In its 16 years, the Tobacco Commission has had a lengthy history of, well, slaps on the wrist. Created to distribute the state’s share of a national tobacco settlement in Southside and Southwest Virginia, members have been accused of playing a number of political and financial games under the guise of the commission’s intent. However, a few recent changes might have put the commission back on track.
In 2010, Virginia’s Secretary of Finance, John Forbes II, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for stealing $4 million from the commission. Last year, millions of the commission’s dollars were doled out to organizations run by Chairman Terry Kilgore’s family. And who could forget the debacle with Democratic State Senator Phil Puckett, who resigned just before a vote to expand state Medicaid in order to give his daughter judgeship - all while in talks of taking a high-ranking job with the commission.
Well, Puckett didn’t take that job, and in the year since, the Commission seems to have been re-invigorated with a new name - and a new executive director.
“After working for a while at the Commonwealth institute, which is an absolutely wonderful budget and fiscal policy think tank here in Richmond, the Governor asked me if I’d be interested in joining his campaign as policy director”
And the new Executive Director of the newly deemed Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission is Lynchburg native Evan Feinman.
“We were successful in that endeavor. And he asked me to serve as deputy secretary of natural resources for the last year and a half. And very recently asked if I would like to be appointed executive director of the Tobacco Commission - and I jumped at the opportunity.”
He took his new post earlier this year, just before legislation aimed at improving the commission’s transparency went into effect:
“The heart of the new legislation involves additional protections - that’s going to include matching funds on the part of many new grant applicants. That’s going to include a new feasibility manager to determine whether or not grants ought to be made.”
He says he hopes to move forward as a more data-driven organization, using numbers to illuminate otherwise confusing or subjective decisions:
“I’m very conscious that these are the tax payers dollars. And we have an obligation - particularly to the people of southside and southwest - to ensure that we’re spending those in as impactful a way as possible. We can’t afford to do anything less.”
And also hopes to maximize the good the organization has done in the past, moving on from past scandals.
“I do think we need to do a better job telling our story. The fact that broadband exists at all in Southside and Southwest Virginia is largely owed to commission investments in the past.”
He says recently the Tobacco Commission has helped Arizona-based Company Core Systems relocate to the Abingdon area, bringing 140 jobs to the region - and also points to the hundreds of scholarships the commission has helped fund.
