Gov. McDonnell stumps for ABC privatization

Hundreds attended Gov. Bob McDonnell’s town hall at the Cultural Center of India last week where he discussed privatizing Virginia’s ABC system. Page Dowdy/Chesterfield Observer Chesterfield County could see an increase in tax revenues if a proposal by Gov. Bob McDonnell to privatize the state’s ABC stores goes into effect. McDonnell held a town hall meeting at the Cultural Center of India in Chester last Thursday to pitch his idea. It was the third of eight meetings the governor plans to hold around the state on the subject.

“Things have changed. We ought to be looking to update our government system. Just because it worked well for 30 or 50 years doesn’t mean in 2010 it’s the best way to do things,” said McDonnell.

Having privately owned licenses for the distribution of liquor would take away the state government’s monopoly and generate more revenue for the state and local governments. After privatization, localities could collect property taxes on buildings – something they aren’t able to do now. McDonnell is also predicting localities may see an increase in sales tax because the number of stores would increase – growing from 338 currently up to 800.

“The proposal will maintain the general fund money. We will not lose a dime in tax revenue; it will go up a little bit because local governments will get property tax revenue,” McDonnell said. “The proposal will keep the general fund money coming in. Thousands of private sector jobs will be created, and we’ll have a plan to try and take care of the displaced government workers and try to get them hired by the private sector.”

McDonnell plans to earmark privatization funds to help improve the state’s transportation systems.

“One idea is to be able to take the profits of the sale of these licenses and put that money that we estimate to be up to $500 million and put that into transportation. That is one of the key selling points of the proposal,” McDonnell said. “We’ve made some progress in the last couple of months. I’ve got $500 million in bonds to go to transportation, and $35 million of the [state’s] surplus is going to transportation.”

McDonnell plans to formally introduce his proposal in the first couple weeks of September.

Some have already questioned the impact of privatization. McDonnell tried to answer those concerns last week.

“We wouldn’t have liquor stores on every corner. There’s been some concern that it’s going to increase crime, binge drinking and DUIs. Absolutely not!” McDonnell said. “If I thought it was going to do that I wouldn’t propose it. But there’s no appreciable difference between control and non-control states on any of those factors.”

Currently, 32 states have privately owned liquor stores. And four previous Virginia governors have supported privatizing ABC: George Allen, Mark Warner, Tim Kaine and Doug Wilder.

There were plenty of McDonnell supporters at last week’s event, including county legislators Del. Kirk Cox and State Senator Steve Martin.

“One of the things I like most about the governor is he is a man of vision, and he has a very bold agenda,” Cox said. “He has this big tote board of every promise he has made and has every intention of putting a check next to those promises. That’s just the kind of person he is. He listens to the people of Virginia.”

Barbara Williamson of Richmond said she wants more involvement of the public in what the Virginia Department of Transportation is spending.

“I’d like to set goals as a state to reduce the vehicle miles traveled by every car, with more public transit, smarter transportation projects and smarter land use decisions,” Williamson said. “As a state we could seriously reduce the amount of travel. That has a lot of environmental, social and economic benefits for the state.”

The governor said the state is aggressively pursuing high-speed rail, especially to Richmond, and believes it’s an overall cost-effective way to create better travel and to get people off the highways.

About a dozen speakers asked questions and made comments to the governor during the town hall meeting.