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The Obama administration may have found its “signature issue” on a local hot topic: railroad improvements. Politico.com reports that $8 billion— just over one percent of the total Stimulus Package— will fund high-speed rail infrastructure, thanks to closed-door Congressional bargaining.
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The Ivy Foundation, which dropped $45 million on UVA for a biomedical research facility in 2005, has written another check, this one for a new Biomedical Innovation Fund, which will support five high-risk projects this year with $260,000 in grants. The Ivy Foundation was created in 2000 with funds remaining from the closure of the W. Alton Jones Cell Science Center in Lake Placid, N.Y. According to a UVA release, the fund’s assets increased significantly with the 2004 sale of Upstate Group, a company whose principals included former Board of Visitors member William C. Battle and Sheridan G. Snyder, a 1958 graduate of U.Va.’s College of Arts and Sciences.
(0)The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) announced plans yesterday to layoff 450 hourly employees next month. That’s in addition to the layoff of 1,000 full-time positions already announced. The move comes in the face of a $2.6 billion projected revenue shortfall for transportation services over the next six years. VDOT is also considering closing more than half the state’s 41 rest areas and cutting back on mowing highway medians. And apparently there are more layoffs to come, as VDOT officials said that 1500 more jobs would need to be cut by July 2010.
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Just a month ago, this house was featured in this newspaper’s “On the Block” column; now it’s facing a potential foreclosure sale. Would-be buyers should bring at least $20,000 to the steps of the Albemarle County Courthouse for the planned sale at 1pm on February 24. (Particularly with banks putting moratoria in place, these things can be called off at the 11th hour, so it’s advisable to call trustee Samuel L. White at 757-457-1460.)
A week ago, the Covenant School shut down temporarily when lots of students were sick. Now, St. Anne’s-Belfield is doing the same thing. NBC29 has the story.
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Just days after bemoaning the current economic climate including a reduction in state funding, the director of the Waynesboro-based Artisans Center has announced via press release that it is closing its retail gallery this Saturday, February 21.
The train to NYC is as likely as getting HDTV from the Newsplex stations.
Most of the railway “stimulus” is really a pork barrel project for Sen Harry Reid (D-NV) and Nevada.
jim, you’re wrong - that was a story concocted by republicans to raise outrage over the stimulus. It’s completely false - there is no basis behind it at all, and there is no such earmark in the bill.
True, Reid played a role in including this provision in the bill, but it was mostly Obama’s doing, and Reid himself acknowledges that his pet project will have to wait in line and compete for stimulus funding along with all the other high speed rail projects in the country.
The truth is, republicans just went looking for pork. The fact is, though, that so much of the spending is being left up to the states, that there are basically no congressional earmarks in the text of the bill to point to as pork. Not to say that all of this money will be used effectively - the states will surely have a heyday with it - but the Repubs wanted something to highlight RIGHT NOW so they pretty much made a story up.
Orulz, you’re flat wrong about it. It was a last minute add for Reid.
jm, I can’t find the so-called pork you’re talking about. Can you provide a link or citation instead of a one sentence accusation?
Can you find the link to the railroad section of the bill?