"St. Paul & Wise County vs. Dominion"

By: Lowell
Published On: 8/8/2008 9:28:47 AM

This intro (in italics) is from St. Paul-based attorney Frank Kilgore, with regard to the letter presented by John Jones at a St. Paul town council meeting last night. The letter is right below the intro...

John Jones is a well known power plant engineer who graduated from Va Tech and has built plants  from Ohio to Russia.  He has contacted Dominion, asking them to get involved in saving St. Paul's schools.  These schools have consistently performed well above average in statewide academic competitions and Standards of Learning tests.  The high school graduates about forty students per year and has produced two Jefferson Scholars (only one per year chosen by UVA statewide) and several have gone to West Point, the Naval Academy, Air Force Academy, Duke, UVA, etc. The school's environmental program, Team Estonoa, has won national awards and recognition.  The county's school board is considering closing both the elementary and high school and busing the kids fifteen miles to Coeburn, although town residents and its government supported the Dominion plant with the goal of generating enough tax revenue to avoid closing the schools. The school board cynically waited until the power plant received its permits before voting on the consolidation issue next month.  This delay was designed to keep the town residents and government in line with the power plant project.  Now, the school board majority seems to have gotten what it wants and the double cross is predicted to happen. The plant is in the town limits of St. Paul.

Now is the time for Governor Kaine and other avid supporters of the power plant to intervene and save these model public schools.  Otherwise, the town will end up with the hundreds of trucks per day hauling coal and limestone through its streets and the power plant emissions that wind inversions will bring to bear and still lose their schools.  If that happens, the town will de-populate, just the opposite of what Dominion, the state and Wise County leaders projected and promised.  If Dominion does not step up to help, as their officials privately agreed to do once they got their permits, a tough lesson will have been learned, albeit too late for St. Paul, but just in time for other communities to learn from.

TOWN OF ST PAUL
Mayor and Town Council
August 7, 2008

The TOWN of ST PAUL & WISE COUNTY versus DOMINION

Lady and Gentlemen:
I'm considering a Freedom of Information request to the Board of Supervisors & Town of St Paul to obtain all records, reports, notes & letters that relate to the siting, agreements, tax revenue & other issues for locating the power plant in Va. City. I believe the annual Tax Revenue from this plant to Wise County should approach $100 million, not the paltry $6 to 7 million that's been reported. The same goes for the paltry $750,000 St Paul will receive. We should be getting a lot more considering that we will bear the brunt of all of the negative impacts from this facility.


 
Absent a unified (which means ALL of them) Town Council & Mayor standing up at every School Board & Board of Supervisor's Meeting & telling them that you will not stand for St. Paul High School being closed, I plan to pursue this issue in the press and the courts to let the citizens of Wise County & St Paul know how they have been screwed by their elected officials.

$6 to 7 million is a travesty. Just think about the current school proposals that are on the table & what they will cost. Does anyone really believe that this will not result in property tax increases across the county? If the citizens know that their elected officials left up to $90 million annually on the table because of their sweetheart deal, they might not like the idea of paying higher taxes for new schools when all six could've been renovated to first class condition with the excess tax revenue for just one year.

Think about it & get energized. In other words, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore'.

John Jones
PO Box 446
St. Paul, VA
Phone No: 276-762-9625

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: You should know that I'm aware of the amount of tax monies paid by AEP's Clinch River Plant to Russell County. That plant with all improvements cost about $200 million, significantly less than the $1.8 billion for the Va. City Hybrid Energy Center. Clinch River Plant pays close to 50% of the total property taxes in Russell County. Obviously, a sweetheart deal has been struck with Wise County where Dominion is only expected to pay between $6 to 7 million/year. Do the citizens of Wise County know how Dominion & the Board of Supervisor's have really shortchanged them?

Comments



What does Bowerbank have to say? (Teddy - 8/8/2008 11:30:01 AM)
As I recall, the Democratic candidate for Lt. Governor, when I asked him earlier about the Wise power plant, had two points: 1) that the local population wanted the jobs and the tax revenue which Dominion  had promised that the construction and operating the plant would provide, and 2) that there should be strict environmental requirements the power plant be able to switch to natural gas if pollution standards were not met when using coal. Lowell, you have personal connections with Mr. Bowerbank, I believe. Do you have any comment on where the candidate stands in the issues raised by the Mayor, and, for that matter, on the fact the Mayor raised these issues---- is Bowerback involved in any way?


I've commented extensively on this before (Lowell - 8/9/2008 7:26:02 AM)
Jon is against mountaintop removal, would have designed this plant differently, believes we need to move towards renewables and energy efficiency, etc.


CHRISTMAS COMES EARLY FOR DOMINION, THANKS TO ST. PAUL AND WISE COUNTY, VA (jboltmd - 8/10/2008 1:15:34 PM)
There is precedent for this.  In early 2007 Lenoir, North Carolina, gave Google a sweetheart deal to locate their "server farm" there. This is what a NY times investigative piece revealed:

"Since the deal in Lenoir...was announced in February, city and county officials have found themselves on the defensive, criticized for the secrecy of the negotiations and the package of incentives, potentially worth $260 million, that Google will receive.

At Google's request, the state legislature passed a law exempting some high-tech businesses from paying sales tax on electricity - a tax the company says it would not pay in many other states. And as long as the server farm is operational, the city and county will forgive 100 percent of the company's personal property taxes and 80 percent of its real estate taxes for up to 30 years.

The deal's critics point out that although Google said it would invest $600 million and create 250 jobs at an average salary of $48,000, it made no minimum guarantees, often considered an important part of shielding economic development deals from accusations that they are corporate giveaways. The incentive package is one of the largest ever in the state, and when it is broken down per job, it is as much as $1.24 million each."

Read the whole NYT article at:

   http://tinyurl.com/6fw9fp
   [Open in new window]