On Wednesday evening a standing room only crowd gathered for the annual Community Legislative Package meeting at Virginia Beach's convention center.
The evening started with me running into Mayor Meyera Oberndorf in the corridor where we had about a 10 minute conversation.
The meeting itself had two main sections: reports from General Assembly members on the 2008 sessions and previewing the 2009 session, then residents comments and General Assembly answers. The latter ran so long that the group never got to individual submissions for the 2009 Package.
Plenty of elected officials were present. From the General Assembly: Frank Wagner, Harry Blevins, Bob Tata, Bob Purkey, John Cosgrove, Sal Iaquinto, and Joe Bouchard. The entire Virginia Beach City Council was there except Reba McClanan. In addition, School Board Chairman Dan Edwards attended.
The big story was the attendance of about 100 people. In the past there has been maybe 15-20 people. Tonight was a pleasant surprise for we veterans of the meeting.
Cosponsors were the City of Virginia Beach, the Council of Civic Organizations (CCO), the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce, Virginia Beach Vision, et al. Signage at the convention center billed it as the "General Assembly Community Leaders Roundtable Meeting." Since VBTA/TLP/CACI weren't cosponsors, they aren't "Community Leaders". (I couldn't resist, especially with the VBTA Troll back.)
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