Virginia Beach named best-managed city in America
By Ken Falkenstein | Friday, January 6th, 2012 | Hampton Roads, Virginia
Congratulations to the City of Virginia Beach on being named by the financial news website 24/7 Wall St. as the best-managed city in the United States!
According to Mayor Will Sessoms, “24/7 staff examined the 100 largest cities in the United States by reviewing each city’s local economy, fiscal discipline and standard of living. Among the criteria considered were crime, poverty, education and credit rating.”
From 24/7 Wall St.’s report:
Virginia Beach is, by our measurement, the best-run city in the U.S. Located on the eastern shore of Virginia, the city is one of the most prosperous in the country. Out of the 100 largest cities, it has among the 10 lowest violent crime, unemployment, and poverty rates, as well as among the 10 best for median income, high school graduation and health insurance coverage. Moody’s listed Virginia Beach’s three main strengths as a “large and diverse tax base stabilized by the presence of military bases,” the city’s “strong and carefully managed financial position,” and “comprehensive financial policies and conservative budgeting approach.” The city’s credit rating is a perfect Aaa.
Kudos also to Mayor Alan Krasnoff and the City of Chesapeake for making no. 6 on this list!
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About the author
Ken Falkenstein has been a staffer in the United States Senate and the Virginia House of Delegates. He has managed political campaigns. He was a military intelligence analyst in the U.S. Army in West Germany during the Cold War. He is currently the Vice President of the Down Syndrome Association of Hampton Roads and practices as a civil litigation attorney with the law firm of Poole Mahoney PC in Virginia Beach. His concern for his kids' future is what most informs his writing.
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17 Responses to "Virginia Beach named best-managed city in America"
It’s a pretty good place to raise kids too! The funny thing about Virginia Beach is that the longer you live here, the more you realize it’s still has a small town feeling. Everybody knows everybody.
The only reason Virginia Beach gets #1 and Chesapeake gets #6 is you all have the Atlantic Ocean and we have the Great Dismal Swamp. Anytime you have something named “Dismal” in your neck of the woods, you’re bound to be at a disadvantage!
Kudos to Virginia Beach on this honor…and Mayor Krasnoff and the city of Chesapeake! You have to admit that two cities in Hampton Roads in the top ten is pretty sweet!
My gosh, Tidewater got two in the top 10? I could go with the easy quip of “If that is true, then why are things so rotten around here?”, but there is not enough truth in that to be funny. As a truck driver, I get around quite a bit and my job pays the same no matter where you live. Other areas have this advantage or that, however they also have some disadvantages to go along with them. While my wife keeps saying she wants to move, I keep dragging my feet on that and insisting we just stay right where we are at.
My thanks to everyone who lives here who helps makes this area such a great place to live. I’m also grateful I now have some additional ammunition to fire at my wife when she insists we move.
Well, gee JR, if I had more clients on Chesapeake City Council, maybe you’d have a better showing
Oh, here is a valid point especially for J.R.
Evidently the raters did not include the quality of the city water supply in their ratings or Chesapeake would have rated much, much lower. Or maybe they did consider that, and that explains why Chesapeake fell to number 6?
Here’s the punch line:
It is pretty bad when the water supply is so bad that you worry it is not even good enough to use to flush the toilet.
Congratulations to both Virginia Beach and Chesapeake.
The key phrase in the article is, “large and diverse tax base stabilized by the presence of military bases,”
I hope that the city fathers are paying attention to where the Defense budget is heading and putting money in a Rainy Day fund. During the go-go years before the housing bubble burst, the Democrats running Fairfax County spent money like there was no end in sight to rising home values, running up huge budget deficits even before the recession hit. When the crash occurred, there were no reserves, no Rainy Day fund, and the property tax base was already depressed because the County government was the single largest landlord thanks to all the “affordable housing” programs and Gerry Connolly’s “red carpet” for illegals.
Even as we recover from the 08-09 recession, localities that depend on the military and the Federal government to help maintain their tax base are going to be particularly vulnerable.
top 100 in a “wall street” magazine.. eh..
“Mad Dog”, the fallout of the DoD shrinking down here with JFCOM, Ft. Monroe and 7th Fleet standing down with Langley AFB losing 800 billets is trickling down already. And, we just lost both of our Silver Diners.
During the Thursday news conference, both SecDef Panetta and CJCS Dempsey both discussed the requirement to build a “Joint” force, which SecDef Gates dismantled as one of his final accomplishments just prior to leaving.
http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=66685
Did anyone miss that part of Panetta’s recommendation for shrinking the military budget includes keeping the 12 carrier battle group capability? Panetta loves the Navy. As a Navy guy, I think I can offer my biased opinion that the present Secretary of Defense is a pretty smart guy.
Now, will Republicans representing Virginia do their best to keep the East Coast members of the carrier force based here in Virginia? The case for this should not be too hard to make. If we are concerned about saving money, then the money we do need to spend to support these carrier battle groups is best served by keeping the carriers in Norfolk.
Now, why if Cantor is so powerful, does it take a mere truck driver to argue these valid points and he with all his power can not? He does not need to lie, all he needs to do is speak the truth, and those that honor the truth will realize the truth spoken.
He’s too busy doing something or other which does not include representing the people of Virginia even when all he has to do is speak the truth to help us.
LD,
If you listened carefully during the press conference, esp. to GEN Dempsey, the emphasis is on maintaining the modernization budgets at the expense of the personnel accounts. In other words, buying new hardware while shrinking manpower. This should be of concern to communities with large military populations because F-35′s don’t take out home mortgages and pay property taxes, they don’t spend on consumer goods and services and pay sales taxes, and they don’t provide Federal impact aid to public schools. Personnel, a.k.a. “force structure” does all those things and that is where the cuts are going to be made.
As for Tiny Tim, JFCOM contributed nothing to the Joint force, despite its moniker, and contributed little else except for onerous reporting requirements on its subordinate commands. It was a beast that needed to be fed and no one is going to miss it except for the NIMBYists. As for Fort Monroe, the peninsula lost nothing since HQ, TRADOC is moving in toto 22 miles up I-64 to Fort Eustis. As for the 7th Fleet, the last time I checked they were permanently located in the western Pacific. Langley cuts? That is precisely what I am referring to, Willis.
Whoops… meant 2nd Flt, and you sittin’ in the high DoD cotten up in NoVa not having to worry about a carrier decommissioning, or other operational restructuring which is going to further affect the Hampton Roads area. Whether it was “effective” or not, economic impact of JFCOM going away has driven hundreds of people from this area, and the tax base of the local communities has been negatively impacted. “Mad Dog”, do you look like the late Gary Coleman?
MD Russ, Virginia Beach was also guilty of taking advantage of skyrocketing property values and property taxes. They too spent money like there was no tommorrow and like it didn’t matter that wages were not going up as fast as home prices. They too had a problem realizing that increases had to end. Young couples were quickly priced out of the local market. Combine that with some detrimental military moves and you have the closing of Plaza Elementary School after consultants being paid to tell VB we had serious over capacity issues. VB has retirement and benefit cost issues like most cities, and you can easily find recent newspaper articles about the school system and city council battling each other over declining revenue like they have never done before.
You have battles over spending multiple millions on a convention center hotel (and people against it after they were for it), wanting to extend light rail from Norfolk to VB, proposed population density oriented projects despite a stagnant population level, and proposed tax increases to make up for revenue shortages.
The buffer we get from the military is forunate, but not exactly a product of good management. In fact, there are threats to losing a great deal of that. The growing concern about China getting a “Blue water fleet” could lead to naval assets shifting to the West Coast.
I can only hope that all these recognitions, deserved or not, will lead to large companies moving here and creating more jobs with higher wages. Because if there is a significant departure by the military, we will truly see what kind of management skills are truly here.
Need I remind everyone of a certain past recognition by Forbes magazine?
Virginia Beach, Va.
Least Family Friendly
Median Annual Family Income: $59,441
Average Annual Family Budget: $48,349
Budget as Percent of Income: 81%
http://www.forbes.com/2008/12/02/cities-ten-budget-forbeslife-cx_fl_1202realestate_slide_12.html
I guess huge strides have been made in 3-4 years? We probably aren’t being starved by the “Transportation Emergency” they say VB and Hampton Roads suffers from.
Everything is fine and “these aren’t the droids you’re looking for”. Maybe we’re looking at the tallest of dwarves standing on top of a stack of military bases. However, that won’t stop the hiring of the best liar money can buy to feed the perception that the dwarf really is a giant among little people.
MD Russ,
I didn’t see the actual press conference, just heard reports on the plans in the news somewhere.
My understanding is that the personnel cuts are going to largely be felt in the Army. If the Navy is going to keep 12 Carrier Battle Groups, they, along with the entire force structure necessary to support them, are still going to need the personnel.
Oh, I guess there might be minor cuts in manning if they try to make things leaner (do more with less, again), but nothing like what would happen if they reduced the number of battle groups.
I also did not hear about plans for the size of the Amphibious Fleet. Anyone know anything about that?
LD, the Center for a New American Security, the Sustainable Defense Task Force and the Cato Institute estimate that the Marine Corps could be reduced from 202,000 to 145,000 and the Army from 482,400 to 360,000 as part of the “acceptable risk” Panetta mentioned at the news conference on Thursday. This shifts any surge requirements such as lengthy stability and nation-building efforts, like those ordered for Afghanistan and Iraq, to a huge mobilization of the National Guard and the Reserves. How this will affect the numbers of Amphibs which may be sent to be parked in the James River as part of the ready “Reserve Fleet”… who knows. However, all is speculation until Panetta publishes the budget.
The irony of this award is it appeared at the same time that the vociferous anti government VBTA and their sycophants forced the cancellation of the convention hotel PPV that would have further increased visitation and help prepare the City for any DoD related disruption.
The Beach’s major deficiency is a small but loud group of citizens who oppose everything. In fact, their opposition to the Hotel duplicates their opposition to every initiative cited by the three rating agencies in recognizing the Beach’s triple A bond rating. These PPVs have increased the city’s economy and helped diversify the economy. Further, the lowest tax rate in the region reveals the success of this entreprenurial spirit.
Attitudes like Britt’s above, are the worst enemies to a continuation of the tactics and strategies which resulted in the award. Just goes to show you; ideology trumps actual results much too often.
Lets see.. a wall street rag award.. woopie. I think my foot hurts.
Mike Barrett lives…
Still licking your wounds I see.
The PPV for the HQ Hotel was a boondoggle and the citizens of the Beach called King Sessoms on it.
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