All results / Stories / Kenneth R. “Ken” Plum, State Delegate (D-36)
Opinion: Commentary: COVID Relief
The General Assembly is meeting this week and possibly a few days next week to appropriate the federal COVID-Relief fund made available through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).
Opinion: Commentary: Changing Face of Virginia
The results of the 2020 U.S. Census remind us that the world around us changes in more ways than we might consciously detect or understand.
Column: Spending Plan Approved
The General Assembly passed a spending plan for FY2012-2014 last week in a session that had much more drama than most meetings of the state’s legislature. One Democratic Senator changed his vote after the budget had failed to pass in order that the constitutionally required majority could be reached; a Republican Senator got a State Police escort back to the Capitol from visiting his wife in the hospital in order that he could vote. By a one vote margin the $85 billion spending plan for the next biennium was approved.
Commentary: Plenty of Money
Reading a letter Governor McDonnell sent to state employees or listening to a speech he gave to the General Assembly money committees last week you could conclude that Virginia state government has plenty of money. He told both, “For the fourth straight year the commonwealth will enjoy a budget surplus! We concluded Fiscal Year 2013 with a total budget surplus of $585 million, the largest since 2005. Over the full four years of my term, Virginia has enjoyed a cumulative surplus of nearly $2 billion—the highest cumulative surplus of any single administration.”
Commentary: Marching With a Purpose
I was in college in 1963 in Norfolk, Va. when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. made his now famous “I Have a Dream” speech. While I agreed fully with the purpose of the March on Washington, I did not have the money nor was I resourceful enough to make my way to Washington, D.C. to participate. I did not have any sense of the importance the march would have or the eloquence of one of the many speakers that day that would resonate through history. Last week I took part in both the “National Action to Realize the Dream March” on Aug. 24, and in the “50th Anniversary March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom” last Wednesday, Aug. 28.
Commentary: Lessons to Be Learned From Others
For many years I used North Carolina as a state that I thought Virginia should emulate. As another southern state, North Carolina was showing Virginia up in its commitment to improving the quality of life of its residents through investments, particularly in education. North Carolina’s appropriation for its university system was at least quadruple the amount per student as Virginia’s. Its preschool program was a model for the country. The state recognized early the importance of the high technology industries and was very successful in attracting new businesses to the Research Triangle.
Commentary: Forging a Future Path
Over the next couple of decades Virginia will have many more job openings for educated professionals and skilled technicians than there are persons in the pipeline to fill them, according to Northern Virginia Community College President Robert Templin speaking at “Blueprint Virginia,” an annual economic summit in Northern Virginia last week.
Much Remains to Be Done
Commentary
I grew up in my early years in a racially segregated Virginia. The State Constitution had a provision stating, “Mixed schools prohibited. White and colored children shall not be taught in the same school.”
Commentary: Measure of Being Poor in Virginia
I have always maintained that the poor in Northern Virginia are worse off than others living in less affluent parts of the state because the cost of living is higher in this region. The difference can be most clearly seen in the cost of housing; and there have been many notable efforts on the part of local governments to increase the stock of workforce, affordable housing. The traffic coming into Northern Virginia from the west and south is made up largely of people who cannot afford housing in the area.
Commentary
Endorsements
About 70 percent of Virginians voted in the last two presidential elections when President Barack Obama carried the state as the first Democrat to do so since Lyndon Johnson won the Old Dominion. In the gubernatorial election in 2009 voter turnout was half that number with the expectation that voter participation in the election on Nov. 5 will also be light. While the presidential elections get a lot of attention and high participation, statewide elections do not attract as many voters. In many ways, voters who stay home are pushing off their responsibility in voting to a group of people unknown to them who do bother to vote. Such a situation can lead to a small group of highly motivated voters swinging the outcome of an election. Please encourage your family, co-workers and neighbors to participate as the consequences of the election are critically important to the future of the commonwealth, and we each need to take part in the decision.
Column: The Nature of Virginia
Governor-elect Terry McAuliffe hit the ground running when the day after his election he announced his transition team and a webpage at which he solicits ideas and suggestions and invites resumes from those who want to work in his administration: http://action.terrymcauliffe.com/page/s/transition.
Tolls Must Have Limits
The notion that the user of a public service should be the one to pay for it makes sense in theory. But when the service is a roadway and the payments are tolls, the system can feel a bit unfair and clearly needs limits. It made sense when I voted to approve an authority in the early 1980s to build a toll road in the Dulles Corridor to provide traffic congestion relief for western Fairfax County and to open the area for economic development. Using the toll method of financing meant that we got the road and expanded it decades before it would have been considered through the usual methods of road financing. It even made some sense that toll collections be used as a percentage of financing for the extension of Metrorail in the corridor, since the mass transit system would help relieve future traffic congestion on the Toll Road. But there has to be limits on the use of tolls, and clearly the level of tolls proposed for the Dulles Toll Road is too high.
Commentary: Reflections on the Elections
“Oh, no!” many may exclaim at the idea of hearing any more about the elections. But I believe it is instructive for the future to consider what happened and why. As residents of a battleground state, Virginians were inundated with telephone calls, television ads and slick mailers. Interestingly, the guys who spent the most money did not win. Virginia is a state that had just a few years ago elected Republicans to its top three statewide offices, majorities in the House and Senate, and eight of its 11 congressional representatives. Yet President Obama won the state handily. And former Governor Tim Kaine won a seat in the U.S. Senate even though 30 million in outside dollars were spent against him. How can this happen? Some of my thoughts on the question follow.
Column: Learning from My Own Education
My high school alma mater, Shenandoah High School, is no longer a high school. The building with an addition is now Shenandoah Elementary School. Children who would have attended the high school now attend the consolidated Page County High School.
Column: Clash of Ideas and Ideals
As the General Assembly nears its midpoint for consideration of proposed legislation, the fissures of differences among the many stakeholders who have interests before the law-making body become evident. The clash of interests is much more complex than House v. Senate, Republicans v. Democrats, or rural v. suburban. Differences in ideas and ideals make compromise challenging.
Saved by the Feds
Commentary
As I wrote in a column several months ago, Virginia has historically ceded decisions to federal authorities on major issues on which the state had been unwilling to move forward, despite the Commonwealth's historic antipathy toward the federal government.
Column: What Price Business?
Last month Governor Terry McAuliffe announced that Virginia will participate in the Business Incentives Initiative, a joint project of The Pew Charitable Trusts (PEW) and the Center for Regional Economic Competitiveness (CREC) and six other states (Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Oklahoma and Tennessee) to “reform economic development incentive reporting policies and practices.” While millions of dollars are spent on tax incentives and grants to lure business to Virginia each year, there is no evidence that the programs are actually working as intended. There is a national debate across the country about the necessity and value of tax incentives to encourage economic development.