Today a local city council member pitched some ideas to begin a discussion about sources of potential cost savings. To be fair, it was something of a brainstorming session and not a fully fleshed formal proposal; meant to provide a starting point for a discussion that will inevitably end up in formal council session. The suggestions are informative and this review is presented with no intent to draw fire to the messenger. They help us anticipate the consequences of changes to funding government as we have known it.

Some of the ideas to help make it through the next five years:

• Freeze salaries for city employees
• Freeze hiring except for public safety positions
• Reduce 100 positions per year for the next 5 years through attrition
• Reduce the undesignated fund balance
• Reduce the Public Utilities fund balance by assessing a right-of-way use fee
• Reduce open space expenditures
• Have Special Service Districts reimburse the police department for overtime
• Reduce higher tier landscaping expenditures
• Extend life of vehicles by a year
• Halt all non-critical capital improvement projects
• Reduce employee (retiree) health costs

McAuliffe's won me over. I don’t want a job with his campaign or his administration. I have never taken a penny from any candidate I have supported. I want what is best for my family and Virginia. I have concluded that Terry is the man for this time.

Terry McAuliffe moves in different parts of the progressive sphere than I. But ours intersect enough in the survival interest arena, that the areas where we disagree are overshadowed. I looked hard for a deal-breaking position. My first nudge was when I discovered that John Grisham supports Terry. Yes, influenced by a non-politician’s judgment. But meeting Dorothy McAuliffe was so telling by inference about the character of her husband, that apprehensions in that facet of the candidate were immediately wiped clean. And, though to now he has had reason to blow me off, he never has in passing. He’s a big man.

Peppered throughout Larry Wilkerson’s wide ranging comments in Williamsburg were references showing his disdain for the diminution of ethics in public service. Wilkerson has extended Eisenhower’s perception of the tentacles of influence to include the Congress. “What we need are more people who can stand against power without being corrupted.”

He told of being at Penn State University a couple of weeks ago. When he finished, a woman in the back stood up and she asked “Well, what can we do? What can we do?” And, because he had just finished talking about the military-industrial complex, and how much money that is bleeding off taxpayers, “I said, well one thing you can do is get rid of John Murtha. I know John Murtha, John Murtha is a good guy. John Murtha is so profane that he used to get out of HUMMVEES when we’d take him on a CODEL and he would curse everything in sight. John Murtha is a former Marine, but John Murtha is corrupt as hell. And you cannot deal with the military-industrial-congressional complex today…which as Eisenhower said in 1961, we should be very aware of, and very vigilant about…you can’t deal with it without recognizing that when you have someone like that, you need to get rid of him.”

David Smick, Wilkerson tells us, says that Tom Friedman is looking at the world through other than economic and financial eyes. "Tom says, look out there at all the wonderful things." Smick says, "Through financial and economic eyes, the world is curved, I can’t see a thing. There’s no transparency."

Commenting about a recent presentation by Smick, who authored The World Is Curved: Hidden Dangers to the Global Economy, Wilkerson told the gathering in Williamsburg, this is especially true if you start passing toxic waste, "securitized and wrapped up in things like CEOs and whatever" out to the rest of the world and there’s no visibility until one day you turn over the salad leaf and you say “Wow, look at that worm!" And then all of a sudden that worm panic spreads throughout the global economy and that’s in essence what has happened. And largely the United States passed most of that bad commercial paper out. And this may eventually create as much anger at us out there in the world as our "War on Terror."

With some 55% of the vote, Prosecutor Greg Underwood looks to have been elected to fill the vacancy created last year when Jack Doyle was appointed a Norfolk Circuit Judge. Some 7000 voters turned out to decide this special election. He defeated Republican John Coggeshall who announced he was uncertain if he would oppose Underwood in the fall.

Underwood will be sworn in as Norfolk’s Commonwealth’s Attorney after the votes have been certified. The soon to be former prosecutor of 16 years will face re-election for a full term in November.

Cross posted at VBDems.org - Blogging our way to Democratic wins in Virginia Beach!

Dorothy McAuliffe has emerged during this cycle as one intriguing personality. Seen once riding herd on their brood; only one little doggie straying; the youngest on lookout for that carrier. Then she spoke at the Veterans and Military Family Caucus. Last night she appeared at the Virginia Beach office kickoff.

Each time, she endears herself to and impresses those she meets. It is no surprise that she would be something of a character. Look who she married. What is refreshing is that someone who is raising five children under 18 embodies that same kind of enthusiasm and optimism as her candidate husband and has energy to spare. She likes to say that Terry always sees the glass half full. After being around her, you can imagine she helps him top it off. Of course, I’ll want to look in on her once that young one marches off to college, just to see how this marathon winds up.

Due to family issues, Chris V. Rey of Williamsburg will no longer be running for House of Delegates in the 93rd District - the seat currently held by Republican Phil Hamilton. He was an excellent candidate, we were blessed to have him, but we must move on and immediately work on finding another qualified Democrat.

Mr. Rey issued the following press release:

Or so the huckster dull normals of talk radio pound out a message of innuendo designed to drive ratings and secure and build audience passion. But the evocative nature of these diatribes are less eloquent than provocative. They are not an appeal to the better character of our nation’s soul.

“How stands the Union?” allegedly the devil asked Daniel Webster. And the judge responded, “Rock bottomed and copper riveted.”…It ain’t no more. It is anything but. And there is a new captain at the helm.

So began retired Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson Monday evening, addressing a filled Williamsburg library theater. Some 300 James City County and Williamsburg residents came to hear the William and Mary visiting professor and former Chief of Staff to Collin Powell. In an extemporaneous ninety minute dialogue, he set a tone that was at once alarming and reassuring; if that can be done. More will follow over the next few days, but a haunting sense will begin the synopsis. Wilkerson did not specifically express the sentiments standing at the beginning or the end of this post. He elicited them.

Once in a great while, Delegate Bob Purkey (R-Virginia Beach) allows the public a bit more familiarity with his idiosyncrasies. Yesterday, apparently angry over an article in the local newspaper, he was inspired to make a rare appearance and lash out. In an often incoherent broadside, he revealed much.

The article in the morning’s Virginian-Pilot reported that legislation brought by Purkey “would have extended the waiting period before former government officials and employees could lobby their old colleagues…would have added state executive agencies and local governments to those bodies deemed off-limits.” Purkey objected that the purpose wasn’t reported as “to make sure that cabinet level secretaries can not come back and lobby the next day as they still can by law.” Maybe he’ll be happier with this report.

Purkey described meeting with the reporter who said he had heard scuttlebutt about the reason the bill was put in. “I said the reason you prostitutes…pardon my grammar, I try to avoid the press every time I can. I think they are the worst…now there are a few decent reporters…a few you can trust, but most of them you can’t trust because they have changed their role. They used to report the news, now they interpret the news. They think that you all are pretty dumb, that we can’t give you the facts; they have to pre-chew your food, then digest it, and regurgitate it for you.” Purkey said, never getting to his point for the reporter.