"Agitate, agitate, agitate!" -Frederick Douglass
Chief Local Idiot Politician Bobby Orrock voted for it.
It’s kinda of sad to see Bob Marshall support the ban, especially given his conservative credentials.
And former Attorney General and current candidate for Governor, Bob McDonnell, released a press statement a couple days stating that he did not support the ban (WTOP). Hey, he might actually get my support this year. Wonders will never cease. :)
Thank God.
As I pointed out a couple days ago, Bobby Orrock’s original version of HB 2642 was a monstrosity which required that anyone, who distributed a voter registration form to a citizen, register with the State Board of Elections (SBE) and provide quarterly reports to the SBE about who conducted voter registration activities and where such activities were conducted at.
Thankfully, the Elections Subcommittee of the of the Privileges and Elections Committee in the House of Delegates unanimously voted to remove that provision, along with a lot more of the bill, leaving only the requirement that registrars check the people currently on the voter rolls with those that are listed as being dead with the Social Security Administration. The subcommittee version of the bill also retains the prohibition on paying people on a per signature basis to solicit signatures on candidate forms or for voter registration forms, which was also part of Orrock’s original bill.
Nice to see that some folks in the General Assembly have some sense.
Can someone explain to me why it cost $30,000,000 to upgrade the county’s current wastewater treatment plant — which can process 0.5 million gallons of wastewater per day — to a facility that can process 1.5 million gallons per day (MGD) (Potential Economic Stimulus Package Projects, p. 1), but only cost $11,000,000 to upgrade the facility to a 3 mgd design (Id., p. 12)? Is that $11,000,000 in addition to the $30,000,000 needed for the 1.5 mgd upgrade?
Hell, they even included a request for $39,000,000 to upgrade the facility to a 6 mgd design (Id., p. 39). Again, is that in addition to the money necessary to upgrade to the 1.5 mgd and 3 mgd designs? Does the county really think that they are going to need the ability to process 12 times the amount of the waste they can process now?
Then you have the county’s request for $12,600,000 to construct a Public Safety Building (Id., p. 5). They note that “[d]ue to limited space the County’s Public Safety Departments, Caroline County Sheriff and Fire & Rescue are located in multiple facilities that greatly impact their operational efficiency. The low crime rate and emergency response capabilities in Caroline County are of paramount importance to the ability of the County to recruit economic development opportunities for the County.”
Note that they seem to think that “economic development opportunities” are more important than us lowly citizens in this country.
Supposedly this is of “paramount importance” to the County, eh? Then why did the country decide that in 2007 that it was a good idea to spend $4,000,000 to buy the old Union Bankshares building and convert it into an county administration building, instead of using it as a public safety building as was request by several officials? And why is that when County Administrator Percy Ashcraft proposed a $16,000,000 public bond referendum for a public safety building in early 2008, the Board of Supervisors completely ignored the proposal? So, how much of a “paramount importance” is the public safety building?
Care to guess what the single most expensive item on the list? $120,000,000 for “Carmel Church Multimodal Transportation Center” (that’s what politicians call a “train station”) (Id., p. 16). Not only is it the single most expensive item on the list, but it beats the second most expensive item by 100% (The $59,754,000 request for the Rappahannock River Water Treatment Plant). Not only do they want $120,000,000 for a bloody train station but it’s ranked as a higher priority than new and upgraded construction for schools!
And speaking of that Rappahannock River Water Treatment Plant, uh…why does anyone think we need a 12 mgd water treatment facility in northern Caroline County? Is it for that booming development known as Haymount? Oh wait, they were drilling their own wells and they haven’t built a single house despite having the development approved a decade and a half ago.
Then there’s the tens of millions dollars requested to expand the coverage area of their existing water and sewer coverage. The county can’t provide adequate services to the areas that are in their coverage area, and they want to extend it?
And can someone tell me what a “speculative distribution building” is and why it cost $23,000,000 (Id., p. 16)? You would think that with all the speculation that has occurred in the real estate market in the last couple years, the last thing a government would be involved with would be “speculative” building.
Only in Caroline, folks…
I don’t smoke, but anyone that supports this crap shouldn’t be elected:
Governor Tim Kaine and members of the General Assembly announce legislation has passed to ban smoking in nearly all of Virginia’s restaurants and bars. Exceptions will only be made for private clubs and restaurants that have a physically separated and separately ventilated smoking area.
I can’t wait until the tax revenue at restaurants and bars plummets. God, I will absolutely love it…
It starts with ibex, and soon we have a Tyrannosaurus rex running down the streets of San Diego.
Jesus Christ, can I apply for this guy’s job? At least all my education is from accredited organizations. Although if VCU keeps this up it won’t be:
Willie B. Fuller became Virginia Commonwealth University’s police chief with a bachelor’s degree of questionable quality.
For VCU, which has endured nearly a year of negative publicity for improperly awarding a degree to Richmond’s former police chief, Fuller’s arrest Wednesday on charges of using a computer to solicit sex from an underage girl is a setback in efforts to repair its reputation.
[…]
Fuller holds a bachelor’s degree in police science from St. John’s University in Springfield, La., according to St. John’s director of permanent records. St. John’s in Louisiana is not affiliated with the prestigious Catholic university with the same name in New York, or with St. John’s College, which has campuses in Annapolis, Md., and Santa Fe, N.M.
Robert D. Holsworth, former dean of the College of Humanities and Sciences at VCU, said yesterday that he discovered St. John’s University was not an officially accredited institution while researching the case of a VCU employee who did not have a legitimate undergraduate degree.
[…]
“In this instance, I personally made the unhappy discovery that the degree not only came from an unaccredited institution, but that the Web site of the institution was now a conduit to pornographic sites,” he wrote June 26 to Richard O. Bunce, VCU’s director of assurance services.
Holsworth made the discovery around 2006, the year VCU awarded an undergraduate degree to Fuller, who had attended VCU in the 1970s. When Holsworth discovered it, “I brought that to the attention of the appropriate individuals at VCU,” he said.
Fuller was awarded a VCU bachelor of interdisciplinary studies degree [the same degree that Rodney Moore was awarded], university spokeswoman Pam Lepley said. He also has a post-graduate certificate in public management from VCU, Lepley said. VCU officials did not say who approved Fuller’s undergraduate degree.
The St. John’s degree apparently raised no red flags until Fuller began work on a master’s degree at VCU.
[…]
However, the university is not accredited in Louisiana, said Cheryl Michelet, director of communications for the state Board of Regents.
Nor is it accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, which covers Virginia and Louisiana. Tom E. Benberg, the commission’s chief of staff, said the university is “totally unfamiliar to me.”
And the best comment award at the Richmond Times-Dispatch‘s site goes to this guy:
Maybe they can ask Rodney Monroe to comeback and serve as Chief. That way he could finish his degree requirements and actually earn his degree from VCU.
That works out to almost $25,000 per citizen.
Do they not realize that they just requested $694,701,315 in funding? Not $6,947,013.15 in funding, not $69,470,131.50 in funding, but $694,701,315. Do those idiots realize how much freakin’ money that is? It’s almost 10 times the amount of their yearly operating budget!
And the sheer volume of these requests reduces the likelihood of actually getting a dime from the government. They’re just going to laugh in the county’s face when they get this list.
$120,000,000 for a fraking train station?!
This crap just reinforces the perception that Caroline County is populated with — and ran by — a bunch of hicks and idiots.
Everyone on that Board needs to be voted out of office, and whoever on the county staff decided that the $694,701,315 figure was a good idea needs to be fired.
FFS, I give up.
At least that’s what can be determined by his sponsorship of HB2642:
Elections; voter registration procedures and revisions; duties of the State Board of Elections with respect to registration procedures; payments for petition signatures or registrations; penalties. Provides various revisions in voter registration procedures: (i) requires proof of citizenship with registration applications effective January 1, 2010; (ii) provides that third-party voter registration organizations must register with the State Board, which shall maintain a list of all registered voter registration drives and post this list on its website, that such organizations must provide quarterly reports to the State Board of all voter registration drives they conducted during that quarter
Let’s break this down, first:
Provides various revisions in voter registration procedures: (i) requires proof of citizenship with registration applications effective January 1, 2010;
Applicants are already required to show that they’re citizens as noted on the voter registration application form [emphasis in original]:
For Registration
If you are registering for the first time by mail, federal law (the Help America Vote Act) requires you to provide identification. To avoid delays, please enclose a copy of one of the following documents that shows your name and address with your application: (1) current and valid photo ID, (2) current utility bill, (3) bank statement, (4) government check, (5) paycheck, or (6) other government document. You can also present this required identification at the polls but may experience delays.
For Voting
Virginia law requires every voter voting in person to show identification or sign a statement, subject to felony penalties for false statements pursuant to §24.2-1016, that the person is the named registered voter.
But now Orrock wants you to provide of a copy of your birth certificate (or naturalization papers) before you can register to vote! I would say that about 10% (or more) don’t have a copy of their birth certificate with them due to whatever causes. Apparently, Delegate Orrock doesn’t think that those people should be allowed to register to vote in this state.
Then you have this part from Orrock’s bill:
(ii) provides that third-party voter registration organizations must register with the State Board, which shall maintain a list of all registered voter registration drives and post this list on its website, that such organizations must provide quarterly reports to the State Board of all voter registration drives they conducted during that quarter
Care to guess how broadly defined a “third-party voter registration organization” is?: “‘Third-party voter registration organization’ means any person, entity, or organization soliciting or collecting voter registration applications, except it does not include a person who solicits or collects voter registration applications (i) from any family or household member, as that term is defined in § 16.1-228, or (ii) pursuant to the provisions of Article 3 (§ 24.2-411 et seq.) of Chapter 4 of this title [relating to general registrars].”
Well, hot damn, that pretty much includes anyone that dares to hand out a voter registration form to anyone (excluding family or household members). Hell, it even includes candidates that happens to have voter registration forms with them while campaigning.
Imagine this scenario: Candidate John Doe is going door-to-door in a community during his campaign for whatever office. He comes across someone who wants to vote for him but isn’t currently registered to vote.
If John Doe happens to say something like, “Well, sir, I happen to have a voter registration form right here!” and gives the citizen a voter registration form, then John Doe would have to go to the State Board of Elections (SBE) and provide them with “the the name of the registered agent and the names of the individuals responsible for the day-to-day operations of the organization, including, if applicable, the names of the organization’s board of directors, officers, or other individuals engaged in similar duties or functions” to register as a “third-party voter registration organization”.
John Doe would then have to provide quarterly reports to the SBE “providing the date and location of any organized voter registration drives conducted by the organization in the prior calendar quarter.”
This bill would essentially criminalize the distribution of voter registration forms unless you want to register with the SBE and provide quarterly reports to them.
Hopefully the voters will show Orrock the door this year…
Seriously, why is this paper considered a serious news source anymore?:
Lawmakers and prison advocates say the Virginia Parole Board has virtually stopped granting parole to thousands of inmates convicted of crimes before the state halted the practice more than a decade ago.
Of the 4,500 Virginia prisoners eligible for parole in 2008, about 95 percent were denied early release, which is among the highest rejection rates in the country, according to experts. Many were convicted before 1995, when Virginia adopted a “truth in sentencing” policy that required felons to serve at least 85 percent of their sentences.
State officials say the reason for the small percentage is that most nonviolent criminals have been released in the past 14 years, leaving mainly rapists and murderers who might still pose a threat. In many cases, applications are rejected because of the “serious nature and circumstances of the crime.”
[…]
The issue was brought to the attention of [Senator Chap] Petersen and other state officials by the Virginia chapter of Citizens United for Rehabilitation of Errants, which advocates for the rights of inmates and their families.
Jae George is a member of the group. Her son, Gary A. Kammeter, was sentenced in 1995 to life in prison in the planned killing of a sheriff’s deputy in Mathews County and the death of a teenage girl in Middlesex County. The girl was shot as Kammeter and a companion were looking for another teenager who had reneged on a marijuana deal, according to media reports.
Wow, commit capital murder and be involved in killing a teenager girl and The Washington Post will treat you as a cause célèbre.
The piece of crap should be lucky he didn’t get the liquid styrofoam treatment [lethal injection]. It sure sucks that a guy that is responsible for two peoples’ death is actually getting the life in prison he was sentenced to. I’m so upset.
If you bother to read the whole story (don’t, it’s a waste of time) you will see that the paper didn’t bother interviewing or seeking comment from any of the murdered deputy’s or murdered girl’s family. But of course not, the real victim here is the murderer!
Gag a freakin’ maggot…