Docket Digest

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(Thursday) January 28, 2010

By Carla Branch
alexandrianews.org

On Tuesday night, the Alexandria City Council voted to encourage a federal agency to select the Victory Center as its headquarters; approved a grant application that would partially fund bus rapid transit through Potomac Yard and agreed to send a letter to the General Assembly supporting the Virginia Municipal League’s guiding principles they should keep in mind during budget deliberations.

Victory Center Competes for Federal Tenants

The Defense Intelligence Agency and TRICARE are looking for office space in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. Alexandria’s Victory Center is being considered by both agencies. City Council passed a resolution supporting either agency’s tenancy.

“We need to actively support a federal agency selecting this space,” said Vice Mayor Kerry Donley. “Let’s be realistic. For the next several years, the federal government is going to be the only one doing any significant commercial development. We need to do what we can to encourage agencies that are seeking space to look at the Victory Center. It is close to Metro and close to the Capital Beltway. It has all of the infrastructure that would be needed to support a large organization. It is the ideal location for a federal agency.”

Located at 5001 Eisenhower Avenue, Victory Center brings a unique opportunity to the market through its position as the largest secure site strategically located inside the Capital Beltway between two major interchanges, within walking distance to a Metro station and with access to an existing readily available fiber optic network. The 16-acre site has 600,000 square feet of office space.

The Defense Intelligence Agency is a Department of Defense combat support agency and an important member of the United States Intelligence Community. With more than 16,500 military and civilian employees worldwide, DIA provides military intelligence to warfighters, defense policymakers and force planners, in the DoD and the Intelligence Community, in support of U.S. military planning and operations and weapon systems acquisition.

TRICARE is the health care program serving active duty service members, National Guard and Reserve members, retirees, their families, survivors and certain former spouses worldwide.  As a major component of the Military Health System, TRICARE brings together the health care resources of the uniformed services and supplements them with networks of civilian health care professionals, institutions, pharmacies and suppliers to provide access to high-quality health care services while maintaining the capability to support military operations.

“We hope that they make a decision soon but the federal government works in its own time,” Donley said. “We just need to do everything we can to help fill this important office space.”

Bus Rapid Transit for Potomac Yard

Council voted unanimously to authorize the City Manager to apply for an $8.5 million Federal Transit Administration Livability grant to assist in funding the Potomac Yard Transitway.

“We had a very short turn-around time on this grant because it was just announced in December and grant applications are due in early February,” Donley said. “Since this is a collaborative project between Arlington and Alexandria, we have a very good chance of getting the money.”

On December 1, 2009, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced a Federal Transit Administration bus livability grant program and an urban circulator livability program. Applications for the new grants programs are due by February 8, 2010, and the Department of Transportation anticipates making formal grant announcements by the end of March.

Federal funding for the new program comes from unallocated discretionary funds for the New StartsISmall Starts Bus and Bus Facility programs. DOT is using $280 million in previously unobligated funds for the program.

Approximately $130 million will be available for the circulator program largely aimed at funding streetcar, circulator and other local transit and mobility projects, while $150 million will be available for projects that will focus on linking buses and bus facilities to neighborhoods. Key evaluation criteria include the promotion of livability and sustainability and addressing the six livability principles previously outlined by the interagency partnership formed by the Federal Transportation Administration, the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency:

1. Provide more transportation choices

2. Promote equitable, affordable housing

2. Enhance economic competitiveness

3. 4. Support existing communities

5. Coordinate policies and leverage investment

6. Value communities and neighborhoods

If Alexandria is awarded the funds, they will be used to build the Potomac Yard Transitway, from Monroe Street to East Glebe in the median of Route 1 as ratified by City Council in June, 2007. The transitway construction would be made part of the Route 1 widening construction project. Additional grant funds would fund the stations on this portion of the transitway and developer funds would be for the Route 1 widening.

Alexandria and Arlington County staff have met monthly since last fall to better coordinate the planned Crystal City transitway in Arlington to the connecting Potomac Yard Transitway. The objective is to create a high capacity transit system. This will likely be a Bus Rapid Transit system first and a fixed light rail streetcar system second at some point in the future.

Councilman Paul Smedberg expressed concern about the decision making process. “By authorizing this grant, we have decided on bus rapid transit for this corridor without Council ever having voted or without public input. I understand that there is a very short turn-around but it seems to me that we should have been given the opportunity to discuss this further,” he said. “At a minimum, we should meet with the Arlington County Board of Supervisors and come to a joint agreement about such a plan.”

Council asked City Manager Jim Hartmann to work with Arlington County staff to plan such a joint meeting.

The State Budget

With the Commonwealth of Virginia facing a $4 billion budget deficit, about the only item being discussed by the General Assembly this session is the budget. “Governor McDonnell seems to be presenting his budget proposals in a very piecemeal manner so it’s hard to tell exactly what is going to happen,” said the City’s legislative director Bernie Caton. “What we do know is that he doesn’t want to raise taxes at all.”

Council is monitoring Compensation Board recommendations on cuts that could effect the Alexandria Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office and the Sheriff’s office. Also, there are likely to be cuts to K-12 education, which would have less impact on Alexandria than on other jurisdictions because Alexandria already provides the maximum local contribution to its public school system.

Council voted unanimously to send a letter to members of the General Assembly supporting the Virginia Municipal League’s guiding principles:

• Tax reforms – If the state does not raise sufficient revenue to continue basic core services the public rightfully expects either the state or local government to provide, then local governments will have to step into the breach and do so through tax increases, if necessary. These services include public education, public safety, transportation and basic social and mental health services – many of which are often required by state mandates. The issue is not whether the taxpayer will pay for these core services, but how the taxpayer will pay for these services. The choice is between state revenue mechanisms, including income and sales tax revenues, that are the province of the General Assembly and the Governor, and local revenue options that by Virginia law are limited mostly to real estate and vehicle. and other personal property taxes. For instance, if the General Assembly and the Governor do not want to pass a 1 % income tax surcharge to pay for car tax relief, then they should come up with an alternative way to pay for that relief.

• Restrictions on local revenue sources – Further restrictions on local revenue sources, together with a lack of state funding for basic core services, will just put further pressure on real estate taxes and vehicle taxes to be increased, as this is the only avenue available to pay for essential local services.

• Additional revenue authority – To alleviate pressures to increase real estate and vehicle taxes, the General Assembly and the Governor should consider giving local governments more authority to raise revenue through other means. This diversification of revenue sources leads to a more equitable tax policy than one based solely on the value of the property one owns, as well as a better ability to weather fluctuations in the real estate market, which can drive local revenues down and up dramatically in way that makes sustaining a reasonable and prudent level of funding very difficult at times.

• K-12 and other mandates – If the General Assembly and the Governor want to take responsibility for requiring certain procedures or standards designed to improve education, it should take responsibility for raising the revenues to do so. Leaving the dirty work of raising taxes to the local governments, while taking credit for educational reforms requiring such tax increases is disingenuous at best, and reflects no credit on the General Assembly. Such actions also cause serious fiscal problems for local governing bodies, including school boards and those bodies responsible for raising revenues for school expenses.

• If the General Assembly ends the car tax subsidy provided to local governments, Alexandria will no longer be able to reduce local car taxes by 73% due to the $23.5 million state subsidy. Car owners would then pay 100% of the tax instead of 27% of the tax.

“Our message to Alexandria taxpayers in the tax bill sent out next August will be that this approximately 270% increase in their car tax payments is due solely to the actions of the General Assembly,” said Mayor Bill Euille in the letter.