McDonnell signs tourism, economic development package
Gov. Bob McDonnell today signed the second part of his “Opportunity at Work” legislative package at an afternoon event at the Virginia Beach Convention Center.
The three measures signed today will help to increase tourism and attract new business to the state. The governor was joined at today’s signing ceremony by Secretary of Commerce and Trade Jim Cheng, members of the General Assembly, Virginia Beach Mayor Will Sessoms, and stakeholders in the retail, tourism and commercial spaceflight industries.
“Economic development and job creation remains my top priority,” McDonnell said. “Over the last year and a half Virginia’s unemployment rate has dropped over 1 percent, and we have added 64,900 net new jobs. But there is more work to be done to help every Virginian get a good-paying, quality job. The three bills I signed today will go far to encourage job creators to choose Virginia and invest in this state.”
“Opportunity at Work” legislation signed today
SB1193 (Norment)/ HB2285 (James) – Creates the Tourism Development Grant Program
- Creates the Tourism Development Grant Program to allow certain locally endorsed tourism projects to temporarily retain a portion of state and local tax revenue generated from the project combined with a matching contribution from the developer to provide gap financing for the project
SB1447 (Wampler) – Revenues to the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority
- Directs revenue generated by commercial spaceflight to the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority to develop Wallops Island as an even more attractive spaceport
HB1587 (Iaquinto) – Creates a Business License Incentive Program
- Permits any county, city or town to provide relief from license taxes to any business locating in such county, city or town for the first time, for the first two years after such location.
Putting the pieces together in Waynesboro
Story by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
Greg Hitchin knows that the pressure is there to hit the ground running when he lands in Waynesboro. He also knows that he’s not going to be able to rebuild an economic-development office that went without somebody in the top job for 19 months in a day. Read more
Bolling: Jobs and Opportunity Agenda good for Virginia
Column by Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling
www.ltgov.virginia.gov
During this year’s statewide campaign, Bob McDonnell and I talked a lot about getting our economy moving again and creating jobs. We said then, and we reaffirm now, that this is the most important issue currently facing our state.
Over the past several months, we have worked to put together a comprehensive set of legislative and budget initiatives that will position Virginia to take full advantage of a future economic resurgence. On Jan. 26, we unveiled our Jobs and Opportunity Agenda in a press conference at the State Capitol that was attended by more than 300 legislative and business leaders.
Even though state government is current facing significant budget shortfalls, we have asked the General Assembly to appropriate an additional $50 million toward proven economic development and job creation programs. That means more money for the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, the Virginia Tourism Corporation, the Virginia Film Office, the Department of Business Assistance and more. Read more
Why regional business leaders should blog
Column by Kai Degner
www.whykai.com
As the DNRonline.com has been “paywalled,” meaning people need to pay to read it online, there are a number of added challenges to inform the public on important matters. However, there’s one with a more direct added financial impact: business leaders from outside the area can’t read about or find economic-development news because the news stories don’t show up in search engine results. (Google won’t show DNRonline.com pages because users can’t read them.)
So, when an article like today’s “Rockingham Plans to be Ready for Wind Farms” is published, the only people that really have a chance to read it are local people with a paid or online subscription on the day it’s printed. The opportunity lost is for people in this industry to get our region on their radar. Of course, I’m not just talking about the wind industry – any industry. All of our comparatively good news printed in the DNR is effectively invisible online. Read more
IDA taps developer on Western State project
Staunton Gateway Partners to work with city
Staff Report
News Tips: freepress2@ntelos.net
The Staunton Industrial Development Authority took the next step toward the future redevelopment of the Western State Hospital property by designating a preferred developer for the property and authorizing the company to undertake preliminary development activities.
In preparation to acquire and redevelop the property, Staunton Gateway Partners will complete a master development plan and a stormwater management plan for the property and begin marketing the site to potential business tenants. SG Partners was chosen as the preferred developer from among companies that responded to a solicitation by the Authority in May 2009.
“After more than four years of hard work to acquire the property, we are pleased to begin moving forward with planning for the future redevelopment of this strategically located site,” said IDA Chairman Joe Leigh. Read more
A $500K jumpstart
Staunton loan funds available for qualifying small businesses
Staff Report
News Tips: freepress2@ntelos.net
The Staunton Creative Community Fund announced today that it is beginning the New Year with funding available for small businesses that tops half a million dollars.
SCCF will loan the money to qualified entrepreneurs to attract new and existing small businesses to the Shenandoah Valley, which is anticipated to spur significant local job creation.
The Staunton-based nonprofit business loan program includes the previously announced SPARC PLUG loan fund, a new $98,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Business Enterprise Grant Program, and a $250,000 loan from the U.S. Small Business Administration Microloan Program. All of these funds will be available to small businesses in the form of business loans up to $35,000 that fund startup costs, expansion, job creation and retention, marketing, and other key business activities. Read more
Chris Graham: Nuts and berries
Posted by afp on March 15, 2011 · 1 Comment
The economy, which conservative Republicans pretend and Libertarians believe fervently is a government-free zone, well … you ask me, an economy isn’t something that happens naturally. What happens naturally is we hunt wild boars and balance our diets with assorted nuts and berries. We’re economic actors because we organize ourselves into societies with internal and external security, education/training and infrastructure aimed at improving the common wealth.
It’s unnatural to think that less in the way of organization – going back to the hunting boars and collecting nuts and berries – is going to boost our common wealth.
“Republicans and Democrats constantly try to pretend that they’re on opposite sides of a huge chasm. Unfortunately, the mainstream press cooperates and hypes up that false notion. In fact, there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between them,” said Libertarian Party executive director Wes Benedict.
Not conservative enough is the Libertarians’ call – similar to what we’re hearing from the Tea Party set, which has gotten itself into a lather over how Republicans aren’t proposing the draconian spending cuts that they expected when they voted the GOP back into split power in the 2010 midterms.
I give the Republican leadership credit much as I give President Obama credit for conceding to reality on Guantanamo Bay. Obama has famously backtracked from his campaign promise to close Gitmo because now that he’s in office he sees the security value that it serves. Republican leaders in the House similarly have been quietly backing off shutting down government because now that they have some responsibility for policy direction they see that cuts for the sake of cuts would dampen our ongoing economic recovery.
I get it, of course. The philosophy behind the arguments of Libertarians and hardline GOP conservatives makes sense on paper. Every man for himself, et cetera, indeed. We should all hunt wild boars and forage for nuts and berries.
We’d die before 30, but how vigorous would our lives be until then!
Filed under Blogs · Tagged with barack obama, chris graham, congress, conservative republican, economic development, gitmo, guantanamo bay, libertarian party