Twitter photo from BlackSheep_VT | A slew of George Allen signs greeted passersby on the Virginia Tech campus early on Thursday.

Note from university to Senate campaigns: 1,000 signs in one place is overkill, not free speech.

This morning Virginia Tech officials ordered the George Allen for Senate campaign to remove all but 100 of the about 1,000 signs erected overnight in grassy areas in front of Squires Student Center.

Allen and Democratic challenger Tim Kaine will hold their final live debate tonight in Squires.

Permission had previously been granted for both campaigns to erect signs at Squires, Tech spokesman Larry Hincker said.

Any non-university group wishing to erect signs or flyers on campus must have the sponsorship of a campus entity, like a student organization or a department, and must have the signs approved. Tonight’s debate is sponsored by the university.

But officials didn’t think to mandate a limit on the number of signs each campaign could erect. This morning  every square inch of the designated area was covered in signs for the Allen campaign.

“We didn’t think that was fair, or appropriate,” Hincker said.

So officials held hasty discussions and determined that each campaign would be allowed 100 signs, but no more. And they put the limits in writing, Hincker said.

The Allen campaign was cooperative and complied immediately, Hincker said.

According to Hincker, it was the Kaine campaign that initially sought permission to put signs on the campus.

Ironically, Kaine staffers had yet to erect any of their signs this morning.

- Tonia Moxley

Last month we noted that Radford Republicans had opened a Victory campaign office in the former Triangle “Save-X” gas station at 1001 East Main Street.

Now, we see that they’re playing off of the building’s history as a gas station to zing President Barack Obama.

Take a look:

ACME Panel co-owner Joe Fortier (on right) talks to Democrat Anthony Flaccavento about his Radford business

9th District Democrat Anthony Flaccavento, a farmer and sustainability consultant challenging freshman Congressman Morgan Griffith, traveled to Radford this afternoon to tour ACME Panels.

ACME Panels manufactures energy-efficient building materials. Co-owner Joe Fortier said that homes built with his company’s panels — which look like thick Styrofoam wedged between panels of plywood — are 50 percent more efficient when it comes to heating or cooling than a stick-built house. Fortier claims the typical household will save $700 a year in utility costs — he says that number will go up if “this country accepts that global warming is real and decides to do something about it” and energy costs rise in response.

The tour fit into Flaccavento’s argument that efficiency and conservation is a key part of the equation in replacing fossil fuels over the long term. If you reduce the amount of energy required to heat or cool homes, Flaccavento said, then “renewables become a plausible source of energy to the degree that we get the same amount of heating from a smaller amount of input.”

Flaccavento dismissed Solyndra, a solar company that received a $527 million federal loan before going bankrupt, saying that “you can find horror stories” in any industry.

And he dismissed questions about what the Republicans have termed a “war on coal,” arguing that many of the regulations targeted by the GOP originated under President George W. Bush. He said the Environmental Protection Agency under the Bush administration relaxed those regulations, but that the coal industry still lost roughly 20 percent of the jobs in mines during that time due to mechanization and market forces. But Flaccavento said the “war on coal” has been “an amazingly effective term” that’s “worked well for the industry and the right wing of the Republican Party.”

Flaccavento received the endorsement of the United Mine Workers of America earlier this year, but Griffith has been a vocal proponent of the coal industry, as well as an outspoken critic of the EPA, particularly under President Obama, since he successfully defeated longtime incumbent Rick Boucher in 2010.

– Mason Adams

Updated at 4:30 p.m., Saturday. The Obama campaign initially sent the wrong address. It’s 513 East Main Street, not West Main Street.

The Obama For America campaign will open its third office in southwestern Virginia (if you include Roanoke in that region) on Saturday.

The new office will be at 513 West East Main Street in Radford.

It joins regional campaign offices in Roanoke and Blacksburg, as well as those in Lynchburg, Danville and Martinsville.

Campaign spokesman Dan Crawford wrote in an email, “The office will further expand the campaign’s grassroots operation in every corner of the commonwealth and serve as a community hub for local campaign activities, including phone banking, canvassing and voter registration.”

Certainly it appears the campaign continues to make a play for western Virginia.

And if you’re wondering just how far the new Obama campaign office is from Crumb & Get It Cookie Company, which famously declined an “unscheduled” campaign event with Vice President Joe Biden, it’s 1.3 0.9 miles, according to Google maps.

Photo by Kyle Green | The Roanoke Times

The Crooked Road (or to use its official title, “The Crooked Road: Virginia’s Heritage Music Trail“) is up for consideration as a National Heritage Area.

According to the National Park Service (and via a Tad Dickens news story), the National Heritage Area designation means the 19 counties and four cities that comprise the Crooked Road region would be eligible for “public-private partnerships, leveraging funds and long-term support for projects that support historic preservation, conservation, recreation, tourism and educational projects.”

U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Virginia, favors the effort, as does 9th District Congressman Morgan Griffith, R-Salem.

But there’s opposition, too.

We received a news release from the Liberty Confederation, a self-described “coalition of liberty groups from across Southern Virginia” that condemns the proposed National Heritage Area designation.

“We must ask Congressman Griffith and Senator Warner — is this is an order by decree?” asked Liberty Confederation Chairman Phil Spence in the news release. “Our own Virginia Declaration clearly says that there must be consent of the governed. Here we have a situation where the governed know nothing about what a National Heritage Area designation entails, not to mention that such a designation is bearing down on their right to use, enjoy and make their livelihoods in the manner in which they are accustomed on their own land.”

The group also included a link to this 2007 paper on the Heritage Foundation’s page, entitled “National Heritage Areas: Costly Economic Development Schemes that Threaten Property Rights.”

We also received a summary of comments collected during 12 public meetings across Southwest Virginia about the proposal. This came from the Crooked Road group and includes several references to opposition to the proposal.

You can read the entire summary here:

Crooked Road National Heritage Area – Preliminary Summary of Public Comment 8-22-12

But in the interest of brevity, we’ll reprint the paragraph about opposition:

Opposition to the proposed designation was expressed by commenters at the Abingdon, Marion, Tazewell and Wytheville meetings, primarily by attendees who indicated they were either members or supporters of local Tea Party organizations. some of those expressing opposition attended multiple meetings to express their opposition. The primary basis for their opposition appeared to be their belief that a Crooked Road National Heritage Area designation would result in land use restrictions that would infringe on private property rights. They also indicated that they felt a decision to pursue a National Heritage Area designation should be made by referendum, i.e., it should be voted on by residents of the 19 county, four city region covered by the proposed designation.

Later in the document, the Crooked Road group responded to the concerns, acknowledging there had been impacts on property owners within a the Yuma Crossing National Heritage Area in Arizona, but arguing that the issue there was “action at the local level and not based on any federal action.” The group wrote that based on its mission, the Crooked Road “has never been involved in owning, managing or controlling property and has no plans to do so in the future.” And it wrote that the public input meetings were intended to collect the feelings of residents and that no referendum is required.

What do you think? Should the proposed Crooked Road National Heritage Area be a concern to property owners within the region, or is it a non-issue?

– Mason Adams

Virginia's 9th Congressional District

Updated at 1:45 p.m. with information clarifying that Justin Higgins’ Fightin’ 9th PAC is different from Congressman Morgan Griffith’s Fightin’ Ninth PAC.

Updated again at 9 p.m. with news that Higgins has dismantled his Fightin’ 9th PAC.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Citizens United ruling — and more importantly the Speechnow.org v. Federal Election Commission appeals court ruling — opened the gate for a flood of so-called “Super PACs,” which are political committees that supposedly operate independent of campaigns and which can accept unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations, and unions.

Certainly some of these super PACs are behemoths that can pump millions of dollars of advertising and perhaps tilt the outcome of a given race. On the other hand, the relative ease of creating a super PAC has given rise to hundreds of new groups, including at least one that might be best described as a comedy super PAC.

One of the newest in western Virginia is the Fightin’ 9th PAC, which according to founder Justin Higgins was created to “boost Republican turnout in Virginia’s 9th Congressional District.” (Quick sidebar: My search for the Fightin’ 9th PAC on opensecrets.org also led me to U.S. Sen. Jim Webb’s Born Fighting PAC and the Ultimate Fighting Championship PAC.)

UPDATE: Higgins’ Fightin’ 9th super PAC is not to be confused with the Fightin’ Ninth PAC, a committee linked with 9th District Congressman Morgan Griffith, R-Salem.

UPDATE NO. 2: Higgins in fact has dismantled his PAC. After filing papers with the Federal Election Commission and sending out news releases, he learned of its similarity to the Griffith PAC and shut it down.

On our side, I probably should have checked with Higgins before going live with the post. I interviewed him a week or two back but held off on a post until the Fightin’ 9th PAC showed up in a search on opensecrets.org. Lessons learned all around, I guess.

[/UPDATES]

Higgins is a 22-year-old political operative who worked on ballot issues in Ohio before moving to Blacksburg last year. He points out that President Barack Obama ran worse in the 9th District four years ago than any other in Virginia.

“But 9th turnout was only 68.5 percent,” Higgins said. “In the 6th, you had 73 percent turnout. So the 6th turned out more people” for Republican John McCain.

Higgins said he’s targeting “donors who want their money spent in the 9th” to raise money. On the flipside, he anticipates the PAC will spend most of its cash on mailers and get-out-the-vote grassroots activities.

So will the new Fightin’ Ninth super PAC become a powerhouse or a smaller political entity? That, as the cliche goes, remains to be seen.

After the jump you can read the full news release announcing the Fightin’ 9th PAC.

Now, about that term: The Fighting Ninth. Where did it originate?

I heard the term occasionally while growing up in the Alleghany Highlands. Ironically, the region was *not* part of the 9th District when I grew up there in the ’80s and ’90s, but due to redistricting much of that area now *is* included in the 9th.

Higgins told me he became familiar with the term shortly after beginning to travel here.

“When I started coming down here, everybody, especially in Republican circles but I’m sure in Democratic circles, is just in love with the name Fighting Ninth,” Higgins said. “I’ve heard it attached to Congressman [William] Wampler a lot, him using it a lot. That’s why Republicans are attached to it. I love the energy of it.”

Of course the name isn’t unique to Southwest Virginia, as it’s also attached to a New York City police precinct and the Irish-dominated 9th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry.

Harvie Wilkinson uses the term in his epochal history of mid-20th Century Virginia politics, “Harry Byrd and the Changing Face of Virginia Politics, 145-1966.” He associates the district with a spirit of independence and a willingness to split with the Byrd Machine on a regular basis.

Wilkinson links that spirit with the district’s hardscrabble history:

The “Fightin’ Ninth” had long been inhabited by poor but rugged mountaineers who declined to leave their native valleys and ridges for jobs in more prosperous urban centers. The highlanders of the Ninth had historically been a rebellious lot: even before the Civil War they were grumbling at the control more genteel and prosperous eastern planters had over state policy. “THere’s still a frontier swing to the walk, and the thought in Southwest Virginia,” wrote [newspaper columnist Guy] Friddell in 1966. “The shade of Daniel Boone lingers there.” [V.O.] Key mentions “an ineradicable residue of history … in the rebelliousness of hte people of the southwestern mountain counties,” explaining how, throughout the South, “the voters of the highlands tend to respond when the interests and powers-that-be are baited.”

UPDATE: We also asked Griffith. Here’s his response:

“What I have always heard is that it’s because, even when Democrats controlled everything, every now and then a Republican would get elected. It was a constant back-and-forth battle over mainly Congress, but also House of Delegate and state Senate seats. At one time there was no Republican Party [in Virginia] outside the Mountain-Valley Republicans, who resided mostly in the 9th — some in the 6th but mostly in the 9th.”

One more aside: While reporting about the issue of coal in the 2010 race between Rick Boucher and Morgan Griffith, I randomly came across a flea market in Wise County where I stopped and talking to potential voters about the race — but also came across a 1984 “Fightin Ninth” belt buckle that now resides among my collection of politics-related trinkets.

As always, readers, we’re interested in your thoughts and comments. Do you see the new Fightin’ 9th Super PAC making a difference in the congressional, senate or presidential race this fall? And if you have your own stories about that “Fighting Ninth” term, please share them in the comments below.

Follow me on Twitter or friend me on Facebook.

– Mason Adams

Read more »

Del. Joseph Yost

Delegate Joseph Yost, R-Montgomery, is holding a telephone town hall on Monday, March 5th at 7 p.m.
Constituents who want to be included in the call are advised to contact either 804-698-1012 or 540-577-4984 by Friday, March 2nd at 12 noon to register.
Yost’s district includes all of Giles County, parts of Montgomery and Pulaski Counties and the City of Radford.

Former Del. Bob Dobyns, D-Pulaski County, passed away on New Year’s Day. He was 85.

First elected to the Pulaski County Board of Supervisors, Dobyns was elected to the House of Delegates in 1982 and served seven years. (It’s an odd number, rather than the usual even number, because the House had to hold elections three years in a row in the early ’80s due to redistricting problems.) Dobyns served at a time when Democrats still held a majority in the House — and rural Democrats were still very much the norm, especially in this part of the state.

Now, of course, there are hardly any rural Democrats left, and Republicans hold a commanding edge in the House.

You can read the obituary on Dobyns here.

1) Giles County is headed to federal court after civil liberties groups sue over the display of the 10 Commandments.

The lawsuit, which was expected, requests a judge order the display taken down and also seeks attorney fees and “nominal damages to compensate the plaintiffs for the injury to their constitutional rights.”

The news story is here, and a lengthy and passionate discussion thread is here.

2) The Roanoke County Board of Supervisors amends its zoning ordinance to regulate large-scale wind turbines.

The vote doesn’t approve the turbines themselves — anyone seeking to build a wind turbine on Poor Mountain or anywhere else in the county will need a special-use permit that must be approved by the supervisors — but it establishes regulations and a process for them.

We also posted a related question for Blue Ridge Caucus readers asking when it’s OK for elected officials to walk out of a meeting, as Windsor Hills District Supervisor Ed Elswick did on Tuesday.

3) Sunday marked the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

The Roanoke Times marked the occasion with a story about a Salem man who was 9 when the attacks occurred and has since joined the Army, as well as collecting reader remembrances.

Also in the news this week:

- Botetourt County Judge Malfourd “Bo” Trumbo names an outside prosecutor to handle the investigation of Supervisor Don Assaid’s disqualification from the fall ballot.

- The Virginia Board of Health approves new abortion clinic regulations as required by General Assembly legislation passed earlier this year.

- A new poll shows that President Barack Obama’s popularity has plummeted in Virginia.

The United Nations building in New York City.

For those of you following the “sustainable development” and “urban development” debate — common-sense planning tool or one-world government from the United Nations? — you have two choices today.

There’s this report from The Roanoke Times on Blacksburg Town Council “tweaking” its comprehensive plan.

Or there’s this press release, which showed up in my e-mail box today. I have no idea who it’s from. It’s attributed to a group called the NRV Citizens Coalition, which I’ve not previously heard of. And normally I wouldn’t be a fan of posting what seems to me an “anonymous” press release — there’s not a single name listed as a contact here — but in the spirit of full disclosure, here ’tis, and you can judge for yourself:

Blacksburg Denies Following United Nations Orders

Ignoring repeated protests from property owners, at the August 9th meeting the Blacksburg Town Council approved incorporating eight Urban Development Areas into the master Comprehensive Plan. Although not required to approve the state mandated UDA’s until July 2012, the Council ignored requests to defer the action amid pleas for more public knowledge and debate.
In discussion before voting unanimous approval, Council members assured the public that the Town is not required to follow directives from ICLEI or the United Nations. A member of the International Council for Local Environmental Issues (ICLEI) since 2007, the Council denied any imperative associated with the UN affiliate, themselves taking credit for the adoption of land use plans that involve the controversial designation of “mixed use” areas, with “infill” as a pervading characteristic. The Council also defends their arbitrary decision to join the “Cool Cities” alliance as well as adopt the “Sustainable Blacksburg” initiative.
Outraged that Sustainable Blacksburg members received an email alert to attend the meeting in support of the Council’s pre-determined decision to adopt the ordinance while the stronger showing of property owners had been blatantly denied the opportunity to be on the Agenda to voice their concerns about the effects on property values prior to the vote. The Council also defends their arbitrary decision to join the “Cool Cities” alliance as well as adopt the “Sustainable Blacksburg” initiative, despite the lack of input from residents.

Denied the democratic process and the opportunity to document their case, property owners question the Town Council motto, “Blacksburg is a special place”.