Too soon to revisit the 2010 General Assembly session? Not for Senator Creigh Deeds and Delegate David Toscano, who talked budget process and bills at last night’s town hall meeting at the Senior Center.
The session was Deeds’ 19th, "and my hardest," he told a crowd of 40 or so people. He said that members of the assembly received copies of the final budget "at 3pm on Sunday and voted on it at 5pm" and—a phrase it seems we hear all too often these days—noted that "next year will be tougher." More below.
Senator Creigh Deeds at the Senior Center
Not to say the session was without mirth. Toscano mentioned a failed 2009 bill to prohibit homeowners’ associations from banning "wind energy drying devices," which returned this year in the form of a "natural drying device" bill and met a similar fate. Both Deeds and Toscano spoke about bills successfully passed this year, including Deeds’ Senate Bill 620, which he said history will show to be "probably the most important public safety bill passed this year." The bill imposes an additional $10 fee on criminal convictions, with funds to benefit Internet Crimes Against Children task forces.
The pair also discussed the General Assembly’s proposed budget which, in its current form, keeps the Commonwealth Center for Children and Adolescents (also threatened with closure last year) open and maintains funding for UVA’s Center for Politics.
Toscano also got a taste of what to expect during next month’s revenue-sharing meeting with city and county officials and school board representatives. When a member of the crowd asked why Charlottesville "gets money while Albemarle County is looking at firing teachers," Toscano answered that the revenue-sharing agreement is also an "annexation forbearance."
"The Bell amendment pulled us apart," said Toscano, referring to Delegate Rob Bell’s failed effort to move $2.6 million from Charlottesville schools to those in Albemarle. But discord over the agreement will be resolved, "because people around here know how to work together."
Delegate David Toscano at the Senior Center
