National Center for Health Statistics surveyed Hampton Roads

So, you’re skimming a health-related news article, and you read a sentence that goes something like these:

• “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that 16 percent of American children are obese.”
• “According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, osteoporosis is on the rise among American women age 60 and over.”

Did you ever wonder where they get those statistics? Well, this year they’re getting them from Hampton Roads.

The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey visited Hampton Roads area this year. The area was randomly chosen as one of 15 areas in the country to participate in the survey, and the NHANES trailers were in Hampton Roads from March 16 through May 13. For more information on NHANES, visit www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes.htm.

The survey is a major program of the National Center for Health Statistics, which is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. NHANES is one of the primary sources of vital health statistics used to shape public health policy, design health programs and develop standards used by physicians worldwide.

The survey attempts to replicate the U.S. population by interviewing about 7,000 individuals.

In Hampton Roads, the study sampled 458 households. About 380 people were identified to participate, and more than 200 had already been interviewed by May 4th.


excerpts from an article by Tracy Agnew of the Suffolk News-Herald, originally published on May 4, 2009

Suffolk's State of the City highlights M&S successes

On April 23 at the Suffolk Center for Cultural Arts, Suffolk Mayor Linda Johnson held her 2009 State of the City address, the final in the 2009 series for the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce. This was Mayor Johnson’s third State of the City address and her first as Suffolk’s directly elected mayor since Suffolk went to direct mayoral election last year.

Mayor Johnson’s address opened with video after which her remarks highlighted the city’s accomplishments over the last year and praised city staff and citizens with a theme of togetherness. Despite the current economic challenges, Suffolk has seen $164 million in capital investment and 756,000 square feet of new commercial and industrial space just over the last year.

Mayor Johnson highlighted the togetherness theme throughout her remarks under categories of Working Together, Playing Together, Learning Together, Celebrating Together, Growing Together, and Healing Together.

Some special highlights of her remarks included the M&S courses in their second year at Suffolk’s high schools and the M&S support specialist program in its first year as part of the Pruden Center’s FIRST academy. M&S companies Northrop Grumman, CAE USA, and Boeing all received special recognition as did VMASC for their investments in Suffolk. Port and logistics companies ProLogis and CenterPoint also received praise.

In closing, Mayor Johnson declared the state of the city to be strong. Read her full remarks here: http://www.suffolk.va.us/news/09StateoftheCity.pdf.pdf

Building "Civic Muscle"

Learn how to apply to serve on city boards and commissions at a public forum sponsored by Project Inclusion Leadership Development Program, United Way of South Hampton Roads on Thursday, April 30th, 6:00PM – 8:00PM, at the Norfolk Workforce Development Center, 201 E. Little Creek Road, Norfolk.

The forum agenda includes:

Remarks on Community Service by Bernard Henderson-Senior Deputy Secretary, Commonwealth of VA

Keynote Presentation - Civic Boards & Commissions Panelists:

• Velma McNair, Deputy City Clerk of Chesapeake
• Katherine Glass, City Clerk of Hampton
• Mabel Washington-Jenkins, City Clerk of Newport News
• Shelia Wilder, Deputy City Clerk of Norfolk
• Debra White, City Clerk of Portsmouth
• Erika Dawley, City Clerk of Suffolk
• Ruth Hodges Frasier, City Clerk of Virginia Beach

Moderator: Delores “DeeDee” Gee-TV Show Host: “My Good Lyfe”

Project Inclusion aims to serve as an advocate for inclusion within the community and to build and promote cultural diversity among the United Way member agencies and other non-profit agencies to positively impact the quality of life for others.

Forum Take-Aways:

• Learn which boards have current vacancies in your city.
• Gain an understanding of board application processes.
• Obtain useful tips for gaining board appointments.
  

Refreshments will be served at this free event.

RSVP your attendance to J.R. Locke, Director of Project Inclusion, at 2515 Walmer Avenue Norfolk, VA 23513-2604, ebmincllc@msn.com or call 757-853-8500 ext 134.

“Pentagon South” adds another defense supplier in Suffolk

Sparta Composite Products announced they'll be building a $13.2 million plant in Suffolk, Virginia. In association with this new facility, Sparta will be creating approximately 200 new jobs over the next 5 years. The new, high-tech plant will be 67,000 square foot and will be located in the Northgate Commerce Park. The Company also has plans to build an additional 87,000 square foot facility in 5 years.

Sparta is a San Diego-based defense industry supplier and plans to begin hiring this summer for jobs that will pay an average of $43,000 a year.

This region's strengths - the Port of Virginia, the beach, the huge concentration of military installations - are critical to drawing companies here. But, so is the leg work done by local and state economic development teams. Suffolk economic development leaders have been talking to Sparta for at least a year, touting the Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center as well as the city's growing cluster of defense contractors - including General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin - all attracted by the adjacent Joint Warfighting Center.

For more on Suffolk's Economic Development work, visit their website: www.YesSuffolk.com

Joint Sub-Committee Studying the Hampton Roads Transportation Network

The General Assembly’s Transportation Sub-Committee met on Wednesday 10 Dec 08 at VMASC in Suffolk. The following slide presentation is the report on alternatives and their ramifications to improving road congestion in Hampton Roads.

Transportation Alternatives in Hampton Roads (Dec08)

View this presentation in a new browser window; click on "Full" to view full screen; click on "Download" to download the presentation to your own computer.

Notes from the presentation: with all six (6) MPO projects built, the simulations provided showed that congestion in 2030 would improve over the “no-build” scenario, especially on Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel (MMMBT) and James River Bridge (JRB), but still exists and is significant. Roads would be free flowing with today’s population, but increased population causes ongoing congestion.

The only alternative that reduces Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel (HRBT) congestion to 100% capacity is the addition of 8 lanes to HRBT.

Conclusions – 1. Failure to act is not an option 2. All alternatives significantly improve local and incident-induced congestion 3. Of the 6 alternatives, only the “Third Crossing” improves conditions at HRBT (but still exceeds capacity) 4. Only HRBT expansion can relieve both local and incident induced congestion at HRBT but combining HRBT with Third Crossing greatly improves congestion.

The intent of the study was to examine projects individually for the “best bang for the buck.” Results indicate that the planners did a good job of creating the best system, and the projects can’t truly be evaluated individually. The exception is the Mid-Town Tunnel which has an immediate impact by itself and should be constructed as soon as possible.

Also noted was the possibility to include capacity management technologies (information, incentives, and rail, for example) along with construction projects in the studies and the need to be ready to claim infrastructure stimulus money from the Obama administration.

Delegate Oder made a motion, and it was passed unanimously, to introduce legislation to expand the study to include construction of a bridge-tunnel parallel to HRBT from I-564/Terminal Blvd to I-64 in Hampton as a possible alternative to expanding HRBT in its current footprint or building the Third Crossing, as proposed, and the expansion of I-64 to I-295 and create priorities for the projects.

For more information, see:
HJR 194: Transportation Network of Hampton Roads
http://dls.state.va.us/pubs/legisrec/2008/hjr194b.htm

Inaugural Elected Officials Breakfast

On Friday, December 5th, Dana Dickens, President and CEO of Hampton Roads Partnership (HRP), welcomed local elected officials to the Inaugural Elected Officials Breakfast at Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center (VMASC) in Suffolk providing a great overview of HRP's public-private mission and activities in comparison to other regional organizations.

Richard Vinroot, former mayor of Charlotte, NC minced no words as he told elected officials why the local governments of Hampton Roads need to work together or lose the battle for jobs and investment to competitive regions like his. His message: “Regions that aren't unified compete at a disadvantage with Charlotte which has ‘bought in’ to the regional concept.“ Relationships are fundamental for doing anything good in the community.

Richard Vinroot, Part 1, Part 2

Thoughts from Hampton Roads Center for Civic Engagement (HRCCE) Chair, Jim Oliver, about Hampton Roads and how we might excel as a region in the future. See the HRCCE website for a complete transcript.

Jim Oliver Video LINK

VEDP's Fall Global Logistics Forum

The Fall Global Logistics Forum was held November 12, 2008, at the Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center (VMASC) in Suffolk. The presentations and registration list are available HERE.

The Global Logistics Forum is sponsored by the Virginia Economic Development Partnership in coordination with area business and industry. The Forum provides seminar and lecture-style topics applicable to today’s supply chain-oriented professionals. The group includes economic developers, consultants, real estate representatives, rail providers, third party warehouse providers, construction/developers and port representatives.

Economic Crisis of 2008

Economic Crisis of 2008

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click on "Download" to download the presentation to your own computer.

Report provided by Dr. Filer to the Hampton Roads Partnership Executive Committee on 17-Oct 2008.

Summary: as of Aug08, the U.S. has $19.3T in housing stock with $10.6T in debt. 91.6% are at prime rates; only 8.4% is sub-prime. So, how did this small sub-prime number create such havoc? Regionally, Hampton Roads has less sub-prime stock than the nation and comparable MSAs (such as Charlotte, Jacksonsville, Atlanta). Locally, while still small, the majority of sub-primes are #1) Suffolk, with an alarming rate #2) Chesapeake #3) Portsmouth #4) Hampton.

Hampton Roads has a low foreclosure rate compared to national average. However, over the next year, local ARM resets will be slightly higher in number than national average. Hampton Roads’ median monthly average house payment income as a percentage of monthly income has always been lower than the national average, that is, until 2007.

Hampton Roads' home inventories are a definite concern, although we’re approaching “bottom”, our historical minimum of home sales and at the peak of our historical home inventories. Is our current housing situation the result of fundamental appreciation or over-speculation in home values? This is debatable among local economic experts, including Dr. Koch.

Hampton Roads and NOVA are the only MSAs in Virginia not already in recession or at risk, but “expansion” mode. Expansion in Hampton Roads is evidenced by personal income growth and job growth versus job losses.

In 2008, 59% of mortgage debt was being sold on the secondary market and not held by banks, two times as much as any other period in history. Warren Buffet referred to this rise as “weapons of financial mass destruction”. The credit default market is at $58T while the debt rate is actually $10.6T. These are highly leveraged “insurance contracts”. Credit on “paper” is at 13 times its actual worth and the assets attached to that credit.

The TED Spread, the percentage banks pay to borrow money from other banks, has experienced huge spiking in the last two months. The commercial paper market (basically IOUs) for short-term needs, i.e. paying debt with debt has been rolling over since Jul07 and has started to “crash”. Banks have liabilities and can’t find buyers for the debt.

As of 3rd Quarter of 2008, essentially 80% of the banking industry is finished with sub-prime lending. 60% of banks report tight lending even with credit cards.

So, where’s the bottom? The fundamental weakness is in housing defaults. Foreclosures will continue until this market stabilizes. The high-end market in housing is much more volatile than the conforming market (valued at $417k or less). World-wide recession is indicated by the slowing of GDP. The recent moves by the Federal Reserve and the federal government are very aggressive and need to be allowed time to work in the various markets to stabilize the economy.

The solution to Hampton Roads' housing excess inventory? Need to address the supply side by keeping buyers in the market and attracting new buyers and encourage banks to make loans. Current federal response hopefully will stimulate demand. Hampton Roads builders should be highly commended, having responded well by reducing new permits and avoiding over-building. Other regions are not so fortunate.