Ashland Town Council Approves Arts and Culture District

As reported in the Herald Progress, May 5, 2012:

The Town of Ashland has established an arts and cultural district to provide incentives for new arts organizations.

The district begins just west of the intersection of routes 1 and 54, and it stretches west down Route 54 beyond the train tracks and through the commercial area. It also encompasses the commercial area along the tracks.

Qualifying for-profit and non-profit arts organizations within the district are eligible for four incentives.

They would be exempted from the business, professional and occupational license (BPOL) taxes and fees for their first three years.

Permit fees (except for those that cover required public notice advertising) would also be waived.

The next incentive would offer regulatory flexibility on temporary signage used to advertise arts openings, events and exhibits. Such signs could be displayed for up to 60 days, whereas currently all businesses may only display temporary signage for up to 30 days.

Also, qualifying arts organizations would be allowed to use the Route 54 banner board to advertise art-related events so long as no corporate logos are displayed.

To qualify, at least 50 percent of a business’s income must come from art or arts and cultural activities.

I think this is a great step for Ashland. I think some details will have to be clarified through further council meetings.

One is the very definition of "arts organizations".

1. How many people does it take to make an "organization"? Does a single music teacher having a piano recital qualify? Are the teacher and students together an "organization"?
2. What falls under the definition of "arts"? My personal dictionary includes a LOT of things as "arts".

I don't quite understand the corporate logo thing. Corporations, profit or non-profit, can post information on the sign, but they can't display their logos? It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

I'll be posting more on this in upcoming days and weeks.

Day of Prayer

Yesterday was the official "National Day of Prayer". On May 1st, President Obama signed a presidential proclamation designating May 3, 2012 as a National Day of Prayer. Our town, Ashland, Virginia, had two public events which I attended, both on the lawn of town hall.

The first was small. There were only about half a dozen people, led by newly elected town council member and fellow Ashland Arts Alliance member Steve Trivett. It occurred at 12:15. The group consisted mostly of local church pastors. It was a serene experience, led by heartfelt prayers by those present who wished to speak out loud. Steve made some opening remarks that have stuck with me all day... that in countries where you can be arrested, beaten, and tortured for practicing your religion, the one thing they can't take away from you is prayer. It also put me to mind that the freedom we had to stand there and gather on the lawn was something not everyone in the world has.

At 7pm, there was a much larger event. There was some wonderful music by a talented quartet, the "4 The Lord Quartet". These guys could put American Idol contestants to shame. Pastor Michael Shannon of  Shiloh Baptist Church delivered a moving old time gospel solo. Later the Ashland Vineyard Church Praise Band led the group in "They Will Know We are Christians by our Love", "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands", and "God Bless America".

A few things struck me about the event. First, that this is one of the few times I've seen black and white people gathered together in Ashland. Ashland tends to be very visually segregated. The crowd was universally warm and welcoming.

I was also struck by the political tone of the event. Virginia District 55 Republican delegate John Cox delivered "thoughts". His thoughts were mainly quotes by the founding fathers in relation to religion. He addressed the entire crowd as fellow Christians. There was some denigration of the idea of "Freedom from Religion". There was some mention that our currency says "In God We Trust", but no mention that it was added in 1957, nor that it was added in response to the Red Scare. It sounded like something scripted from Focus on the Family.

Conspicuously absent was any display of non-Christian presence. No Rabbis, or Imams. No Shamans or Priestesses or any other forms of worship. Doing a little bit of amateur online research, I find something that says that 29% of county residents are "Other". (I'm tempted to link to my X post for the April A to Z challenge, but I'll refrain).

Personally, I know Jewish people, Buddhist members of the SGI, Metaphysicists, someone who was adopted into the Lakota tribe and practices their ways, and quite a few Pagans. And then there are the atheists and "naturalists".

It will be interesting to see how the public celebration of this day changes over time in Ashland. The President's proclamation reads:

On this National Day of Prayer, we give thanks for our democracy that respects the beliefs and protects the religious freedom of all people to pray, worship, or abstain according to the dictates of their conscience.


And:
NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim May 3, 2012, as a National Day of Prayer. I invite all citizens of our Nation, as their own faith directs them, to join me in giving thanks for the many blessings we enjoy, and I call upon individuals of all faiths to pray for guidance, grace, and protection for our great Nation as we address the challenges of our time.


I'd like to hear some of that language locally. I'd like to see diversity and inclusion in the guest speakers and musicians. How was YOUR National Day of Prayer?

Small Town Elections

The town of Ashland just had an election for town council on May 1st. According to the Richmond Times Dispatch, only 616 of the town's 3,908 voters came out to the polls.

There were three seats open, with five candidates running for those three seats. Results turned out like this:

Ned Henson: 382 votes
George F. Spagna: 373 votes
Steve Trivett: 339 votes
Terri Winston-Abri: 314 votes
Lucinda Jones: 186 votes

Since each voter who showed up could cast three votes, there were a total of 1,848 potential votes. However, there were only a total of 1,594 votes cast. That is a deficit of 254 votes.

This means that somewhere between 127 and 254 people left at least one of the three ballot spots blank. That is, they only voted for one or two candidates, and left the remaining spots empty.

I have to confess, I've done this before. I go to polls, and if I don't know enough about candidates, I don't vote for them. I might be voting for a particular issues I care about, and rather than just vote randomly for the other issues, I leave them blank for those who are better informed to decide.

But it is interesting. If all slots had been filled on all ballots, by all voters who showed up, the results could have been drastically different. Those missing votes are enough to have put any one of the candidates far in the lead of the others.

Just 15.8% of the eligible voters came out. The total gap between the most and least amount of votes is only 196 votes. That difference is only 5% of the eligible voters.

If 98 of the people who voted had voted differently, the results would have been different.

As a nation, we are pretty apathetic to voting. I think there is a sense that somehow, one vote can't make a difference. But here's an example of how huge a difference it could make. 196 seats is just about the seating capacity of an average restaurant or small theater. I've been in classrooms with over 98 people before.

Something to think about next election day.

Senator Mark Warner Visits Ashland, Virginia

I had a morning meeting today scheduled with Tom Wulf, president of the Ashland Main Street Association in Ashland, Virginia. Tom sent out a message yesterday that Senator Mark Warner would be in town, as he had a 12:45 speaking engagement at Randolph-Macon College (which is in the heart of Ashland). The Senator was going to be stopping by Ashland Coffee and Tea at noonish, which was also where Tom an I were having our 10:30 meeting. So I thought "Great, I'll meet with Tom, then hang around to meet the Senator."

As it is, reality is a little bit messier than plans for reality tend to be; so as it happened I was walking through town after my meeting with Tom, and I saw the Senator's entourage crossing the streets. I decided to play tag-a-long, and joined up with the group.

Senator Warner seemed to be genuinely enjoying his visit and getting away from the bustle in DC. He did a lot of meets and greets, did some shopping, presented a certificate to Cross Brothers grocery store in honor of their 100th anniversary, and made his way back to Ashland Coffee and Tea.

Cross Brothers Grocery. 100 years and counting. That's 1912 folks!

The Senator took a little time at the coffee shop to chat with folks and take a couple of questions. I don't pride myself on being a journalist, but I did take some notes; so to the best of my recollection, this is some of what was said:

He confided that he had never had a job before where he felt like he did more each week, but by the end of the week there was less tangible evidence for that work. "Do more and get less done" was how he put it.

His main concern was to address the deficit, which he said is tied to restoring confidence to Americans. At this point I don't recall if reducing the deficit is supposed to restore confidence, or that it will take restoring confidence to reduce the deficit. But in either case, they go hand in hand, and one feeds the other in a symbiotic kind of way. (My words, not his).

Interestingly, he said that over the past couple of years, Fortune 1000 companies have done quite well, and they are sitting on 2 Trillion dollars in their balance sheets. In order for things to re-invigorate, they need to re-invest that money.

Each day the deficit is not reduced, it costs Americans 4.5 billion dollars.

Federal spending is currently 25% of GDP, while taxes are only 15%. In order for the economy to be self sustaining, both numbers should be at 20%. (Or in any case, equal. In the past, 20% has been a stable number). As he put it, if you are spending a quarter, but only making 15 cents, you can't sustain that for very long.

Rosanne Shalf, local author of Ashland, Ashland: The Story of a Turn of the Century Railroad Town, inquired what had become of the Gang of Six.

Ashland, Ashland, by Rosanne Groat Shalf

Senator Warner joked that it was now the Hoard of Forty-Five, but was serious in saying that their work continues. As to whatever happened to the Supercommittee, the Senator expressed his frustration that there was not enough time and trust for it to survive. He indicated that it requires a great deal of courage and trust to make big political changes.

He also playfully indicated that Doctors were to blame for the deficit, but then put in the context of greater longevity. As he said "When I was a kid, there were sixteen workers for every recipient of Social Security. Now there are three".

Hanover County Democratic Committee (HDC) chairman Gordon Silver asked if it wasn't true that while the deficit is very large, the total assets of the United States were not magnitudes larger. He compared it to someone who might be paying a couple of thousand dollars for a mortgage loan, yet have hundreds of thousands in equity in their home. Senator Warner agreed that the U.S. has tremendous assets, but that does not relieve the 4.5 billion dollars daily that we are going into debt. As he put it "4.5 billion dollars a day is a lot of money. Even for Ashland".

He indicated that 80% of economic growth is from startup businesses, and that there is a world wide competition for ideas and talent. We have been decreasing infrastructure spending over the past 35 years.

I found the Senator to be warm, with an expressed affection for Ashland. His humor was not dismissive or insulting, and he had a poetic way of looking at things. In his words, everyone has to "give some skin" to "get our swagger back".

I'm sure in years to come I will count my meeting with him as one of life's highlights.