Virginia Governor Wants $5 Million for Battlefields

[Dignann]

Governor Seeks More Funds for Civil War Sites

Amendments Also Target Cost of Behavioral Drugs

By Tim Craig

The Washington Post [Washington, D.C]
April 15, 2008

RICHMOND, April 14 -- Gov. Timothy M. Kaine proposed on Monday spending $5 million over the next two years to preserve endangered Civil War sites.

Kaine (D) included the request as part of his amendments to the two-year budget that the General Assembly approved last month. In Virginia, the governor proposes the budget and the General Assembly adopts its own version before the governor gets a final chance to make changes. Legislators will consider Kaine's requests next week during a one-day session.

Completing action on 889 bills sent to him by the General Assembly, Kaine also suggested minor changes to measure toughening regulation of the payday loan industry and proposed having a bill restricting puppy mills take effect Jan. 1 instead of July 1 of next year.

The money for Civil War sites is designed to help preserve battlefields in Fredericksburg, Petersburg, Appomattox in Appomattox County, Brandy Station in Culpeper County, Chancellorsville in Spotsylvania County, Cold Harbor in Hanover County, Glendale in Henrico County and New Market in Shenandoah County.

Under the plan, Virginia would pay $1 for every $2 in matching funds from private groups to preserve endangered historical sites.

Virginia was the site of some of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War. Richmond was the capital of the Confederacy.

In all, Kaine announced 40 amendments to the budget, including one to spend an additional $500,000 to help purchase conservation easements from landowners.

The governor also proposed a few budget cuts, including an effort to control Medicaid costs by allowing patients to buy less-expensive medications to treat behavioral problems. The proposal would save the state $1.5 million, state officials said.

"This budget makes critical investments in efforts to keep Virginia moving forward while exercising the fiscal responsibility that tough economic times demand," Kaine said in a statement.

The amendments add up to $8.9 million in new spending, the bulk of which comes from money left unspent when lawmakers completed work on the budget last month.

Kaine also wants to bolster spending for the Virginia Outdoors Foundation, which the General Assembly created in 1966 to conserve open space. The organization purchases easements from landowners, who agree not to develop the land.

In an effort to boost economic development, Kaine also wants to restore $4 million in incentives to lure SRI International, a medical research firm, to Rockingham County.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/14/AR2008041402674.html?hpid=sec-metro

Eric

[Micah Trent]

Re: Virginia Governor Wants $5 Million for Battlefields

Governor Seeks More Funds for Civil War Sites

Amendments Also Target Cost of Behavioral Drugs

By Tim Craig

The Washington Post [Washington, D.C]
April 15, 2008


The money for Civil War sites is designed to help preserve battlefields in Fredericksburg, Petersburg, Appomattox in Appomattox County, Brandy Station in Culpeper County, Chancellorsville in Spotsylvania County, Cold Harbor in Hanover County, Glendale in Henrico County and New Market in Shenandoah County.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/14/AR2008041402674.html?hpid=sec-metro

Eric

I wonder how that plays in effect with the I-81 project going through New Market which we have discussed in the other thread? Is he not the same guy who gave the overall approval for that project? Oh well, life goes on...
Thanks for sharing that info Eric!

[Stonewall_Greyfox]

Re: Virginia Governor Wants $5 Million for Battlefields

I wonder how that plays in effect with the I-81 project going through New Market which we have discussed in the other thread? Is he not the same guy who gave the overall approval for that project? Oh well, life goes on...
Thanks for sharing that info Eric!

Man...it would help if the New Market Battlefield State Historic Park could purchase the property from the now defunct Museum of John Bracken...this property seperates the current state owned property and the Days Inn Hotel, and is in direct line of where the Federal Artillery moved on its way through the Bushong Farm, and the subsequent advance of the Confederate Forces.

Paul B.

[Dignann]

Re: Virginia Governor Wants $5 Million for Battlefields

STATE BATTLES SPRAWL

Budget amendment would make millions of dollars available for preserving Virginia Civil War battlefields

By RUSTY DENNEN

The Free Lance-Star [Fredericksburg, Va.]
April 16, 2008

Civil War battlefield preservation efforts here could get a big boost from the state--and private donors.

Among Gov. Tim Kaine's amendments to the 2008-2010 budget bill is a $5 million addition to the Civil War Historic Site Preservation Fund.

The infusion of cash, supported by House Speaker Bill Howell, R-Stafford County, could be used to purchase important, privately owned land.

Private preservation groups such as the Civil War Preservation Trust have to raise $2 for every dollar they receive in state funding for the purchases.

The General Assembly will take final action on Kaine's budget plan April 23. The preservation fund addition is one of 41 amendments on the table, totaling about $8.9 million.

"This is crucial. It's something we've been working on for three years," said Jim Campi, spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based Civil War Preservation Trust.

About $500,000 from the fund, created in 2006, was used by the national nonprofit preservation group toward its $12 million purchase of the 210-acre Slaughter Pen Farm along Tidewater Trail in Spotsylvania County.

About $200,000 was used last year toward the purchase of land at the Glendale battlefield near Richmond. There, as in the Fredericksburg area, Congress sets the battlefield boundaries and some significant land remains in private hands within and outside the boundaries.

Preservationists told the Virginia Sesquicentennial of the American Civil War Commission last fall that those parcels must be obtained quickly before they are swallowed by development. The years 2011-2015 will mark the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.

"There are some key properties that we still think need to be acquired land associated with Chancellorsville and Spotsylvania, the Wilderness and at Brandy Station in Culpeper," Campi said.

Howell, who chairs the sesquicentennial commission, has been a supporter of battlefield preservation and supports the budget amendment.

"It's very important It's a good public-private partnership," Howell said yesterday.

Without CWPT's efforts and the money from the state fund, "Slaughter Pen would be a shopping center," Howell said. The farm, part of the 1882 Battle of Fredericksburg, earned its name because of the fierce fighting on the property.

State Sen. Edd Houck, D-Spotsylvania County, also worked to secure the state funding.

"This is a huge deal," said Linda Wandres, executive director of the Fredericksburg-based Central Virginia Battlefields Trust.

"Though we were not involved with the discussions with the state, we hope to jump in and use the process," Wandres said.

"We care about this because there are so many economic, environmental and educational reasons for saving this land," she said, along with promoting heritage tourism.

"The ground itself has to be seen and walked for someone to understand the depth of commitment and sacrifice" of the soldiers who fought and died, Wandres said.

In a report last week, the National Parks Conservation Association warned that 1.8 million acres of private land within national parks is under growing pressure to be developed or sold.

Most national parks, including the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, have little or no money for land acquisition. So private, nonprofits are taking up the slack.

The military park includes the Fredericksburg, Spotsylvania Courthouse, Wilderness and Chancellorsville battlefields.

"This may be the last best chance to preserve Civil War battlefields in Virginia," said Russ Smith, superintendent of the military park.

SAVING CIVIL WAR SITES

The Civil War Historic Site Preservation Fund was created by the General Assembly in 2006.

An incentive fund managed by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, it makes grants to eligible private, nonprofit organizations.

Grants must be used to protect and preserve battlefields listed in the 1993 Report on the Nation's Civil War Battlefields, by the Civil War Sites Advisory Commission.

--Department of Historic Resources

http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2008/042008/04162008/371747

Eric