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Tobacco Commission's Effectiveness Questioned By GOP Member

Its official name is the Virginia Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission, but people just call it the Tobacco Commission.

Since 2000 it's spent more than a billion dollars on grants intended to do what its name implies – revitalize parts of Virginia devastated by the fall of the tobacco economy. 

The Commission has drawn the attention of many critics along the way.

In 2008 a panel headed by former governor Gerald Baliles looked at the Tobacco Commission and concluded it was too political and for the most part couldn't verify that its grants were actually benefiting any communities in need.

In 2011 another inquiry by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission found that nothing much had changed. Three years on from that Bedford County senator Ralph Smith says this about the commission.

"What it's evolved into is simply “you vote for my silly program or I won't vote for your silly program.”

Smith was appointed to the commission in 2012 and no, he doesn't believe every commission project has been silly and misguided. But he says most of  what's been spent could have been committed to better ideas. One thing he mentions as a better idea is putting the money where the most harm has been done.

"Historically where was the center of tobacco? Who was devastated when less tobacco was grown in Virginia? It was in Danville."

Even though the commission's by-laws give Danville priority consideration Smith says it suffers when politics come into play.

Some legislators have built the seniority and the alliances to be more effective than others.

Smith does not single out anyone by name. But one legislator who has built seniority and alliances is Delegate Terry Kilgore who happens to be chairman of the Tobacco Commission and is also from Southwest Virginia, a region where Smith says the commission is spending a disproportionate amount of money.

Delegate Kilgore did not respond to our request for an interview but Tim Pfohl, interim Executive Director and Grants Director for the Tobacco Commission says the grants have been appropriately targeted.

The data we compile on out grants for economic development purposes will show that the somewhat larger sums have gone to those localities that have traditionally been the largest tobacco producing counties, Halifax, Mecklenberg and Pittsylvania in Southern Virginia and Washington, Scott and Russell counties in Southwest Virginia.

In fact we checked the numbers published by JLARC in its 2011 review and they are consistent with Pfohl says. Where the money goes is one thing. How much good it does is a separate question. Critics claim the commission doesn't know the answer. Tim Pfohl says he's confident the grants have been beneficial. But can that be demonstrated with hard data? At the moment, no, but they're working on it.

"We've made over 1800 individual grants and we are moving as expeditiously as we can to go back and survey those grantees and enter into databases what the actual results are. "

And then there's the influence of politics. On that, Pfohl is a realist.

"I don't think you can eliminate political considerations from decision made in a body populated with appointees from the governor's administration and the General Assembly."

But he says political maneuvering has not been a serious impediment to the commission's work. That's where Pfohl and Ralph Smith clearly disagree and a point Smith promises to bring to the public's attention at every opportunity as he expects to be reappointed to the commission in 2016.

"I would think that would be the case. Maybe I have stirred things up a little bit but I didn't come there to be a potted plant."

The Tobacco Commission will hold its next meeting in November when it will receive an update on one its most controversial projects, a $25-million grant for a medical school in Southwest Virginia. We'll have more on that in a later report.

Fred Echols is a producer/reporter for Radio IQ.
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