HR Partnership | March 20, 2010

from Rita D. McClenny, Director of the Virginia Film Office

The 2010 General Assembly has finished its work, and it has resulted in a ground-breaking victory for the Virginia film industry! The General Assembly has approved:

• A new tax credit incentive program with $2.5 million to be invested in film-related projects beginning January 2011.
• $2 million in funding for the Governor’s Motion Picture Opportunity Fund, effective July 1, 2010 for the biennium.

As we all know, this was a very serious and difficult budget year and we all owe a debt of gratitude to Governor Bob McDonnell, Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling and our bill patrons Senator Louise Lucas and Delegate Ben Cline. We are also grateful to all the members of the General Assembly. Even those who did not ultimately feel they could vote for the legislation gave it their careful and thoughtful consideration.

There are so many people whose hard work and dedication contributed to this victory. I would like to acknowledge the contributions of the people and organizations who made this great accomplishment possible.

• The Virginia Production Alliance, an incredible organization representing Virginia’s exceptional film, television and production community.
• Terry Stroud, Chairman of the Virginia Production Alliance, who has been championing this cause for longer than anyone can remember.
• VPA President Mark Remes whose leadership in this effort was invaluable, along with board members Anne Chapman, Kahil Dotay, Jennifer Pullinger, Alfred Shapiro and Hunter Thomas.
• The Virginia Production Alliance’s lobbying team at Advantus Strategies, including Bud Oakey, Josh Myers, David Anderson, May Fox and Margaret Ivy-Smith.
• Everyone who participated in Film Day or “Two-a-Days.” These dedicated people went one-on-one during the session with our lawmakers to personally make the case for the need for film incentives in Virginia.
• The many people who took the time to contact their lawmakers. These emails and phone calls were instrumental in making this new legislation and financial resources possible.

Congratulations to everyone and thanks for your support of this important legislation!

Now that we have these important incentives, let’s be certain to support the Hampton Roads Film Office. And don’t forget the 2010 Virginia Screenwriting Competition deadline of May 21st.

Click to read more...

Category: About Hampton Roads, Government & Citizens, Visit HR | No Comments »
Tags: Hampton Roads, HRFO

HR Partnership | March 19, 2010

The “Do One Thing for Sustainability” (DOT) Initiative invites all members of the William & Mary community–students, faculty, staff, alumni, and neighbors–to make small, public commitments to more sustainable choices, in a manner that educates everyone about our various opportunities to live and work more sustainably.

In encouraging each of us to consider choosing a DOT (or “doing one thing” differently), we are engaging the community in brainstorming about how each of us can contribute to making it a more sustainable place. In sharing them publicly, over Facebook and in our Swem Library installation, we are committing to those changes with one another’s support.

“Who else has made a DOT?” More than a thousand people have already chosen DOTs since the campaign pilot last fall at the Mason School. W&M President Reveley has chosen two DOTs: to print double-sided and to use nondisposable coffee mugs whenever possible. Some of our most prominent alumni have also chosen DOTs, including James Comey (’82), former Deputy Attorney General and now Senior Vice President of Lockeed Martin, who pledged to trade in his SUV for a hybrid in support of DOT.

“What about the Earth Day party?” Details to come, but plan on joining us for a campus-wide celebration of the DOT initiative at our Earth Day event, April 24.

from Prof. Erin Ryan, Associate Professor of Law at William & Mary, guest blogger

Click to read more...

Category: About Hampton Roads, Education & Workforce | No Comments »
Tags: Environment, Hampton Roads, Sense of Place, William and Mary

HR Partnership | March 17, 2010

by Chris Bonney, owner of Bonney & Company, an independent marketing research firm

For years our region has been content to let its public transit infrastructure dwindle to the point that it is used only by the poor, the handicapped, the elderly and others who have no other choice. In some ways, we are a victims of our own affluence. The price paid for suburban sprawl is low population density that makes it difficult to provide cost-efficient public transportation.

But, in fact, our poor public transportation system is doing us even greater harm, particularly as we work to create a reputation for our region as a dynamic, progressive and fluid place to do business.

The other night my wife and I had dinner at a friend’s home with a young man from Chile who is doing research at Jefferson Lab and taking classes at Christopher Newport University as part of his Master’s degree program. He will only be in Hampton Roads for six months. Yet he is attempting to be part of our community in the same ways he was when he studied in Switzerland and France. As time allows, he attends local events and plays in two of the region’s smaller symphony orchestras.

This young man has a modern, international perspective and a bright future. He will “go places” in life. He will take and spread impressions of the Hampton Roads region with him wherever he goes in the world.

Unfortunately, the impression he is getting about our region is that we care very little about those who do not have or wish to use automobiles…. Read more…

Click to read more...

Category: About Hampton Roads, Transportation | No Comments »
Tags: Hampton Roads, Sense of Place, Transportation

HR Partnership | March 17, 2010

by Missy Schmidt, Communication Manager, Hampton Roads Partnership

From WTKR-TV3: New survey ranks Hampton Roads 4 out of 100 when it comes to car dependency, and Hampton Roads drivers know a thing or two about sitting in traffic. A new survey gives high marks to drivers stuck in the Hampton Roads traffic jam. Men’s Health’s Motor Cities, USA Poll gives the Virginia Beach area an ‘A-’ on its list of most car-crazed metro areas. Hampton Roads ranks number four on the list of 100 areas surveyed.

The magazine looked at the number of people who used the government’s Cash for Clunkers program, the amount of money spent on car care and repair, and the availability and usefulness of public transportation.

Most traveling in Hampton Roads requires a trip over a bridge or through a tunnel, or both, suggesting those in Hampton Roads are more dependent on their cars than drivers in other areas. <end WTKR>

I took a look at this article in depth and found it very interesting as to who our “peer” metro areas in car-craziness were:

#1 – Arlington, TX
#2 – San Jose, CA
#3 – Sioux Falls, SD
#4 – Virginia Beach, VA (actually the Hampton Roads MSA)
#5 – Anchorage, AK
#6 – Salt Lake City, UT
#7 – Charlotte, NC
#8 – Austin, TX
#9 – Fargo, ND
#10 – Riverside, CA

While Hampton Roads has certainly compared itself to the likes of Charlotte, I doubt that anyone would have thought to compare the region to sparsely populated areas such as Alaska or the Dakotas.

Unfortunately, Men’s Health didn’t bother to use a real picture from the region; instead showing what appears to be a Pacific coastal shot of a winding road with small mountains and thunderous waves. The old convertible pictured was pretty cool, though.

This survey / article is one more example of the Hampton Roads region’s identity crisis, not to mention the public transit issues. It’s been said on more than one occasion: if you are in a Port/maritime- or DoD/defense-related industry anywhere in the world, then you know Hampton Roads. Not so much with other industry sectors.

SmartRegion: we’ve got work to do.

Click to read more...

Category: About Hampton Roads, Transportation | No Comments »
Tags: Hampton Roads, Sense of Place, Transportation

HR Partnership | March 9, 2010

Direct Video Link

The Hampton Roads region is a great place to live, work and visit. And, it’s only going to get better.

Donna Morris, Executive Vice President of the Hampton Roads Partnership, spoke with Gary McCollum, Sr. Vice President and General Manager of Cox Communications Virginia, on Cox Connections. The show will air during the entire month of March about Vision Hampton Roads. Watch the video online at the link above.

Hampton Roads has dealt with reductions in workforce within a number of firms, as has every corner of the nation during the Great Recession which began in 2007. In preparation for recovery, a group of regional organizations and community leaders collaborated to develop “Vision Hampton Roads,” a regional plan with a five year horizon. This “Vision” employs strategies and actions which leverage regional strengths to diversify and grow the economy, positioning Hampton Roads as an even more impactful leader in the global economy of today and tomorrow.

In economic development today, it’s important to address who and what is Hampton Roads as a region; who lives here and why; what is the region’s business identity; and how entrepreneurs, creativity and innovation are attracted. Regions that thrive in the “new economy” will be those cultivating innovation, truly educating their workforce, investing in infrastructure and creating quality places, like Hampton Roads.

“Vision” planning has placed Hampton Roads on a path to regional transformation by embedding a working process as we think, live and act regionally.

Click to read more...

Category: About Hampton Roads | No Comments »
Tags: Vision Hampton Roads

HR Partnership | March 5, 2010

There is one over-arching goal for the first five-year plan called Vision Hampton Roads:

“With proper foresight, continuous planning and dynamic economic development, Hampton Roads will be recognized internationally as a region fueled by Innovation, Intellectual and Human Capital, Infrastructure and a Sense of Place.”

What started as just another economic development planning tool, one intended to aid local governments in decision-making and with accompanying federally mandated guidelines in order to qualify for federal grants, has become so much more.

While the “Vision” document does analyze regional and local economic conditions within Hampton Roads and identify projects, programs and initiatives that address economic development, this process was very different from past such economic development strategies.

Public participation was a key element. “We need more opportunities like this to voice our opinion for the future of Hampton Roads,” said one public commenter.

It was clear that economic development of today is much more far-reaching than what property is developed to become the next shopping center or housing development.

It’s important to address who and what is Hampton Roads as a region, who lives here and why, what our business identity is, how we attract entrepreneurs, creativity and innovation and what is new and different in today’s planning, to name a few. These common themes, labeled “Sense of Place,” emerged to be almost as important as the original goal of the process: to achieve U.S. Dept. of Commerce Economic Development Administration’s Federal Economic Development District Designation.

After months and months of meetings involving a broad cross-section of our region’s communities and significant public input, the document is complete and now posted at http://VisionHamptonRoads.com.

But, this is just the beginning. The real work starts now.

Hampton Roads Partnership (“Vision” lead organization) President and CEO, Dana Dickens, is making the rounds of public meetings, governmental and organizational alike, delivering the message of alignment that is Hampton Road’s first comprehensive region-wide economic development strategy.

Click here for the Virginia Beach Council Meeting Video.

To make progress in each city or county of Hampton Roads, clear goals must be set and aligned regionally, public involvement must be considered and success must be measured, says Dickens.

At a recent City of Portsmouth planning retreat, Liz Povar, director of business development for the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, said “Teams that win play as partners,” adding that she knows that’s not always easy on the local level. If any theme also emerged during the Portsmouth retreat, it was the value of regional cooperation.

All citizen comments may be found in the Public Responsiveness Summary, added as Addenda #1 due to its length as it is longer than the document itself. Participants can see how their comments were integrated into the final plan.

Some especially poignant comments include:

“As you move forward with this activity, make certain you are seeing these visions through the eyes of the different generations, i.e., k-12, college age, new career starters, mature family builders, and retiring people. Each group’s vision is affected by their current life needs,” cautioned one resident.

“Vision Hampton Roads is a comprehensive, objective and very credible document. If it does in fact increase momentum to think and act regionally, its value – and impact – to the area’s economic vitality and quality of life will be tremendous,” added one respondent.

Overall, the strategy-creation experience in Hampton Roads has been about setting into motion an ongoing process that is embraced by our region. “Vision” planning has placed Hampton Roads on a path to regional transformation by embedding a working process in all that we do as we… think, live and act regionally.

A separate Executive Summary has been posted as well and includes a table of contents for the complete document. Specific task forces to implement the plan are in the development stages and volunteers are welcomed. Citizens of the region are encouraged to review “Vision Hampton Roads” and stake a claim to the component (or components) where you can help make a difference.

Volunteer at Contact@VisionHamptonRoads.com.

Click to read more...

Category: About Hampton Roads, Economy, Government & Citizens, Military Bastion | No Comments »
Tags: Civic Engagement, Economy, Hampton Roads, Portsmouth, Virginia Beach, Vision

HR Partnership | February 27, 2010

Forbes announces America’s 20 Most Miserable Cities

Since we found out that Hampton Roads ranked as a “happy city,” thought we’d explore the other end of the scale, the miserable index, and find out what our region is, thankfully, missing. As the saying goes, misery loves company. And sorry to say, but someone else’s misery makes you feel better about your own circumstance. Why else would soap operas be so popular?

Forbes’ Misery Measure takes into account unemployment, taxes (both sales and income), commute times, violent crime and how its pro sports teams have fared over the past two years. Forbes also factored in two indexes put together by Portland (OR) researcher Bert Sperling that gauge weather and Superfund pollution sites. Lastly corruption based on convictions of public officials in each area as tracked by the Public Integrity Section of the U.S. Department of Justice was considered.

This year the 200 largest metro areas (population of more than 245,000) were eligible. And the winners (or losers, as the case may be) are:

No. 1 Cleveland, OH
Residents of the “Mistake by the Lake” endure brutal winters, high crime and a tortured sports history. They are voting with their feet as the net migration out of the metro area was 71,000 over the past five years.

No. 2 through 20? read on…

Click to read more...

Category: About Hampton Roads | No Comments »
Tags: Hampton Roads, Sense of Place

HR Partnership | February 26, 2010

Click on image to download your copy of Bravo!

From Particia Rublein, Executive Director of the Cultural Alliance of Greater Hampton Roads, committed to leveraging arts and culture as one more key industry our communities need to become great places to live and work.

The importance of the arts in our communities and in our schools:

Like most economic endeavors, these are not easy times for the arts. But we need the arts. A healthy arts economy not only nurtures our well-being but contributes to a healthy tax base. The arts need to be recognized as part of the solution to our economic turmoil.

It is gratifying to see the advancement of many arts and cultural projects moving forward, especially the renovation and expansion of the Children’s Museum of Virginia located in Portsmouth and the expansion of The American Theatre in Hampton.

Several Hampton Roads arts organizations are looking ahead positively with an eye toward advancement and growth. The pages in this edition of BRAVO! speak to that work.

The businesses and citizens of Hampton Roads understand the need and continue to provided generous support to the effort. Each year arts and culture organizations host, and provide jobs to, thousands of Virginia residents, and generate millions of dollars in revenue, adding a large infusion of visitors to local economies.

More than 300 arts and cultural organizations and individual arts call Hampton Roads “home.” From Williamsburg to the North Carolina border our region hosts historical restoration sites, museums, premiere opera, symphonies, galleries, literary festivals, theater, ballet, art studios, choral groups, independent movie theaters and arts education opportunities.

These resources are what economic development professionals refer to as their “quality of life,” and are, in many respects, the key ingredient in our efforts to attract high-end and high-paying business enterprises to the area.

Beyond the bottom line, research informs us that when students study music, when they read, perform in a play or visit an art exhibit, they learn to appreciate those who produced those works, and become more receptive to other people. The professional artists associated with those institutions become our children’s teachers. And we have found that through involvement in the arts children learn better.

Whatever our economic situation, the arts overlap with almost every discipline of daily life, promote healing, enhance the environment, foster a healthy workplace and improve education – primary tools to sustaining a high quality of life. These are the features that define our civic identity.

Bravo! Magazine is the definitive arts and culture printed resource in Hampton Roads for venues and events in dance, museums and lectures, music, theater, visual arts, festivals and the friends who bring them to us all.

Click to read more...

Category: About Hampton Roads, Arts & Culture, Economy, Visit HR | No Comments »
Tags: Arts, Culture, Economy, Education, Hampton Roads, Sense of Place, Tourism

HR Partnership | February 22, 2010

Mayor Paul Fraim delivered his Norfolk State of the City Address (full text here) on Friday, February 19th to a standing room only crowd at the downtown Norfolk Waterside Marriott. The event kicks off the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce spring State of the City Series.

Highlights of 2009:

• The Great Recession is over but now there are no stimulus funds to offset shortfalls in the city’s budget this year or the projected $54M gap for FY2011;
• “There will be consequences…. this is not business as usual,” said Fraim;

There’s more…

Click to read more...

Category: About Hampton Roads, Government & Citizens | No Comments »
Tags: Hampton Roads, Norfolk, Virginia

HR Partnership | February 21, 2010

Bumper-to-bumper traffic is America’s collective nightmare, and like the movie Groundhog Day it repeats on a daily basis.

Congestion consumes billions of gallons of fuel, wastes hundreds of billions of dollars in productivity and causes billions of stress headaches. Yet over 100 million automobile commuters each day feel like they have little option. “We put so much of our national wealth and our identity into the whole motoring thing,” says James Howard Kunstler, author of Geography of Nowhere, “that we can’t imagine doing something different.”

Anthony Downs, author of Stuck in Traffic has identified four reasons for America’s congestion problem, also applicable to most European and Asian economies:

• first, most of us work during the same hours of the day;
• second, the country’s economic success has allowed households to buy multiple cars;
• third, there are more people now than when most roadways were conceived;
• fourth, more cars means more accidents which means more delays.

In other words, this problem isn’t going anywhere. …

Click to read more...

Category: About Hampton Roads, Transportation | 2 Comments »
Tags: Hampton Roads, HRTPO, Transportation