Monthly Archive: June 2009

Jun
30

Harnessing the Power of the Arts: Capitalizing on the Economic Power of the Creative Industry

icma-pm-magazineexcerpts from an October 2008 article by Robert Lynch, President and CEO, Americans for the Arts, Washington, D.C., originally published in the  ICMA (International City/County Management Association) Public Management Magazine.  ICMA is the premier local government leadership and management organization. Its mission is to create excellence in local governance by advocating and developing the professional management of local government worldwide.

The economic power of the arts is one of America’s best kept secrets.

They are not like a Fortune 500 company that you need to lure to set up business in your area. They are not a big sports team that demands huge tax breaks — and probably a new stadium or arena — to come to town. The arts, since well before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, have been part of our social fabric and economy.

Nationally, the nonprofit arts and culture industry generates $166.2 billion in economic activity annually, which is a 24 percent increase in just the past five years. That amount is greater than the gross domestic product of most countries. This spending supports 5.7 million full time jobs in American cities and counties — an increase of 850,000 jobs since Americans for the Arts studied this in 2002. What’s more, because arts and culture organizations are strongly rooted in their communities, these are jobs that remain local and cannot be sent overseas. Our industry also generates nearly $30 billion in revenue for local, state, and federal governments every year. By comparison, the three levels of government collectively spend less than $4 billion annually to support arts and culture. This is a spectacular 7 to 1 return on investment that would thrill even Wall Street veterans.

In today’s global economy, the competitive business edge belongs to innovators — those providing creative solutions that lead to prosperity in the marketplace. Leaders in government, business, and education are getting savvy to what those in the arts have long known: to fuel creativity and innovation, you need to invest in the arts.

In the 2006 report, Are They Really Ready to Work? — prepared by the Conference Board for its Fortune 1000 business constituency — U.S. employers point to “creativity and innovation” as one of the top skills needed by new hires to succeed in the workplace.

Knowledge + Creativity = A Competitive Edge

Download and read the complete article HERE.

icma-250px

Jun
29

Regional Governors’ Agreement on Ocean Conservation

Renew VirginiaGovernor Tim Kaine is participating in the Mid-Atlantic Governors’ Agreement on Ocean Conservation, a partnership among the Governors of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia to protect the ocean waters of the Mid-Atlantic.  The new regional partnership will protect and improve the health of ocean and coastal resources through improved coordination and minimized jurisdictional barriers, ensuring the resources contribute to our economic vitality and high quality of life well into the future.

“Our coastal waters are a vital part of our history and economy in Virginia,” said Governor Kaine.  By participating in the Agreement on Ocean Conservation, the Governor’s agree to establish mechanisms for greater coordination on regional ocean issues, and to develop and implement shared actions to advance the partnership’s four stated priorities:

  • Collaborate on a regional approach to support the sustainable development of renewable energy in offshore areas;
  • Prepare the region’s coastal communities for the impacts of climate change on ocean and coastal resources;
  • Promote improvements in the region’s coastal water quality as a necessary focal point for regional action; and,
  • Coordinate protection of important habitats and sensitive and unique offshore areas on a regional scale.

The primary mechanism of coordination will be the newly formed Mid-Atlantic Regional Council on the Ocean, composed of the Governors of the five participating states.  Each Governor will also designate a representative to serve on an Executive Committee that will report back to their respective Governors on implementation of regional plans and progress towards the partnership’s goals.  Secretary of Natural Resources L. Preston Bryant, Jr. will serve as Virginia’s representative to the Executive Council, which also will engage appropriate federal, state, local, academic, industry and non-profit groups and stakeholders. A Mid-Atlantic Ocean Stakeholder Summit will be held in late 2009.

This new regional approach will encourage a cooperative and constructive relationship between the states, reducing duplicative work and unintentional conflict between the conservation efforts of neighboring states. Regional coordination also will allow greater predictability and efficiency in regulatory processes.

The partnership will focus on identifying critical ecosystem habitats and coordinate their necessary protection as federal and state policymakers continue discussing the potential development of offshore energy sources, especially harnessing wind power.

Another area of emphasis to the partnership will be ocean pollution originating from upland sources.  Since watersheds that feed into the oceans often spread over several states, increased coordination will allow for more effective reduction of harmful runoff from both point-source, such as manufacturing facilities, and non-point sources, such as agricultural run off.

Governor Kaine continues to move his “Renew Virginia” initiative, a series of legislative and executive actions focused on promoting renewable energy, creating green jobs, and encouraging preservation of the environment in the Commonwealth.

The Mid-Atlantic Governors’ Agreement on Ocean Conservation, signed by all five state governors, can be found on the MARCO website at http://www.midatlanticocean.org/.

For more information on Renew Virginia, visit www.governor.virginia.gov.

Jun
29

Military Bastion Hampton Roads, feedback needed on NewsHour

Military Bastion icon 180pxThanks to Hampton Roads’ SmartRegion.org affiliation with PBS NewsHour via Patchwork Nation, we frequently receive requests for feedback/opinions on national/international news to try to figure out what is causing a trend in the data.

Here is our first request for information. Please add a comment directly to this post and/or send an email to NewsHour to add your responses:

  1. NewsHour has some interesting data that shows President Obama’s latest approval ratings are up by 11 percentage points in Military Bastion communities. What has caused this jump? What is your reaction about the President’s job? Have your thoughts about how he is handling his job changed in the past few months?
  2. The official deadline for U.S. combat troops in Iraq is Tuesday, June 30th. Will you be impacted as a result of this? What are your observations on this deadline?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Anna Shoup, Local/National Editor, Online NewsHour, AShoup@newshour.org
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/patchworknation
http://twitter.com/newshour

Jun
26

VIRGINIANS FOR HIGH SPEED RAIL PETITION

VSHR_Logo_450pxVirginian’s for High Speed Rail
Daniel L. Plaugher
Executive Director
5101 Monument Ave.
Richmond, VA 23230

Dear Supporter,

2,646. That is the number of petition signatures that Virginians for High Speed Rail has collected to support Virginia’s application for high-speed rail (see complete text of petition below). We are doing a massive push to exceed 3,000 signatures before Virginia’s preliminary application has to be turned into the Federal Railroad Administration on July 10th.

If you have not already done so, I urge you to sign our petition online at: http://www.petitiononline.com/VHSR2007/petition.html or go to www.vhsr.com/petition and print it out and send it to us at VHSR 5101 Monument Ave, Richmond, Virginia 23230.

I also encourage you to forward this message or our links to your friends and family as we strive to reach our goal of 3,000 plus signatures before July 10th.

Thank you for your Support!

Sincerely,
Danny Plaugher sig
Daniel Plaugher
Executive Director


VIRGINIANS FOR HIGH SPEED RAIL PETITION

To: Duly elected officials of the Commonwealth of Virginia

BE IT RESOLVED, that we, who are citizens of the Commonwealth of Virginia, request of our elected officials, the creation of a fully developed and integrated rail system. A system, which promotes rail as a means to relieve the congestion on our roads, advances our national security infrastructure, supports our environment, encourages economic development, and decreases our oil dependency.

WHEREAS, automobiles use up to 27% more energy per passenger mile then Amtrak, and a tractor-trailer uses up to 300% more energy than a freight train.

WHEREAS, it takes 62% less land to build a railroad track than a highway lane per mile.

WHEREAS, Virginia’s current rail funding of $23 to $36 million annually is woefully inadequate.

WHEREAS, public support for additional capacity on the Washington, DC and Richmond, VA rail corridor (i.e. the third track); the Southeast High Speed Rail Corridor; the TransDominion Express; Charlottesville, VA to Washington, DC; and the Hampton Roads to Richmond rail corridors is at unprecedented levels.

WHEREAS, we need strong leadership from our elected officials on the rail issue.

LET IT BE RESOLVED, that we reaffirm our request that the duly elected officials of the Commonwealth of Virginia, create, fund, and maintain a fully developed and integrated rail system.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned <<sign the petition here<<

Jun
26

Leading Military Transformation with M&S in Hampton Roads

by Maj Gen Kamiya, Commander of the Joint Warfighting Center, USJFCOM

USJFCOM ModSim19 June 2009 presentation to the Hampton Roads Partnership’s Board of Directors on Leading Transformation with Modeling & Simulation, an important industry in Hampton Roads.

M&S is helping to make Irregular Warfare a core competency, enhancing joint command and control, improving global force management, accelerating efforts toward a “whole government” approach (i.e. interagency participation), building and improving partnership capacity and improving training and education. Industry and academia can help with these processes.

Triads: The 1960s-1980s brought us “Strategic Art”: Missiles, Bombers, Submarines; the 1980s-1990s brought us “Operational Art”: Land, Air and Sea. 2001-until? brings us “Tactical Art”: Leader, Individual, Small Units.

For the M&S presentation with video included, visit: http://bit.ly/KamiyaMS
For video M&S demonstration only, visit: http://bit.ly/Kamiya

Jun
25

Hampton Roads hotspots for the next generation workforce?

NextCities

It used to be that cities with jobs attracted and kept their workforce. That might have worked for your dad, but it’s not going to work for your kids. Today, young up-and-comers pick their cities – those with the amenities and “vibe” they value – and then look for jobs. (Sometimes to their parents’ chagrin.)

Next Generation Consulting (NGC) has surveyed the places that 20-40 year olds choose to call home since 1998 – and talked with 39,000 of them about why they live and work where they do. Turns out that the Next Cities™ (the places they love) have seven things in common. They all have great scores in these areas: Vitality, Earning, Learning, Social Capital, Cost of Living, After Hours, and Around Town (analyzing 45 measures in all).  In Hampton Roads, Hampton, Virginia Beach and Norfolk made the short list.

“Simply being the cheapest place to live, or the city with the most jobs is not a long-term workforce strategy,” says NGCs founder, Rebecca Ryan. Although jobs are important, Ryan says, “The next generation is very savvy about choosing where they’ll live. They look carefully at quality of life factors like how much time they’re going to spend in traffic commuting, if they can live near a park or hike-and-bike trail, and whether a city’s downtown stays awake after five.” The Next Cities list ranks cities that are – or have the capacity to be – great places to live and work for the next generation, because they have the best overall score in the seven indexes the next gen values.

Noted economist Richard Florida underscores the large economic dividend paid to cities and regions that are talent magnets, noting in the April 2009 issue of The Atlantic that “The world’s 40 largest mega-regions, which are home to some 18% of the world’s population, produce two-thirds of global economic output and nearly nine in ten new patented innovations.”

NEXT CITIES RANKED BY POPULATION

Mighty Micros – Next Cities with Population of 100,000-200,000

1. Fort Collins, Colorado
2. Charleston, South Carolina
3. Eugene, Oregon
4. Cedar Rapids, Iowa
5. Springfield, Illinois
6. Cary, North Carolina
7. Ann Arbor, Michigan
8. Sioux Falls, South Dakota
9. Pueblo, Colorado
10. Gainesville, Florida
11. Stamford, Connecticut
12. Des Moines, Iowa
13. Spokane, Washington
14. Syracuse, New York
15. Huntsville, Alabama
16. Peoria, Illinois
17. Springfield, Missouri
18. Salt Lake City, Utah
19. Richmond, Virginia
20. Hampton, Virginia

Midsized Magnets – Next Cities with Population of 200,000-500,000

1. Madison, Wisconsin
2. Minneapolis, Minnesota
3. Colorado Springs, Colorado
4. Atlanta, Georgia
5. St. Paul, Minnesota
6. Omaha, Nebraska
7. Cincinnati, Ohio
8. Boise, Idaho
9. Durham, North Carolina
10. New Orleans, Louisiana
11. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
12. Raleigh, North Carolina
13. Lexington, Kentucky
14. Virginia Beach, Virginia
15. Lincoln, Nebraska
16. Lubbock, Texas
17. Reno, Nevada
18. Norfolk, Virginia
19. St. Louis, Missouri
20. Orlando, Florida

Super Cities – Next Cities with Population over 500,000

1. San Francisco, California
2. Seattle, Washington
3. Boston, Massachusetts
4. Washington, District of Columbia
5. Denver, Colorado
6. Austin, Texas
7. Baltimore, Maryland
8. Portland, Oregon
9. New York City, New York
10. Columbus, Ohio
11. Milwaukee, Wisconsin
12. Charlotte, North Carolina
13. Chicago, Illinois
14. Nashville, Tennessee
15. Jacksonville, Florida
16. Tucson, Arizona
17. San Antonio, Texas
18. Los Angeles, California
19. San Diego, California
20. Houston, Texas

For more information about the Next Cities rankings, including a description of each of the Seven Indexes and a PDF of the full report, Next Cities 2009-2010, visit http://nextgenerationconsulting.com/consulting/next-cities/.

Jun
25

Illuminating Minds, Igniting Passions, Shaping Futures in Hampton Roads

HRPlogo17300dpi_smallAt every meeting of the Hampton Roads Partnership Board of Directors, we take time to highlight “Acts of Regional Cooperation.” At the June 19, 2009 meeting, Mayor Molly Ward introduced us to Dr. Michael Canty, Manager of the Neighborhood Office for the City of Hampton.

Dr. Canty was the founding Director of Innovations for Schools, Youth, Neighborhoods and Communities (In-SYNC) Partnerships, a nationally acclaimed partnership between The Hampton Neighborhood Office and Hampton City Schools aimed at simultaneously improving schools and neighborhoods.

FirstRobotics Competition
Dr. Canty shared a video on the “FIRST Robotics” competition and the students of the New Horizons Regional Education Centers (NHREC) which serves the six school divisions on the Peninsula in Hampton Roads (City of Hampton included). Dr. Canty’s enthusiasm for the New Horizons’ students and program was infectious. NHREC focuses on kids “on the margin” and refocuses them on science, technology, engineering and math.

And, FIRST is all about kids taking ownership of tasks and working as teams. Kids that were on the fringe with no direction change their life’s course and become enthused with learning; these are our future engineers.

It is of great benefit to hear about the state of education and technology in Hampton Roads. As the Partnership represents government, industry and academia, it is paramount we learn about and understand these regional efforts. NHREC is a solid example of the power of working together as a region.

DIRECT Video Link

About New Horizons Regional Education Centers

New Horizons2
NHERC envisions becoming a state-of-the-art regional education center nationally recognized as an authority on specialized educational programs and services that support the development of a world-class workforce and a self-sufficient citizenry. Their mission is to serve the educational needs of the Peninsula’s school divisions, preparing students educationally, technically, and socially, according to each student’s needs, to become productive citizens and a world-class workforce, including future scientists and mathematicians.

About the FIRST Robotics Competition
FIRST:
For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology

FIRST Robotics logo
FRC is a unique varsity “sport of the mind” (with just as much excitement and adrenaline rush as conventional varsity tournaments) designed to help high-school-aged young people discover how interesting and rewarding the life of engineers and researchers can be.

The FIRST Robotics Competition challenges teams of young people and their mentors to solve a common problem, building a robot (a fascinating real-world professional experience) from parts kits and entering them in competitions designed by a committee of engineers and other professionals.

FIRST redefines winning for these students because they are rewarded for excellence in design, demonstrated team spirit, gracious professionalism and maturity, and the ability to overcome obstacles. Scoring the most points is a secondary goal. Winning means building partnerships that last.

Film produced and provided herein by Amy Broad, Rock Eagle Productions

Jun
24

2009 Norfolk Downtowner of the Year

FarmFreshLogoRon Dennis, President and COO of Farm Fresh Supermarkets headquartered in Virginia Beach, was awarded the 2009 Downtowner of the Year by the Downtown Norfolk Council.

Enjoy the film shared at the annual event held on June 3rd:

Thanks and congratulations to Ron Dennis along with his many, many happy employees and customers.

DIRECT Video Link

Film produced and provided herein by Amy Broad, Rock Eagle Productions.  Posted with permission from the Downtown Norfolk Council.

Jun
24

Virginia’s Unbuilt Road to Progress by Gov. Kaine and Speaker Howell’s response

Washington Post

by Virginia Governor Tim Kaine in the Washington Post on Sunday, June 14, 2009

When I ran for governor, I told Virginians that I wanted to find transportation solutions — more road, rail and public transit options and better linkages between land use and transportation planning. In my last months in office, I am doing what I hoped to be doing — attending ribbon cuttings and unveiling contracts for transit systems, bridge replacements and expanded Amtrak service. Yet these announcements are quite different from how I envisioned them. The difference between the plan and the reality tells an interesting story about transportation today and points out sizable continuing challenges for the commonwealth.

To put it bluntly, Virginia — because of the Republican-led House of Delegates — has decided that we should not invest more state dollars in transportation. My efforts to get more money for statewide or regional needs have been rebuffed by Republican legislators — and investment in roads has actually been shrinking. We have made massive cuts to our road program, especially for urban and rural roads that do not qualify for federal funding.
With citizens across our state asking for better transportation to attract jobs and fight congestion, the legislature’s response has essentially been: “We don’t care.”

Thank goodness our federal government recognizes the value of infrastructure investments again. Because of a president and Congress committed to this spending, projects such as the Fairfax County Parkway and replacing the Robertson Bridge in Danville are underway. Rail to Dulles and light rail in Norfolk are moving forward. We are pursuing higher-speed rail in the Interstate 95 corridor. But as far as a state commitment goes, Virginia has been AWOL.

While the willingness to find new state funding has been lacking for many years, there have still been some positive developments in how we approach transportation:

First, Virginia knows how to do public-private partnerships. Big projects such as rail to Dulles and high-occupancy toll lanes on the Beltway show that innovative partnerships can be forged. These mechanisms have limits — they don’t work so well in less-traveled areas or for basic maintenance. However, by investing some state dollars, we can attract financing to help us expand in groundbreaking ways.

Second, we are rebalancing our system by putting more money into rail and public transit. Dedicated funding for Metro, VRE and expanded Amtrak service has increased in recent years, sometimes by diverting money that would have been spent on roads in the past. We are investing in freight rail to reduce road congestion. And the new federal commitment to high-speed rail corridors offers Virginia exciting opportunities. These investments ensure that Virginia receives both the economic and environmental benefits of moving away from an overreliance on cars and trucks.

Third, we see that a big part of our transportation challenge is making better land-use decisions. Better land use was the core of my transportation platform when I ran for governor in 2005 — and we have moved far down the field with better road design standards, traffic impact statements that must be prepared before major land-use decisions are made, authority for local governments to assess impact fees for transportation and forthcoming stormwater regulations that will reduce overpaving. Such measures have stopped our congestion from getting worse — as was the case when a state traffic impact statement helped persuade Loudoun to turn down a development proposal to allow more than 20,000 new homes that would have overwhelmed regional roads.

These changes have been important and generally bipartisan in nature. But they do not eliminate the need to find more revenue. Our system has been primarily funded by a very low gasoline tax — 17.5 cents per gallon — that has stayed constant since 1986 even while fuel efficiency standards and construction costs have risen. This funding source will continue to erode with the newly announced agreement to increase vehicle mileage standards nationwide. The unwillingness of the legislature to find new broad-based revenue sources to address our increased need is weakening our ability to build the smart 21st-century network that will keep Virginia competitive for years to come.

Personally, it is gratifying to see a president for whom I worked so hard embrace a priority that Virginia’s House of Delegates majority does not embrace. No nation can grow out of the economic doldrums with a declining infrastructure. But stimulus dollars and other federal spending can vary and disappear. The question remains in 2009: What will Virginia do to fund transportation?

As I enter my last seven months as governor, I am pleased to see important projects moving in some parts of the commonwealth thanks to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and other federal programs. While I never thought I would say this, we could really make some progress if our state legislature had a commitment to Virginia’s infrastructure that came close to matching the federal government’s.

Virginia Republicans Kept Their Promises on Transportation

SpeakerHowell

by William J. Howell, Republican and Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, in the Post on Sunday, June 21, 2009

In a commentary on this page last week, Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine attempted to tag Republicans in the House of Delegates with sole responsibility for every failing of Virginia’s transportation system [see above]. In his view, credit for all progress on transportation belongs to his administration and the federal government under President Obama. Although the partisan hard-liners Mr. Kaine serves as Democratic National Committee chairman might concur with this distortion, an objective review of the facts tells a different story.

As a candidate for governor, Tim Kaine promised not to raise taxes, to enact major changes to land-use planning to help reduce congestion and to protect dollars dedicated for the Transportation Trust Fund. Mr. Kaine broke the first promise six days after taking office by unveiling a transportation plan funded by a massive tax increase. He kept the second largely because of the persistence of House Republicans. Frustratingly, he might have kept the third promise had he spent an ounce of political capital in garnering support among Democratic legislators, who have steadfastly refused to act.

Mr. Kaine professes his commitment to transportation, but Virginia was the very last state to apply for federal stimulus dollars ["Va. Is Last State to Request Stimulus Funds for Roads," Metro, June 17]. While Mr. Kaine repeatedly has turned transportation into a wedge issue for partisan advantage, many of the improvements made this decade can be traced directly to the leadership of House Republicans.

First, long-overdue changes linking transportation decisions to land-use planning were integral parts of House Republican transportation packages during the 2006 regular and special sessions and were enacted into law in 2007. These changes include transportation impact fees, urban development areas and greater local control of road projects and maintenance. While Mr. Kaine talked about similar changes in 2005, he never made them the centerpiece of his transportation packages and instead focused predominantly on a job-killing mix of tax increases.

Second, public-private partnerships for transportation — which Mr. Kaine now heralds — are possible because of the landmark Public-Private Transportation Act, sponsored by Republicans. Such partnerships have been an integral component of every House Republican transportation package this decade. More recently, our initiatives to expand tolling concessions such as market-based high-occupancy toll lanes have been blocked by Mr. Kaine and his Democratic allies. Their acknowledged reason for rejecting such reforms: They did not include broad-based tax increases.

Third, in 2005, it was House Republicans who introduced a $1 billion transportation funding package as part of the 2004-06 state budget, with $850 million of that proposal ending up in that year’s final spending blueprint at our insistence. Also that year, House Republicans introduced and led the General Assembly to pass legislation dedicating an ongoing source of revenue to support rail improvements for the first time in Virginia history.

Fourth, in 2007, it was House Republicans who enacted a number of the transportation initiatives we had been promoting for years. As a result, next year Virginia will issue more than $550 million for transportation projects from the $3 billion in bonds the General Assembly authorized in 2007. The road, rail and transit improvements — for which Mr. Kaine now takes full credit — can be directly traced to these Republican initiatives.

Fifth, this year it was Republicans who stood alone in advancing new transportation funding. Our plan, allowing Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads to retain a portion of revenue from economic growth for regional transportation improvements, was summarily rejected by Democrats in the state Senate.

Finally, when Gov. Kaine called a special session in 2008 to consider his final transportation tax plan, not a single member of the Democrat-majority Senate would even introduce it. And when delegates were given an opportunity to vote for his plan, it failed to receive a single vote. Not one Democratic legislator voted for Gov. Kaine’s last transportation tax plan, the sole reason for which he had called the special session.

This November Virginians will elect a new governor. We should all hope that their choice is not wedded to the one-note mantra of higher taxes but is instead open to comprehensive and innovative solutions, like the ones once promised — but not delivered — by his predecessor.

Jun
23

Get the iPod experience in Hampton, Virginia

ipod-hamptonThe Hampton Convention & Visitor Bureau has a unique invitation for visitors (residents would enjoy this, too!):

The Discover Hampton, Virginia iPod Experience, a self-guided iPod Tour features a mix of history and Hampton “insider information.” The Hampton story is told through historic images, video, actor-voice quotes, commentary, and period and relevant music.

Visit http://www.audisseyguides.com/downtownhampton, where you can download the multimedia walking tour and a map of downtown Hampton, Virginia to your personal iPod (or other MP4 device or personal computer) for free. (iPods are even available for rent at the Visitor Center)download-ipod-icon

You have an option of downloading an audio-only version or version with audio and video, both also available through iTunes. Way cool!

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