Gov. Kaine in Leesburg Tonight [updated]

Gov. Kaine will be in Leesburg this evening for a Town Hall with Loudoun residents.

Governor Kaine's Town Hall

Wednesday , June 11th
Starting at 7:00 PM

Come meet Governor Kaine tonight, June 11, for a town hall meeting at Harper Park Middle School at 701 Potomac Station Drive in Leesburg to discuss his transportation plan. The Governor's plan will be taken up for consideration when the General Assembly reconvenes for a special session on transportation on June 23. The town hall meeting will begin at 7:00 PM and is open to the public and media.

Come out and show your support for our Governor.

For details regarding the Governor's transportation plan, go to: www.transportation.virginia.gov

Nothing will get done on transportation this session without a lot of loud pressure from citizens here in Loudoun and throughout northern Virginia. It's critical that we give the Governor the support he needs to get something done.

That means telling our Delegates who enable Republican obstructionism in the House of Delegates (like Joe May, Bob Marshall and Tom Rust) that they need to vote their district, not their Party, by supporting a realistic, actionable solution in the House. If they do not, we will remember who ignored our pleas for help while we sat in traffic, wasting gas costing $4/gallon.

We will remember, and we will vote.

[update] I went to the Town Hall last night for about 30 minutes, as I had commitments to the family that prevented my attending longer. It was relatively well attended, with a representative sampling of local officials, including Scott York, Mark Herring, Dave Poisson, Kelly Burk and Marty Martinez (among many others). The Governor made the case for new revenues for transportation, noting that while Virginia is 5th in the nation in income, we're only 36 in the country in spending. While that's a good thing, it illustrates the key contention that "you can't cut your way to prosperity."

There were a number of folks asking questions from thin slivers of the political landscape, such as the anti-tax crusader who asked to governor to fix the transportation problem by cutting school and medicaid funding. Personally, I feel that it is a poverty of character to cut resources for our children and sick so that you and I can get to work a bit faster.

Or the gentleman who asked about the "group of criminals" that met in Loudoun earlier this month, and why the Governor allowed that to happen on commonwealth soil. The question was quite nonsensical in its conspiratorial assertion that (If I understood the questioner correctly) many public officials (Secretary Albright, for example) were criminals by association for having taken photos with people who were at said meeting. The Governor answered with more aplomb than I certainly could have gathered, "I wasn't aware of the meeting, so I cannot comment."

Then there was the gentleman railing about increased traffic enforcement on I-495 as a violation of our 4th Amendment rights. While I, too, am concerned about our liberties, traffic enforcement is as much a public safety issue on I-495 as one of civil liberties.

Ultimately, the Governor came to make a reasoned presentation on his solutions to the transportation funding problem, and was greeted frequently by scurrilous screeds barely formed as questions. It is a testament to his patience and respect for every voter that he happily engaged in the Town Hall discussions last night.

The quote of the night, however, goes to Supervisor Burk who asked the Governor if, after he got all the legislators down to Richmond, and assembled in their halls, he would lock them in and throw away the key until they got something done. It was funny, but to the point. We elected our leaders to act and solve problems, and we expect them to do so. The governor has stepped up to do his part (twice), it is up to the Assembly to do theirs.

[update 2] Loudoun County Traffic has a video of the Governor's presentation. Fair warning, it's 39 minutes long, but worth watching (kinda like Sen. Obama's race speech).