Two days before a scheduled news conference, business folk in Roanoke are already talking about a development for one of the area’s oldest and largest employers.  On Wednesday TMEIC GE Drive Automation Systems will announce details about a move from Salem to the former home of Atlantic Mutual Cos. in Roanoke County.

A move a few miles down the road may not sound like a big deal. Yet, it’s good news for Southwest Virginia. A major employer is staying in the area, but plans to move into larger space so it can increase its work force of about 300. TMEIC, a joint venture between Toshiba, Mitsubishi Electric and GE, makes software that runs motors. Its industrial drive systems are used by a number of industries, including mining, marine, and utilities. 
Stay tuned Wednesday for more details.

Virginia delegates seem to be working harder for their political futures than they are for the future of Virginians.

The partisan explosion in the House of Delegates yesterday was just the latest episode of the chamber’s partisan procedural partisan bickering this session. Much of the fighting has been about avoiding or forcing potentially poisonous political votes. Thus, delegates are already thinking about saving their own jobs when they face re-election in two years.

Virginia’s politicians should keep this in mind: Virginians care more issues such as education, taxes and health care than they do about their current delegates keeping their jobs.

Virginia residents have a new, free source for health care information. Today marks the public launch of the Virginia Health Information Project at http://www.vahealth.info. Two years in the making, the Web site is designed to be a one-stop source for reliable, unbiased information.

“More people are turning to the Web for health information but may get overwhelmed if they google something,” says Jeanna Beker, director of The Soho Center, a nonprofit based in Madison County that sponsors the site. “We’ve tried to consider the needs of the broad public to make it easy for people of all ages to get good information.” 

So what can you find at the site? A little bit of everything.  Daily updates on health news. A health library. Parents can learn about childhood immunizations while seniors can check out prescription drug plans. The site also provides links and information on 14,000 health-related hotlines, many in English and Spanish.

The site’s initial funding of $51,000 came from the state attorney general’s office as part of a nationwide antitrust suit against distributors of the George Foreman grill.  Salton Inc. agreed to pay $8 million to settle charges of pressuring stores into charging artificially high prices for the grill and to removing competitors’ grills from the shelves. The settlement directed states to use their share of the money to help charities or government agencies improve health care and nutrition. 

If the goal of repealing abusive driver legislation is to protect Virginia drivers from burdensome fees, why does the House of Delegates bill also hurt law-abiding car buyers?

The Virginia House of Delegates voted Tuesday to repeal the despised abusive driver fees in a 95 to 2 vote. Yet attached to the bill is a provision that car buyers in Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia would have to pay car sales taxes at the DMV or possibly use a longer online or telephone system.

The move would make it impossible for car buyers to finance the new 1 percent sales tax from the regional transportation authorities. That can mean a hefty upfront bill. Currently, auto dealers can finance the state’s 3 percent sales tax along with the price of the car.

Auto dealers don’t want the additional work of handling the new tax and don’t want consumers to confuse the 1 percent increase with the car’s price.

Perhaps money helped auto dealers’ cause. In 2007, the Virginia Auto and Truck Dealers Association gave $460,362 to state candidates, according to the Virginia Public Access Project.

The bill does not include suggestions on how to make up for the $65 million the fees were supposed to bring in for transportation.

The Senate Finance Committee unanimously passed a bill to repeal the driver fees. Although the bill did not include the provision to require car buyers to pay the new sales tax at the DMV, The Washington Post reported Senate leadership supports the idea.

Gov. Tim Kaine supports a repeal of the fees, but does not support the sales tax provision of the bill. 

The 85-year-old National Theater in Richmond will reopen as a concert hall next month after being closed for 25 years. But one of its owners says restoration of the theater would not have happened if the state didn’t offer historic rehabilitation tax credits. “Without tax credits, it still would be vacant and cold,” said A. William Reid of RIC Capital Ventures.
The building was still a bit chilly last night when the Virginia Department of Historic Resources and APVA Virginia Preservation held a reception celebrating the results of 10 years of tax credits. The event drew more than 400 people including Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, Speaker of the House William J. Howell and House Minority Leader Ward L. Armstrong.
Also on hand was Michael Pratt, director of the VCU Center for Public Policy, which conducted a study of the effects of state tax credits. He offered a few highlights from the survey.
• 93 percent of respondents said the state tax credits were essential to their decision to rehab historic property.
• 65.5 percent said they would not have undertaken their projects without the tax credits.
• Since the tax credits went into effect in 1997, they have resulted in an economic impact of $1.6 billion in the past 10 years, creating 10,769 jobs and generating $46 million in state tax revenue.
In the case of the National Theater, tax incentives encouraged Reid’s group to buy the building for $1.6 million in 2006 from the Historic Richmond Foundation and spend $15 million restoring it to its original appearance.
The theater opened in 1923 as a venue for vaudeville acts and later served as a music hall and movie theater. It closed in 1983 and was scheduled to be demolished when the Historic Richmond Foundation bought it in 1984.
“Orson Wells appeared on this stage,” Reid said. “In a few months, Willie Nelson will do the same.”