Virginia made wise use of tobacco settlement funds or did they?

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Virginia made wise use of tobacco settlement funds

December 06, 2004

Tennessee, like most states, has long since seen its tobacco settlement monies go up in smoke.

Not so in Virginia.

Three years ago while Tennessee lawmakers were seizing three years' worth of tobacco settlement monies as a stopgap way to plug the state's chronic budget deficit, Virginia lawmakers thoughtfully targeted that state's share of the multiyear, multibillion dollar fund in a variety of innovative ways. Since, the effect of those two widely differing responses to the tobacco settlement has come back to haunt Northeast Tennessee and help Southwest Virginia.

The latest proof of the soundness of that decision lies in a round of recent grant announcements from the Virginia Tobacco Commission, which targets projects as diverse as expanding hair sheep production and marketing to helping fund the second phase of the Ralph Stanley Museum.

The funds, allocated by the Southwest Virginia Economic Development Committee, will be administered in the 2005 fiscal year and total more than $1 million.

Officials with the town of Clintwood, for example, received a $61,000 grant that will assist with phase two completion of the Dr. Ralph Stanley Museum and Traditional Mountain Music Center.

The center, located along the state-designated Crooked Road Heritage Music Trail that stretches from Dickenson County to Galax, held its grand opening this fall and features hundreds of exhibits highlighting the career of the Grammy Award winner and his brother, Carter.

The additional funding will be combined with a grant of almost $140,000 awarded to the town in May for phase two construction.

Another recipient of the tobacco fund is Appalachian Sustainable Development, an organization helping farmers who grow organic crops, which got $75,000 for a value-added economic development initiative.

Other recipients include the University of Virginia's College at Wise, which will receive $50,000 to help with its Entrepreneurial Development Program;
the Barter Theatre Foundation, which received $75,000 for infrastructure and site development for the Stonewall Square project;
the Birthplace of Country Music Alliance, $125,544 for the BCMA Cultural Heritage Center;
Lee County and Lee County Industrial Development Authority, $40,000 for improvements at the Lee County Airport and $200,000 for expansion efforts at the Constitutional Oaks Industrial Park;
Dante Lives On in Russell County, $21,000 toward the construction of the Dante Coal Mining and Railroad Museum;
Damascus, $72,000 for phase one of an engineering and marketing plan for the Creeper Trail Campground on Beaver Dam Creek;
Lonesome Pine Arts and Crafts, $105,000 for upgrades at the outdoor drama "Trail of the Lonesome Pine";
the Scott County Economic Development Authority, $15,000 for its Leadership Academy Southwest program;
and the Scott County Hair Sheep Association, $50,000 for expanding hair sheep education, production and marketing.

These projects are merely the latest of numerous economic development projects Virginia's share of tobacco settlement monies have helped make possible. Another recent example is the expansion of Joy Mining Manufacturing. Yet another example is the so-called "e-58'' plan, which is using tobacco monies to fund fiber-optic links in rural communities.

Project by project, lawmakers' foresight in using tobacco monies is making significant contributions to the economic development of Southwest Virginia.

These funds are helping improve the quality of life by bringing high-paying jobs to an area which can certainly use them.

Virginia lawmakers are to be commended for their forward-thinking strategy of investment that has proven itself many times over, one that promises to benefit the region, as well as the state in general.

Printed Kingsport Times-News January 10, 2005

Re: Virginia Tobacco funds (December 6) the Times-News has missed the mark. These funds that should have went for education, health care and economic development have become a ready source of fraud and waste for local Southwest Virginia governments that have produced nothing in the way of real jobs or helped common people.

Tourism doesn't create good jobs, if at all. My relatives in Wise, Dickenson, and Russell Counties know of nothing any of these museums have brought in. Carter's Fold near my home has been given over $500,000 in government grants and hasn't produced a single job.

Bristol Virginia Utilities has received about $5 million in taxpayer funds (about $2.2 million in tobacco funds) touting fiber optic as job creation. In one case they admitted running lines to areas they knew would never produce anything, then kept half the grant ($350,000) for expenses.

All they did was overbuild existing fiber optic infrastructure and have not connected a single customer that didn't get services before. After running up a whopping $50 million in external debt, they have failed to create a single job or bring in a single new business two years later.

Now Bristol, Tennessee is prepared to commit the same stupidity while Bristol, Virginia has the highest electric rate in Tri-Cities.

Another $225,000 went for a seafood restaurant in Bristol. ($175,000 was EDA grants, $50,000 from Bristol Virginia Utilities.) Another Bristol company received $1 million ($500,000 Tobacco Funds) to create 350 "new jobs," but instead we got 600 lays-off s and the company kept the money. Washington County gave away $40,000 for a non-profit retirement community study that produced nothing.

As for Joy Manufacturing in Duffield, explain why they closed their facilities in Washington County, Virginia industrial parks at the same time. Net result was a loss of over 100 jobs and millions in losses to taxpayers.

It's time to stop the waste and use tobacco grants for what they intended for.

Lewis Loflin
Bristol, VA

Evolution controversy in Sullivan County:

On top of disrupting school over religion, we have a Rev. Poff that wants to ban Halloween as Satanic.

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