However, the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey said he installed a cable in his truck to flip up his front license plate to dodge being caught on camera. His rear plate was bent up, too. Vaquiz was charged with theft of service, possession of burglar tools and eluding arrest, and his truck was impounded.
The Port Authority said it is increasingly dependent on tolls for revenue for the new World Trade Center. In fact, toll cheats cost the Port Authority $14 million in 2009 and 2010.
Houck, D-17th (Albemarle, Culpeper, Louisa, Orange, and Spotsylvania counties), debuted a TV ad last month declaring, "Bryce Reeves chaired a group bankrolled by a New York billionaire who fired hundreds of Virginia workers and sent their jobs to China," and saying Reeves "is OK" with sending jobs overseas. Well, no. PolitiFact on Wednesday slapped Houck with a False rating.
The watchdog reporters essentially concluded that the Houck campaign used a Kevin Bacon degrees of separation to draw its conclusions. For a few months in 2009, Reeves volunteered to chair the Fredericksburg regional chapter of the right-wing Americans for Prosperity. The group was co-founded and funded by billionaire David Koch, half of the infamous Koch brothers of energy conglomerate Koch Industries. (The Kochs are among the biggest backers behind tea party candidates and causes.) In 2008, Koch-owned Invista announced 210 layoffs at a Waynesboro carpet nylon plant. Although there is no evidence that these jobs were sent to China, the Houck campaign found that Invista in 2006 said it was expanding operations in China.
Industry experts told PolitiFact that they believe the plant closed because the sour housing market hurt the demand for residential carpet. Also, there were also no union filings with the U.S. Department of Labor arguing that the jobs went overseas.
So Reeves chaired a local chapter of Americans for Prosperity, which was co-founded and funded by David Koch, who co-owns Koch Industries, which owns Invista, which had previous announced expansion in China and which two years later laid off scores of workers, which included Kevin Bacon. OK, not really. But, therefore, Reeves "is OK" with sending Virginia jobs to China.
Ironically, Houck refused this month to answer a Q&A from Fredericksburg Patch because, as his campaign manager said, "his opponent will distort his answers."
The Virginian-Pilot of Hampton Roads reported Wednesday that the city was cited for 19 serious safety violations by the Virginia Department of Labor and Industry for the tragic killing of garbage truck operator Jerry Holton. The city trained its sanitation workers to go into the back of the trucks to fix jammed equipment, and Holton did so during his shift on Feb. 3; the hydraulics activated and he was crushed to death. Eight of the citations pertain to Holton's death, while the others apply to other violations discovered in the investigation.
The department said that a serious violation is one that could lead to the harm of an employee. To make matters worse, a safety mechanism that could've saved Holton wasn't working on his truck. "Some heads should roll on this," a councilman said.
A lot of heads in Norfolk should roll. Just since July, the City Council has considered stripping the quasi-government Norfolk Community Services Board of some of its autonomy after it was revealed that a former employee stayed on the payroll for 12 years; the Norfolk Police Department was cited in the death of a recruit during a simulated fighting exercise; and now the city was cited for Holton's death. Whoever is in charge there should consider cleaning house – or the voters will.
The city of Norfolk, and the morons who run it: today's Worst Virginians in the World.
