The Jefferson Journal
Commentary
Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of Virginia households have fallen behind on their electricity, natural gas, and water service bills in the COVID-19 recession, with no fear (yet) of being disconnected. The moratorium on disconnections is now scheduled to end October 5. When the dust settles and the unpaid bills...
This analysis discusses a five-step approach to understanding and addressing the new challenges that preceded, and now are intensified by, the COVID-19 pandemic and economic events of this year. The way that we react to them will be crucial to the nation’s transportation capabilities in the future. The COVID-19 pandemic...
The Virginia Retirement System earned 1.4% on its $82 billion investment portfolio in fiscal year 2020, far below the long-term average of 6.75% the VRS Board of Trustees assumes that it will earn over the next 30 years, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch. VRS investments have returned 5.2% over the past...
A decade ago, I wrote a column in this space regarding a quality assurance process for professional architecture, engineering, surveying, mapping and related services codified in Federal law, and most state laws, including Virginia. The “Brooks Act”, the Federal law enacted in 1972, codified a process that provides for the...
With the Virginia General Assembly’s “Cops and COVID” special session moving into its third week, it seems likely to impede rather than assist the state’s economic recovery from the pandemic. It may also greatly expand COVID-19’s financial burdens in the years to come. The highly publicized issues of unpaid rents...
College students should be reimbursed if they don’t receive the full benefits they pay for in tuition, fees, room, and board, declares the Partners for College Affordability and Public Trust. “COVID-19 has illuminated the long over-due need for basic consumer protections for those who are struggling to pay for the...
The Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA), passed in April by the Virginia Assembly and signed into law by Governor Ralph Northam, provides both the legal framework for electric energy production in the Commonwealth for the forseeable future, and also prescribes the mandates which Dominion Energy must follow to carry out...
At this critical moment, Virginians – and all Americans – are depending on our health care system like never before, and they deserve access to affordable, high-quality health coverage and care. Unfortunately, some politicians are proposing a one-size-fits-all new government health insurance system called the public option that could have...
Perhaps the most important point about Governor Ralph Northam’s latest Virginia state budget proposal is what he did not recommend. He did not recommend dipping into the state’s current cash reserves to restore spending items which had been frozen. No additional taxes are propose In fact, Secretary of Finance Aubrey...
When Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney needed help taking down the city’s Confederate statues, he turned to Devon Henry, a prominent local construction contractor who had donated $4,000 to his 2016 mayoral campaign and political action committee. No local crane & rigging company in Virginia was willing to undertake the controversial...