Ready to kick off the next General Assembly session in January, Senator Creigh Deeds (www.creighdeeds.com) and delegates Rob Bell, David Toscano (www.davidtoscano.com) and Steven Landes (www.stevenlandes.com) made their traditional legislators’ stop at UVA for the annual forum. At more than a decade old, the forum is traditionally an opportunity for candidates to tout accomplishments from the previous session and make promises for the next.
Among the bills discussed: Bell’s bill to keep sex offenders off school property, Landes’ pledge to reform or abolish payday lending in the Commonwealth, Deeds’ efforts to address what he called “the Medicaid crisis” and Toscano’s call for a bipartisan effort to raise the minimum wage.
Also at issue: what to do with the State’s $1 billion surplus and how to tackle transportation, which Deeds called the “elephant in the room” for the next session.
UVA employees had other issues than roads on their minds, though. Jan Cornell, head of the Staff Union at UVA, pressed the legislators about finally passing a minimum wage bill. And Brad Sayler, a computer systems engineer at UVA, demanded more employee input on the University’s human resources restructuring.
President John Casteen introduced the representatives and responded to audience questions related to the University. As for UVA’s own bill of goods for the next General Assembly session? This, apparently, was not the occasion for that discussion.
