City ready to close deal on business park
Waynesboro City Council will vote next week on whether or not it will pursue a $3.475 million deal to purchase approximately 170 acres of land adjacent to Exit 96 off Interstate 64 to create a business park.
If it does so, it will take a big step to sealing a deal with a key contributor to the 2008 City Council campaigns of Mayor Frank Lucente and Vice Mayor Bruce Allen.
The Waynesboro Opportunity Park property is owned by Afton attorney Roger Willetts, the president of the Lyndhurst-based Armatac Industries, which donated $500 to the ’08 election campaigns of Lucente and Allen, according to reports on file with the Waynesboro Electoral Board.
A story in today’s News Virginian cites economic-development officials in the city as saying that the city has been considering purchasing the property for more than a year, but the City Council’s interest in the property dates back at least two years. In February 2009 City Council included a project to build a road opening up the property on a list of projects that it wanted to see receive federal stimulus dollars.
Negotiations have been ongoing regarding the property for some time, according to a city staff report on file with the City Council Clerk’s office that details extensive negotiations that have been ongoing – and lists a closing date having been arranged to occur between Aug. 18 and Sept. 18.
The Koch-Waynesboro connection
The recent New Yorker story on the Koch brothers has folks in Waynesboro musing aloud about the influence of the libertarian scions on the political scene in the River City, where the biggest employer, Invista, is a subsidiary of the privately-held Koch Industries.
At first glance, it’s … interesting … to note a couple of pretty obvious things.
One, the new mayor, Frank Lucente, is an avowed libertarian. I’ve scoured Lucente’s campaign-finance reports from two years ago, and those of his compatriots on City Council, and have found nothing tying Koch or Invista to the Fab Five monetarily.
There is the odd instance of the labor union that represents workers at the plant, the International Brotherhood of DuPont Workers, involving itself in the 2008 City Council elections on behalf of Lucente and running mates Bruce Allen and Tim Williams.
Read the rest of this column at TheWorldAccordingToChrisGraham.com.
The World According To ChrisGraham.com: No I in team
First off, Waynesboro progressives are interesting progressives. I count as key members of the progressive base several people who I know (from having looked ‘em up online!) give money regularly to not only Emmett Hanger but also Steve Landes and Bob Goodlatte when they’re running for re-election.
That’s an indication of how far to the extreme right the right is here in Waynesboro. Those over in the middle look like pinko commie liberals in comparison.
So our tent is big. Had to get that out there for starters.
The big question – one I haven’t been able to get my hands around since I outed myself as a politically interested person two years ago when I declared and ran for City Council – what do we stand for?
(The sound you hear right now is crickets chirping.)
Link to column on TheWorldAccordingToChrisGraham.com.
Chris Graham: No I in team
Column by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
First off, Waynesboro progressives are interesting progressives. I count as key members of the progressive base several people who I know (from having looked ‘em up online!) give money regularly to not only Emmett Hanger but also Steve Landes and Bob Goodlatte when they’re running for re-election.
TheWorldAccordingToChrisGraham.com has the story.
Daily Rant | Cue the Tears
Waynesboro’s vice mayor seems to be able to cue the tears as political circumstance deems appropriate. AFP editor Chris Graham tries to match him in considering Waynesboro’s alarming rate of free and reduced lunches in the city public-school system. The tears here are more tears of frustration and upset, of course. AFP Video. Length: 3:40. Continue reading “Daily Rant | Cue the Tears” »
More fear, more loathing
You’re Frank Lucente, and you’re having a bad day. Maybe you’re losing an argument on live TV. You know you’re not making any sense, but that TV has been your friend. You’ve fake-cried into it enough the past couple of years that you should get nominated for an Emmy. You can’t risk having it turned on you now. Continue reading “More fear, more loathing” »
In search of a leader on development
I give the News Virginian hell often enough that it is only fair of me to give kudos to the paper when deserved, and it’s deserved in the matter of the call in a Wednesday editorial for somebody on Waynesboro City Council to step forward and take the lead on downtown.
I’ll take their call one step further to suggest that we need, desperately need, even, for somebody to come forward to be the point person on City Council on economic development citywide. Continue reading “In search of a leader on development” »
A new political calculus in Waynesboro
A “Fractious Faction”? Or just good politics? The News Virginian raised the issue in a story-editorial package in its July 1 edition, a year to the day that Tim Williams was elected by his peers on City Council to serve as mayor and head up what we all assumed then was going to be a hardline conservative city government. Continue reading “A new political calculus in Waynesboro” »
Danger zone
Looks like Frank Lucente has cornered himself back into being the minority again. “If we don’t get ourselves under control with spending, we are going to pay our price, and I am saddened that we are going to raise your taxes,” the singularly focused vice mayor said after Tuesday’s 3-2 City Council vote to maintain the current 70-cent property-tax rate in Waynesboro. Continue reading “Danger zone” »
Not paying more taxes, and still complaining about it
“This is definitely no time,” said Stewart Hall of 891 Kent Road at Monday’s public hearing on the city tax rate, “to tighten the financial noose with further increases in taxes and fees.”
Hall must have been speaking metaphorically, because his taxes and fees will be heading in opposite direction of an increase. According to the Virginia Mass Appraisal Network, the assessment on Hall’s home and property on Kent Road for 2009 is $246,100, down from the $258,400 it had been at in the 2007 assessment. Continue reading “Not paying more taxes, and still complaining about it” »
The dust, waiting to settle
You might think that any credit being given out for the Waynesboro Downtown Development Inc. fundraising effort that met with such success as to preclude the need for an infusion of city funds to keep it afloat would go to, well, the folks at Waynesboro Downtown Development Inc. Continue reading “The dust, waiting to settle” »
If it’s broke, fix it
Posted by afp on November 22, 2010 · 2 Comments
At least Tim Williams is being honest about where he’s coming from. The quote is from a story in the News Virginian on Sunday looking at the long-delayed South River Greenway, which I’ve been writing about since my first couple of years in local journalism.
Dirt is finally supposed to turn on the project sometime next year, though I’ll believe that when I see it happening. Three city managers and four mayors, including Williams, have made similar pronouncements over the years.
To be fair, a big part of the holdup is the complexity of getting property owners along the river to sign off on having people walking and biking in their residential and corporate backyards. We’re not talking about a project where the city is, say, the owner of a parcel of land with the money and all the i’s dotted and all the t’s crossed just twiddling its thumbs waiting for Christmas.
The characterizations to the otherwise in the story from Williams and his successor as mayor, Frank Lucente, are interesting in and of themselves.
Filed under Blogs · Tagged with frank lucente, news virginian, tim williams, waynesboro virginia, waynesboro virginia greenway