local & state a3 house,senatesealdeal ontransportationfunding€¦ · martinsville bulletin •...
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Martinsville Bulletin • martinsvillebulletin.com Friday, March 6, 2020 • A3
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By Bill [email protected]
Martinsville Police are in-vestigating a robbery thatoccurred around midnightThursday at the Neighbor-hood Market, 707 Memo-rial Blvd. N.
Police Chief Eddie Cas-sidy confirmed Thursdaymorning that two maleswearing masks and darkclothing entered the con-venience store and de-manded cash from a ca-shier. One of the robbersindicated he had a gun inhis pocket.
After the cashier gave therobbers an undisclosedamount of money, the twomen fled on foot.
Investigators respondedand processed the scenefor evidence.
Cassidy said police areworking to identify thesuspects and are searchingfor them.
MPD asks that anyonewith information aboutthis case to please contact,Sgt. Durham at 276-403-5330 or Crime Stoppers at276-632-7463. Informationthat leads to the arrest andconviction of suspect(s) inthis case could receive a re-ward of up to $2,500.
Bill Wyatt is a reporter for the Mar-
tinsville Bulletin. He can be reachedat 276-638-8801, Ext. 236. Follow
him @billdwyatt
Police seek 2who robbed storeTwo robbers fled on foot with
an undetermined amount of cash.
MARTINSVILLE POLICE DEPARTMENT
These are closed-circuit video images of the two men beingsought by Martinsville Police for a robbery early Thursday.
BILL WYATT/MARTINSVILLE BULLETIN
Two male robbers wearing masks robbed this NeighborhoodMarket convenience store of an undisclosed amount of money.
LOCAL & STATE
God’s Pit Crew sendshelp to TennesseeSpecial to the Register & Bee
God’s Pit Crew is sendingtwo tractor-trailer loads ofBlessing Buckets, water andrelief supplies to Tennesseeafter devastating tornadoesripped through Nashvilleand other communities inthe state earlier this week.
Two additional tractor-trailers, one containing bot-tled water, and the secondcontaining Blessing Buck-ets, Gatorade and more,was scheduled to leave laterin the week. As of Wednes-day afternoon, a fifth loadwas being planned as well.
“After these tractor-trailerloads leave our distributioncenter, our entire Bless-ing Bucket inventory willbe depleted,” said NathanBurnett, God’s Pit Crew’svice president of ministryoperations. God’s Pit Crewis a Danville-based disasterrelief organization.
God’s Pit Crew had al-ready scheduled a pop-upBlessing Bucket collectiondrive for this weekend tohelp replenish the inven-
tory of supplies required toassemble thousands moreBlessing Buckets.
The Blessing Bucket Drivewill be from 10 a.m. to6 p.m. today and Saturdayat the Danville Walmart onMount Cross Road and theWalmart NeighborhoodMarket in NorDan.
Volunteers will be at thestores passing out “shop-ping lists” with items thatare needed to fill a BlessingBucket. For a complete listof the items, visit godspit-crew.org/blessingbuckets.
God’s Pit Crew also hasrepresentatives traveling toNashville to see the damagefirsthand and will deter-mine if a team of volunteersare needed to assist in de-bris clean-up.
For those who can’t makeit to this weekend’s driveand would like to help sup-port God’s Pit Crew’s disas-ter responses or BlessingBucket program, visit god-spitcrew.org/ donate andselect “Disaster Response”or “Blessing Buckets” as agift designation.
CHATTANOOgA TIMES FREE PRESS VIA THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Carli Williams (left) looks around Debra Maxwell’s front yardin Cookeville, Tenn., on Wednesday after a tornado wentthrough the area Tuesday.
House, Senate seal dealon transportation fundingBy Michael MartzRichmond Times-Dispatch
RICHMOND — Virginiawould raise the state gaso-line tax by 10 cents a gallonover two years as part of atentative agreement by ne-gotiators for the House ofDelegates and Senate ona sweeping transportationfunding package that alsoincludes regional gas taxesto pay for projects outsideof major urban areas thatalready have a way to payfor their priorities.
The compromise, offeredby House Speaker EileenFiller-Corn, D-Fairfax, alsowould maintain Virginia’srequirement for annualvehicle safety inspections,but reduce the annual ve-hicle registration fee by $10and eliminate a $5 “walk-in” fee for people who goto Department of MotorVehicle offices instead oftransacting business on-line or by phone.
“I felt strongly from thebeginning that we oughtto, and should and could,show savings for Virgin-ians,” Filler-Corn said afterthe conference committeeblessed the deal Thursdaymorning.
The compromise would“meet in the middle” ofcompeting proposals bythe House and Senate onstate and regional gas tax-es, restoration of money forcritical Northern Virginiaprojects that was lost in a2018 deal to send $154 mil-lion a year to the Washing-ton Metro transit system,and tighten enforcementof highway safety require-ments. It also would adoptthe Senate’s position on al-locating additional moneyto transit and rail projects.
The agreement doesnot include highway safe-ty measures Gov. Ralph
Northam proposed, but aseparate conference com-mittee was discussingthose proposals, includingone to let law enforcementpull drivers over solely forfailing to wear seat beltsand to expand the require-ment to passengers.
Northam had proposedto increase the state gas taxby 12 cents a gallon overthree years and then tie thetax to the consumer priceindex to reverse the de-cline of revenues that hadbeen linked to the whole-sale price of fuel, whichhas fallen along with gaso-line consumption sincethe state adopted a majortransportation fundingpackage in 2013.
The House adopted thegovernor’s proposal but theSenate cut the third year,so in its plan the state taxwould have gone up by a to-tal of 8 cents over two years.The Senate also proposedto extend a regional gas taxof 7.6 cents a gallon — al-ready in place in NorthernVirginia, Hampton Roadsand along Interstate 81 inwestern Virginia — to paysolely for transportationprojects in rural localitiesand small urban areas.
The compromise, sub-ject to final approval bythe conference commit-tee and ratification bythe full assembly, wouldraise the state gas tax by5 cents a gallon each yearfor two years and extendthe regional tax to the restof Virginia. The plan is ex-pected to raise more than$370 million a year in statetaxes and $96.5 million inregional taxes by 2024.
Senate Majority LeaderDick Saslaw, D-Fairfax, alongtime gasoline dealerand service station owner,predicted that Virginiamotorists would see littleeffect at the pump becauseretail gas prices dependmore on the stock market,the season and big oil-producing nations such asSaudi Arabia.
“It’s not like any othermarket,” Saslaw said dur-ing the initial confer-ence committee meetingWednesday morning.
Del. Vivian Watts, D-Fairfax, a former statetransportation secretary,said the regional tax wouldmove decision-makingover transportation proj-ects to the areas that col-lect the revenues. “Too
much is controlled outof Richmond,” Wattssaid. “Localities withsome funding are in amuch better position toknow ... how to use therevenue.”
The assembly alreadyhas approved legisla-tion, proposed by HouseTransportation Chair-woman Delores Mc-Quinn, D-Richmond,to create the CentralVirginia Transporta-tion Authority and im-pose both the regionalgas tax and a 0.7% salestax to raise money fortransportation projectsin Richmond and eightsurrounding localities.House Bill 1541, on itsway to Northam’s desk, isexpected to raise about$168 million a year forthe region.
The compromisealso would restore $50million a year to theNorthern Virginia Trans-portation Authority topartially compensate forthe loss of money for lo-cal transportation proj-ects to help repair thedeteriorated Metro sys-tem. The money wouldcome from increasesin the grantor’s tax ondeeds and the lodgingtax in Northern Virginia,and a $20 million an-nual contribution fromthe state transportationfund.
Sen. George Barker, D-Fairfax, said the North-ern Virginia plan wouldhelp the rest of the stateby reducing competitionfor limited state trans-portation dollars distrib-uted through the SmartScale rating system.
“This would actuallyhave some benefit to therest of the state,” Barkersaid.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
House speaker Del. Eileen Filler-Corn (top right), D-Fairfax,meets with House majority leader Del. Charnicle Herring (left),D-Alexandria, and fellow delegates during the House sessionThursday in Richmond.