Badrose Explains It All

For the best commentary to date on the Virgil Goode/MZM/Martinsville non-controversy, go read Badrose's thoughts on the matter.

Very well done, Ms.Rose! I applaud you.

The Truth Of The MZM Martinsville Deal

Once again Waldo is off in his Virgil Goode Bizarroworld. In this, his most recent foray into the unreal, he would have his readers believe that Virgil Goode somehow manipulated the MZM/Martinsville deal that brought the defense contractor to the Clearview Business Park.

In an article replete with links to sources, most of which are earlier posts of his own, he puts forth as his own the completely ridiculous idea that Virgil is morally obligated to repay the (roughly) $145,000 that Martinsville is liable for. If this truly is Waldo's idea, then he should be aware that fellow Charlottesville liberal Al Weed plagiarized it way back in August of last year. You remember, this was also about the time Al Weed was trying to set up a contest to see who could write the nastiest letter to the editor with Virgil Goode as the subject and lunch with Barnie Day as the prize. But I digress.

Go read Waldo's latest slam on Virgil, I'll wait here until you return.

Did you find that enlightening? I really didn't think you would. As I'm sure you noticed, Waldo's last sentence once again drives his point that Virgil Goode was solely responsible for the MZM/Martinsville decision. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Let me tell you the truth of the matter. A truth that is easily discovered if one only looks for it, rather than merely wishing for future Al Weed campaign slogans, lies, and half-truths.

In late October of 2003 rumors began circulating throughout Henry County about a possible new employer, some said it would be a defense contractor. On October 30th Ginny Wray of the Martinsville Bulletin wrote a story confirming the rumors and naming MZM as the new employer, citing Virgil Goode as her source.

At this time MZM already had a presence in the 5th District so Virgil was familiar with the firm. He also was familiar with a shell building that Martinsville had to offer in the Clearview Business Park. According to Ms. Wray, Virgil urged MZM to take a look at Martinsville and their facility.

The following day a story by Mickey Powell of the Bulletin adds a few more details, with some quotes from Mitchell Wade, President and CEO of MZM at the time. Powell found it difficult to get much more information, such as the selling price of the shell building from either Wade or Tom Harned, Martinsville's Economic Development Director.

All we knew at that time was that the City had sold its $945,000 shell building to MZM for an undisclosed sum, and that Virgil Goode had introduced the two parties.

The following Tuesday, at an announcement ceremony attended by then Governor Mark Warner, it was disclosed that the City of Martinsville had received $1.027 million for the facility. $400,000 from MZM, $500,000 split equally between The Governor's Opportunity Fund and the Virginia Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission, and $127,000 in private funds from the Chamber's Partnership for Economic Growth, a partnership affiliated with the Martinsville-Henry County Chamber of Commerce.

According to Mickey Powell of the Martinsville Bulletin;

Information from the Center for Responsive Politics shows that MZM is Goode's top financial contributor, donating more than $37,000 to him during the current election cycle. That money was given either through a political action committee, people associated with the firm or their family members, a Web site indicates.

Goode admitted those contributions. He said, though, that he would have given information about the shell building to any firm, regardless of whether it financially backed him.

He received MZM's money "before I knew they were interested" in the building, he said.

This clearly refutes Waldo's insinuation of any "quid pro quo".

Now, let's look at what we know of the background negotiation that went on before this deal was announced.

• Martinsville had a shell building that had been on the
  market for 3 years with no takers.


• Martinsville owed $940,000 on this shell building and
  desperately needed both a buyer and the employment that a buyer would
  bring to the area.


• A firm with a presence in Virgil's 5th District was
  searching for a facility in order to expand part of its business.


• Virgil introduced the two parties and negotiation began
  for the purchase of the building. MZM offered $400,000 for the
  building, knowing that it would require another several million dollars
  in renovations to make the building suitable for its purposes.


• Tom Harned, Martinsville's Economic Development Director
  at that time asked Virgil to request a better offer from MZM.


• That request for a better offer was turned down by MZM.


• Tom Harned then asked Wade to apply for state incentives
  to make up the difference.


• Virgil Goode was not a party to these negotiations,
  though he was copied on most, if not all, of the correspondence between
  Harned and Wade.


• At a stalemate point in the negotiations, Virgil
  suggested that Martinsville apply for two $250,000 grants from The
  Governor’s Opportunity Fund and the Tobacco Indemnification
  and Community Revitalization Commission to help retire the debt on the
  building.


• At that point MZM refused to cooperate, insisting that it
  wanted a simple cash real estate deal, leaving Martinsville with the
  option of dropping negotiations or signing the performance agreement
  obligating it to repay the forgivable loans if the company did not meet
  its projections.


• At the time, John Sternlicht, general counsel to the
  Virginia Economic Development Partnership, the state agency that
  drafted the performance agreement, expressed concern about the unusual
  nature of the City's request.


• Earl Reynolds, City Manager at the time responded to
  Sternlicht, “The city understands that this is outside the
  normal procedures,” indicating the City's eagerness to
  complete the deal.


• Sternlicht's reply, from a Dec. 11, 2005 story by
  Lawrence Hammock in the Roanoke Times, “The company is
  usually on the hook. But in this instance, based on
  [Martinsville’s] urgent request, this is what we did,"
  further indicates that the deal was pushed through to completion by
  Martinsville officials.


• The final disposition is yet to be determined, but City
  Finance Director Wade Bartlett said in today's Martinsville Bulletin
  that any funds repaid will come from the City's fund balance, currently
  at $9.5million. The Bulletin article quotes Bartlett; "No matter how
  much of the $500,000 the city ends up paying, it will not impact our
  ability to provide services in the future to residents or bankrupt the
  city."

In summary, one can blame Earl Reynolds, Tom Harned, Gene Teague (then Mayor), Terry Roop (then Vice Mayor), and the rest of City Council for making the final decision to request the grants and taking the highly unusual step of signing the performance agreement. All Virgil Goode did was bring the two parties together.

UPDATE:
Let's do a little accounting exercise, shall we?

Cost of shell building to Martinsville	$945,000
From MZM	$400,000
From Governor's Opportunity Fund	$250,000
From Tobacco Commission	$250,000
From C-PEG (Local Chamber Econ. Dev. group)	$127,000
Total Sales Price	$1,027,000
Profit (sales price, less actual cost of building)	$82,000
Balance of tax and other revenues gained from MZM/Athena	$161,430
Profit Sub-total	$243,430
Refund of grants due to MZM non-performance (est)	($145,000)
Martinsville Final Balance	$98,430

The above balance sheet does not include revenues from utilities such as water, electric, and sewer. Also not included are local income and sales tax revenues from MZM/Athena employees. Obviously a $100,000 return on a $1 million dollar investment is not what one would hope for, especially since it ended after only a 4 year term, but it's not the catastrophic loss that Waldo would have you believe it is..

Who will actually repay those grant funds Waldo? Obviously MZM and Athena already have repaid them.

UPDATE II:
I have just been informed that the trackback I left at Waldo's earlier today had mysteriously disappeared. So I just left another. It will be interesting to see if this one is deleted as well, I took a screenshot of it this time, just in case Mr. Jaquith decides on another attempt to hide in the dark.

Just What Is A Bigot?

I'm a bigot. Or at least I've been told I am. Most likely by people who don't even know the meaning of the word. Or at least by people who have been trained to use the word to describe anyone who is "less tolerant" than they perceive themselves to be. Certainly by people who don't know me. If they knew any of these things they would know that I'm not a bigot.

Noun: bigot
1.a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices.

Those of you who know me know that definition simply does not describe me. I am quite open to argument and honest debate and I've even been persuaded to change my opinion on occasion. It may or may not describe you, I don't know. That is the reason you will never find me making that accusation of someone. The following definition would be more aptly applied to me, and most likely to you as well. I have yet to meet someone to whom the following definition does not apply.

Noun: discrimination
1.the act, practice, or an instance of discriminating categorically rather than individually.

Now that's something I am guilty of. But like I said before, you are too. We all have a tendency to associate or not with groups based on the characteristics of that group. Even in such innocuous situations as determining which church to attend. "Oh, I could never go there, they believe that a woman can't be a Pastor." (My church does not espouse that opinion, by the way. Although I have quite happily attended some that do.) Or, "How can you attend a church that professes that homosexuality is a sin?". "What," you may ask when invited to attend Mass by a friend, "You do know I'm Baptist, don't you?". You get the idea. All of God's children discriminate against one another all the time.

We all discriminate in other ways as well. I tend not to hang out with liars, cheats, and thieves. You may choose not to enter a certain part of town after a certain hour of the night. Some of you may feel very uncomfortable if required to attend a formal function that is outside your normal social circle. Still others are afraid of groups of guys on Harley-Davidsons wearing black leather and denim.

The one way that is most familiar to you, my readers, is in political ideology. Many on the left will quite proudly say that they do not desire to attend some bi-partisan event or function, simply because those intolerant Republicans will be there. While I always smile at the irony of such a statement, I don't deny that there are Republicans that may express the same or similar opinion from time to time. I say this from experience. The experience of attempting to persuade liberals to attend a blog conference in Martinsville this past summer.

The source of the bigot tag being placed upon me is an obscure, offhand comment I made some time back, in reply to a friend. That friend and I knew that I was referring, in the form of a rather obtuse joke, to the story from the recent past concerning Abu Ghraib prison and the charges made at the time that soldiers had flushed a Koran.

That remark certainly does not mean that I would desecrate in any way your copy of the Koran. Your copy of the Koran is sacred to me simply because it is yours. The only meaning that can be drawn from my comment is that a copy that may somehow find itself in my possession would mean no more to me than a John Grisham novel. It may go on my bookshelf, but it will never be considered a sacred text by me.

Does that mean that I'm intolerant of Muslims, of course not. It simply means I will tend to discriminate in my choice of what I consider sacred. Just like you do when you eat a cheeseburger. What? You didn't know that cows are sacred to Hindus, and Jews who keep kosher consider it a sin to combine meat and dairy?

Waldo's Olive Branch

Waldo has spoken. He has devised a way for all of us to get out of this kerfuffle which begun with his banning of a blogger who was featured on Virginia Political Blogs. He made the offer on Christmas eve, I first saw it early this morning. I'll reproduce the gist of it below (emphasis added);

I want the complaining blogs (Alton, GGD, Jonathan Maxfield, Chris, SWAC Girl, Carl, Flora McDonald and Kat) to post the blog entry of my choice on their blog. I will not write the text or provide the image — I will provide a codeword to an anonymous third party who will send that codeword, along with as much text and as many images as they want, to each blogger. Each blogger will receive a separate blog entry. They must post that blog entry on the front page of their site without explanation, excuse, or followup. In neither word or deed may they indicate that it was posted because of this offer, or why they posted it. I will say up front that I will encourage each third party volunteer writer to provide a highly-charged image and supporting text that will, without question, offend nearly anybody who sees it. The blog entry will arrive sometime in the next week, and must be posted promptly.LINK

Yes, in order to atone for daring to question why Waldo pulled a blog from his aggregator, some of us must agree to post something he considers to be equally vile on our pages, without question.

I'm sorry Waldo, that ain't gonna happen. Allow me to elaborate. You set up VPB, proudly proclaiming that you accept one and all. And I must commend you on that stance. From the inception of VPB you did just that, regardless of content. You allowed pictures of dead babies held aloft, by a blogger who wanted to attack George Allen. You allowed that same photoblogger to post numerous pictures of people lying stricken in the streets, again in order for him or her to attack George Allen.

You didn't stop with graphic images either. You allowed one particular blogger to use sophomoric references to anal sex on many, many occasions. You stood your ground and refused to prune out any of George Carlin's infamous 7 dirty words. Why, you yourself proudly used the "F" word on occasion. You are a stand up guy, Waldo. I think I speak for everyone on the right when I say I thought your stance was correct, and we applauded your efforts. No matter how vile and disgusting it was, you would not stoop to "editing". Until now. Until it came from a conservative.

Now, simply because some of us have expressed varying levels of surprise at your actions, and as a "deal" to get that conservative blog back on VPB, you offer this "olive branch". An "olive branch" you promise up front will be soiled with disgusting filth. No thank you.

At the top of my left column you will notice a listing of the most recent conservative blog posts. It's a cool little asset offered by Dave Mastio at BlogNetNews. He offers it in several flavors. One can choose to have it fueled by all of the blogs subscribed at BNN, or by region. Or you can choose all liberal blogs, or all conservative blogs.

When I first installed it I naturally chose the all blogs option. I soon grew disgusted with seeing the "F" word and the "S" word in headlines posted on my site. After switching to the all conservative blogs option I have not had that problem. And I doubt that I will.

So, you see Waldo, I've already experienced the vile stuff from liberals soiling my website and I took the steps to eliminate it. I did not begin this blog proclaiming that I would accept any and all contributions to it, as you did with VPB.

Just for the record, I've said all along it's Waldo's aggregator, to do with as he wishes. I did ask him why he did not simply remove the offending post and then consult with the offending blogger. His answer, reasonable enough I suppose, was that his software does not allow that action.

I'm not sure what criteria he used to select the eight of us out of many who questioned his actions. Perhaps, in my case anyway, it's retaliation for pointing out his hypocrisy in my previous post.

Blogging Guidelines For Virginia Political Bloggers

It seems some of us here in Virginia have no idea how to behave ourselves in the blog community. After looking around for a bit today on several Virginia blogs I think I can now offer my conservative friends some guidelines.

• Posting images that depict the victim of the enemies of America in actual circumstances and conditions is not to be accepted. (note, graphic un-retouched photo, deemed by most on the left as inappropriate for viewing.)
• Posting images that depict the body of a dead baby, being held aloft and being blamed on Americans is perfectly OK. (note, graphic un-retouched photo, deemed by most on the left as completely appropriate for viewing.)

The following guidelines will help you decide what type of posts are accepted by the ethics police on the left.

• Posting an e-mail, from an unsubstantiated source, describing unverified divorce proceedings of a prominent Virginia couple, neither of which hold elected office, that is good. (note, the e-mail has been removed by the blogger, but it promises to return.)

Allow me to interrupt myself for a moment. It's been brought to my attention in the comments that I cannot substantiate nor verify that Ben's post regarding the e-mail was unsubstantiated and unverified. That is true I suppose, since Ben' does not mention anywhere in the post just how he substantiated and verified it. I now return you to the rest of this post.

• Posting, in the headline, a word that my mother would have smacked me for using is also good.

• Posting, again in the headline, another word that my mother would have smacked me for using, yep, you guessed it. That too is very good.

And last, but by all means not least. From the man who would have you believe he is way beyond reproach ethically, two more from Waldo Jaquith;

• Making an accusation of an extramarital affair which was provably false, yet not removing that post from his own blog, even after being called on it.

Yes, you can delete someone else's entirely truthful blog, yet leave such scurrilous accusations on your own blog and still proclaim yourself to be ethically superior to most of those on the right. (note, Waldo does retract the statement, but way down the page where it's less likely to be read. Personally, I would have placed the retraction in the original comment, but apparently I don't know as much about ethical blogging as Waldo.)

• Posting an unsubstantiated conversation with an undisclosed person who relayed an unverifiable secondhand conversation they had on a plane about unsubstantiated allegations that a prominent Virginia politician had abused his ex-wife. That too is deemed to be perfectly alright ethically.

Waldo is placed on a pedestal by many on the left (most notably F.T. Rea) as the epitome of ethics. Waldo himself actually believes this, and Terry does himself no favors by perpetuating the myth.

What I've learned from all this is that in Charlottesville ethics don't matter, aesthetics do.

Geesh... In the words of Jerry Fuhrman, just shoot me now.