The failed limited-access, tolled U.S. 460 route that former Gov. Bob McDonnell and his transportation secretary, Sean Connaughton, relentlessly pushed forward represents, perhaps, the most wasteful application of Virginia's public-private transportation law. Construction of a second Midtown Tunnel tube, a component of the $2.1 billion Elizabeth River Crossings deal, which consigned Hampton Roads drivers to paying increasing tolls through 2070 at the Midtown and Downtown tunnels, represents the most punishing. Neither of those projects received the kind of public input or scrutiny necessary to protect the public or ensure that taxpayers' money and property were properly respected. Last week, Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe
announced a plan to amend the law to include provisions that promote greater transparency and accountability. Those changes, the product of bipartisan negotiation, will be outlined in a bill carried in the upcoming legislative session by Del. Chris Jones, a Suffolk Republican and chairman of the Appropriations Committee.
Virginian-Pilot
Jefferson’s university is cast in darkness. That has to do with far more than the splintered tale of a woman named Jackie being raped by seven men at a fraternity house. That story, unleashed online Nov. 19 by Rolling Stone, systematically has been dismantled. We might never know what actually happened. But there are other more important things we must know. We must know what University of Virginia President Teresa A. Sullivan knew about the allegations, when she knew it and how she responded. We must see, once it is completed, an independent counsel’s review of the claims and the school’s sexual assault policies. We must know the scope of sexual violence claims at the university. These things matter. They would provide insight into the president’s leadership in advance of a crisis. They would inform us further about the university’s handling of sexual assault claims, which already are the subject of a federal investigation of UVa and 85 other schools. But Ms. Sullivan and the university refuse to answer questions or provide relevant records about these critical issues. Following her arrival several years ago, the school’s first female president passed on to administrators what she called Sullivan’s laws. One said: “Don’t hide bad news; meet it head on.” She is hiding now. And Jefferson’s university suffers for it.
Daily Progress
In politics, silence implies consent. In sexual assault cases, silence does not imply consent. Only consent is consent. Whichever way you want to look at it, we do not consent, and we will not be silent about the latest turn of events in the sordid mess involving the University of Virginia and Rolling Stone magazine’s now infamous story about an alleged gang rape at a fraternity house there. We also wish the University of Virginia wouldn’t be so silent. We understand the legalities, we understand privacy laws. Those rightly preclude saying some things — but they don’t preclude everything. One big question now is what will become of the report that the independent counsel — this time an independent counsel that the attorney general arranged. Will it be made public? Herring’s office sends that question to the university’s governing board; the board rector hasn’t responded; Sullivan has said it’s “premature” to say. No, it’s not premature. Now would be exactly the right time for the university to promise that yes, the report will be made public, no matter what it says. Redact whatever names you need to redact to protect the names of victims, absolutely. But what we’re really talking about here is the classic Watergate question: What did the university know and when did it know it? And then, of course: What, if anything, did it do about it? Keeping the report private only feeds suspicion of a cover-up.
Roanoke Times
Virginia’s ethics debate is becoming a bidding war. But it’s a distraction from a subject legislators don’t want to talk about: how some of them have been padding their salaries for years. Virginia’s part-time legislators are paid $18,000 a year. Their salary hasn’t changed much for nearly three decades. Delegates took a symbolic 2 percent pay cut in 1990 because of a recession, trimming their wages to $17,640. They never restored their full salary. A good case could be made for a legislative pay raise. In addition to their salaries, legislators receive $15,000 a year for office expenses. They don’t have to use it for that. Because the money is paid to them directly and is taxed as income, lawmakers can put it in their pocket, spending it as they please. In effect, these legislators are taking it as salary. That means those who do — and apparently there are a bunch — are being paid $33,000, not $18,000.
Jeff Schapiro, Times-Dispatch
Much of the government’s work happens in open meetings because laws have forced more of the government’s business out into the open. While they must obey the letter of the law, the spirit of the law sometimes takes a beating. On the fourth floor of Danville’s Municipal Building, the city government has two meeting rooms — the city council chambers and a work session room. The televised City Council meetings are held in the council chambers, but once that meeting is over, the members of Danville City Council head across the hall to the work session room — where there are no cameras. Both meetings are open to the public, but only the official meetings — not the work sessions — are held before the cameras. In that way, a member of Danville City Council can say with a straight face all of the meetings are televised. We call on the Electric Services Assessment Steering Committee to get out of the Municipal Building — and hold its meetings throughout the community at a time when it’s convenient for the vast majority of the people who will be affected by their work.
Register & Bee