Del. Putney says state roads need new revenue

BEDFORD — Next winter’s General Assembly session will seriously consider new funding for highways, Del. Lacey Putney, I-Bedford, told the Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday.

“I think we are at the point where we are going to have to have additional revenue,” Putney said. “What form it might take, I don’t know.”

Later in the day, Putney announced he would seek re-election to a 25th term in the House of Delegates.

Action on road funding will be necessary regardless of who is elected governor this fall and whether Republicans keep control of the House, he said.

“I’m not talking Democrat or Republican. I’m saying the time has come to do something on transportation,” Putney said after speaking to about 30 members of the chamber.

Del. Shannon Valentine, D-Lynchburg, said afterward that, “It is important to know that Delegate Putney’s leadership would be vital if Virginia were to address transportation funding, whether it is 2010 or in the future.”

Although he is an independent, Putney caucuses with Republicans in the House. He is chairman of the Appropriations Committee, and many House members defer to his leadership and 48 years of seniority.

The chairman of the House transportation committee said he agreed with Putney’s views on road funding.

Del. Joe T. May, R-Leesburg, said he plans to introduce a bill that would name former governors Gerald Baliles and George Allen to a bipartisan commission that would recommend revenue sources.

The two former governors “are strong individually on both sides of the aisle,” May said. “Whatever they could agree on likely would be agreed to from both sides,” both Democrats and Republicans, May said.

Their commission would suggest a method to fund highways in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads, plus the maintenance requirements for roads elsewhere in Virginia, May said.

The statewide issue of maintenance was the facet of road funding that the General Assembly couldn’t agree on in 2007 when it passed a transportation bill.

“We actually made good progress in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads” in 2007, May said, although part of the funding later was ruled unconstitutional in court.

Putney said federal stimulus money, which totals about $700 million for transportation in Virginia, doesn’t solve the state’s problems.

“Folks let me tell you, $700 million is peanuts. It’s pocket change when we’re talking about needs in transportation,” Putney said.

Federal requirements that the stimulus money go to “shovel-ready projects” limit Virginia to fixing bridges and potholes, Putney said. Larger projects can’t be launched quickly enough to qualify for the money, he said.

Putney also accused Gov. Timothy M. Kaine of lacking leadership when he called a special session of the General Assembly in 2008 to find new sources of transportation revenues.

“There certainly was not, in my opinion, much leadership shown in the executive branch,” Putney said.

He had told Kaine how then-Gov. Gerald Baliles persuaded legislators to approve new transportation funding in 1985, Putney said.

Baliles held town-hall meetings around the state and convinced people that new bypasses and other road projects couldn’t be built unless new revenues were approved.

Kaine’s spokesman, Gordon Hickey, said Kaine actually did hold town-hall meetings around the state prior to the 2008 special session.

“The governor put forth a plan in 2008 that was rejected by Putney and the Republicans,” Hickey said. “It’s not for lack of coming up with good ideas that we don’t have a transportation plan. It’s for lack of support by Republicans that we don’t have one,” Hickey said.

Kaine was traveling in the Middle East Tuesday to persuade businesses there to do business in Virginia. He was flying to the United Arab Emirates after spending three days meeting with leaders in Israel, Hickey said.

“He would be interested in seeing what Delegate Putney has in mind.”