Tonight I attended the Annual Meeting of the League of Women Voters of South Hampton Roads. For those who are not familiar with the organization, here is a bit from the national website:
The League of Women Voters, a nonpartisan political organization, has fought since 1920 to improve our systems of government and impact public policies through citizen education and advocacy. The League’s enduring vitality and resonance comes from its unique decentralized structure. The League is a grassroots organization, working at the national, state and local levels.
[…]
The League of Women Voters is strictly nonpartisan; it neither supports nor opposes candidates for office at any level of government. At the same time, the League is wholeheartedly political and works to influence policy through advocacy. It is the original grassroots citizen network, directed by the consensus of its members nationwide. The 900 state and local Leagues – comprising a vast grassroots lobby corps that can be mobilized when necessary.
While the group has “Women” in its title, there are male members of the League as well.
The topic for this evening’s meeting was, appropriately, The Transportation Crisis in Virginia and the speaker was the Secretary of Transportation, Pierce R. Homer. The Secretary spoke for just a few minutes, discussing projects specific to Hampton Roads. One of the things that he mentioned was something that I was completely unaware of: one of the requirements of federal funding for projects is the existence of regional metropolitan planning organizations. Here in Hampton Roads, our MPO has endorsed several major projects, including the third crossing, route 460 improvements, and the Mid-Town tunnel between Norfolk and Portsmouth.
Secretary Homer also mentioned that VDOT is working to turn over to the localities (he specifically mentioned Suffolk) the maintenance of some roads. He said that as a large organization, VDOT handles large projects well, but doesn’t handle small projects well, which is why they are working with the localities on this.
After his speech, Secretary Homer took questions from the audience. Each of the questions were extremely well thought out and reflected the league members’ interest and knowledge of this very complex topic. For projects specific to Hampton Roads, he deferred to the Deputy Director for Transportation of the HRPMO, Dwight Farmer.
Afterwards, I listened to the Secretary as he expressed not only his amazement at the depth of knowledge on the issues as demonstrated by the caliber of questions but his admiration for the detailed report on the subject that the League issued in January. (A copy of the report can be found on the chapter’s website.) So impressed was he by the report, he said that he abandoned his planned speech, which is generally geared towards a less sophisticated audience.
I have a lot to learn about the intricacies of the transportation issues. Tonight’s meeting was a great start.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 