects) Nebraska (154 projects) New Jersey (261 projects) New Mexico (215 projects) Nevada (163 projects) New York (289 projects) Ohio (847 projects) Oklahoma (223 projects) Oregon (159 projects) Pennsylvania (352 projects) Puerto Rico (340 projects) Rhode Island (116 projects) South Carolina (271 projects) South Dakota (30 projects) Tennessee (103 projects) Texas (1240 projects) Utah (298 projects) Virginia (400 projects) Vermont (61 projects) Washington (368 projects) Wisconsin (358 projects) West Virginia (1 projects) Wyoming (85 projects)
Nothing New
At bit of a loss this morning on what to write about. Nothing interest me in the news or at any of my favorite blogs.
I’ve been perusing facebook and myspace. Lots of weirdness there, but nothing worth the energy to comment on.
It’s raining here at the international border between NoVa and Real Virginia. I was going to take the dog for a run down on the river, but it’s raining, there’s no gas in the truck and no money in my wallet.
SIGH.
Supposed to rain all day. And again tomorrow. Perhaps the day after too.
SIGH
Time for a Conservative Party
Politico has a column about prominent conservative Republicans planning a top secret meeting in the Northern Virginian home of some big deal conservative to talk about the future of the conservative movement during the next administration, whether McCain or Obama.
The decision to waste no time in plotting their moves in the post-Bush era reflects the widely-held view among many on the right, and elsewhere, that the GOP is heading toward major losses next week.
One of the topics of discussion will be how to fashion a “national grassroots political and policy coalition similar to the out Reagan years,” said the attendee, a reference to the development of the so-called New Right apparatus following Jimmy Carter’s 1976 victory and Reagan’s election four years later.
“There’s a sense that the Republican Party is broken, but the conservative movement is not,” said this source, suggesting that it was the betrayal of some conservative principles by Bush and congressional leaders that led to the party’s decline.
George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Bob Dole and John McCain, all non-conservative Republican presidents or president wannabes have been the death of the Republican Party. Joining them in driving the party into obscurity are the moderate to liberal senators like Sen. John Warner and just about every other Republican popinjay in the Senate.
Here in the Commonwealth of Virginia, the old blue blood Republicans consistently sabotage any authentic conservative who tries to run for statewide office. Their treachery during the Oliver North, Mike Farris and George Allen campaigns is legendary.
Likewise the Republican Party of Virginia is pretty much useless. Just look at the Jim Gilmore for Senate campaign. Oh, you mean there’s a Republican running for Senate this year? Gilmore, you say? No car tax, huge budget deficit, that Gilmore? Now there’s a winner.
I gave up on the Va. Republican Party years ago when liberals in the county cheated me out of my committee seat. At the time I was told I lost by one vote, 11 to 10. Tough luck. Two years later I learned that there were 20 votes cast by the time the polls closed, 10 for me, 10 for my opponent.
The deciding vote materialized after the counting was done and was cast by my opponent’s daughter, who happened to live in another county. (Yes, in case you’re wondering, that is one of the reaons I so dispise vote fraud.)
As I’ve said before I wasn’t even going to vote in this current election because of McCain, a guy who got the REPUBLICAN nomination by getting non-Republicans to vote for him in the REPUBLICAN primaries. Although McCain isn’t nearly as loathsome as Barack Obama, it wasn’t until he chose a real conservative as his running mate that I decided to vote for him.
So now a bunch of conservative Republican bigwigs are going to plot the future of the conservative movement in exile. I hope that future has less to do with the Republican Party and is more focused on creating an alternative party.
The American Conservative Party is becoming the more attractive alternative. Check them out here.
VA Doesn’t Love Free Speech
The Virginia State Board of Elections (SBE) yesterday stomped on the free speech rights of Commonwealth citizens by banning the wearing of campaign buttons, hats, t-shirts and other paraphernalia by voters entering the polls on election day.
Now we’re not talking about electioneering activities, such as handing out leaflets, sample ballots, candidate buttons and the like, that is permitted outside a 40-foot radius of a polling place. Those activities have been prohibited inside the voting area for ages.
But, individual voters have, until the other day, been able to wear buttons or hats and such bearing the name of their favorite candidates or causes inside the election. They may not advocate or campaign on behalf of their candidate while voting, but merely wearing the candidate’s name has never been illegal.
Until now. The SBE released this notice yesterday:
The State Board of Elections met Tuesday, October 14 to clarify the interpretation of section 24.2-604 of the Code of Virginia which states it is unlawful for any person to exhibit campaign materials within 40 feet of any entrance to a polling place.
The Board upheld the Code and interpreted the phrase to mean no person shall display any material which advocates for or against a clearly identified candidate. Any person who does show or exhibit these materials will be asked to remove or cover it until they leave the prohibited area and polling place. This law has been in place for many years.
Nothing in the policy prohibits any person from bringing campaign materials, but these materials cannot be exhibited within 40 feet of any entrance of any polling place. However, within the actual polling place itself, no voter will be able to influence a fellow voter for a particular candidate.
Voters can help speed up the election process by not wearing or bringing any potential campaign materials inside the polls.
I don’t know for sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the SBE took this action to prevent Obama partisans working at the polling places on election day (either working for the county administering the polling place or independently) from openly campaigning for their guy as voters are actually voting. I can easily imagine, given the Acorn and other shenanigans by Obama’s hordes, the messiah’s minions intimidating fellow voters, particularly in heavily Democrat precincts.
According to World Net Daily, John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute has written a letter to the SBE threatening to sue if the new policy isn’t reversed.
In his letter to Jean Cunningham, chairman of the SBE, Whitehead said, “This statutory attempt to protect voters from political harassment is a far cry from doing away with free speech altogether, especially the kind of passive political expression exhibited on apparel, buttons or other paraphernalia that is now being targeted for censorship by the SBE.”
Whitehead said his institute already has been contacted by numerous individuals who are concerned that if they choose to exercise their constitutionally protected rights of the freedom of speech and expression, they will be denied the right to vote.
“Political speech is essential to and is the essence of self-government,” Whitehead said. “It is for this reason that the protections afforded to expression under the law have the fullest and most urgent application to speech that relate to politics. In no way does passive political speech as expressed on clothing, buttons, stickers or other paraphernalia threaten the order of polling places or the freedom of other voters to cast their ballots according to the conscience,” he said.
Meanwhile the SBE says Virginia has had a record number of new voters register this election cycle.
Since January, Virginia has experienced a net gain of 436,000 new voters for November’s election. This is the largest surge in voter registration that Virginia has ever experienced. The State Board of Elections and registrar’s offices throughout the state received an onslaught of new voter registrations prior to the October 6 deadline. Virginia’s total number of registered voters is now 5,021,993.
State officials say about 40% of new voters are less than 25-years-old and most registered voters in Virginia are female.
I wonder how many of them are dead people, college students, non-state residents or just plain non-existent. Voter fraud ala the Obama/Acorn campaign in rampant across the country. Won’t be surprising if a fair amount of these new voters turn out to be phony too.
No worries, eh? Just watch out for those ”I love Sarah” hats.
Virginia Loves Pork
Citizens Against Government Waste yesterday published its “2008 Congressional Pig Book,” which lists the thousands of additional items stuffed into appropriations bills by members of Congress for the benefit of their individual districts.The Pig Book lists 11,610 projects costing $17.2 billion that are squirreled away in 12 appropriations bills before the current Congress. CAGW calls pork “a line-item in an appropriations bill that designates tax dollars for a specific purpose in circumvention of established budgetary procedures.”
“When Congress adopted earmark reforms last year, there was hope that the number and cost of earmarks would be cut in half. By any measure, that has not occurred,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz.
To qualify as pork, “a project must meet one of seven criteria that were developed in 1991 by CAGW and the Congressional Porkbusters Coalition.”
The seven criteria are: requested by only one chamber of Congress, not specifically authorized, not competitively awarded, not requested by the President, greatly exceeds the President’s budget request or the previous year’s funding, not the subject of congressional hearings, or serves only a local or special interest.
The Congressional Pig Book is available on the organization’s website, where you can search through the data by congress member, state, party, appropriations bill and keyword.
For fun, I entered a search for pork designated for the ole’ Commonwealth of Virginia, which I’ve called home for most of my life. In the 2008 appropriations bills there are 255 items bringing $326,488,200 to the state.
Of the Virginia total, $61,100,000 is targeted for defense related items such as the $5 million for an undersea launched missile study for the Navy, $800,000 for the Army Air Warrior procurement, and $1.6 million for the Navy’s Maritime Identification Surveillance Technology.
Also, among defense spending, proposed mostly by Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va. 8th District), is $6 million for the curiously named National Media Exploitation Center for “intelligence.” All told there are 33 defense related projects.
Transportation gets $79,502,500 for 45 projects, more than half ($47,295,388) designated for Northern Virginia. However, when you drill down into the NoVa portion you find some curious “transportation” projects such as $49,000 for a park in Annandale, $196,000 for an Arlington low-income housing project, $294,000 for the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Washington, and $98,000 for sidewalks in Vienna.
While I wonder how the good work of the Boys & Girls Club is transportation related, what really bugs me are the handouts for Annandale and Vienna. According to Wikipedia, using 2000 Census data, Annandale families on average made $80,459 a year. In Vienna, families brought in $93,043 per year.
Why can’t the million plus dollar home neighborhoods of Vienna themselves pay for sidewalks for Pete’s sake. And, how does a park in Annandale, also one of the wealthier areas of the state, even the nation, deserve a congressional appropriation for its little park?
In case you’re wondering, Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va. 11th District) slipped the Boys & Girls Club gift, as wells as the pork for Annandale and Vienna into the transportation appropriations bill.
While we’re on the subject of transportation largess, other dubious additions include: $294,000 for the Wayne Theatre Alliance, $245,000 to replace awnings of the “historic market” in downtown Roanoke, and $294,000 for South Hill’s “historic Colonial Theatre.” Other transportation funds would go for museums in Suffolk and Newport News, the Lynchburg Academy of Fine Arts, an Eastern Shore community center, a Suffolk community center and a Halifax County Historical Society exhibit.