A Plague in Our House

Forget the ten things we love about Norfolk. Or the five things Millennials want us to love about them because they lack our undying love.  

Let's examine real issues instead of self-induced delusions and self-centered selfies. Let's concentrate on two very important things that plague every city. They are low wages and affordable housing. 

Low wages led to the causes of hunger and lack of affordable housing led to an increase in homelessness, according to a report issued by the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Norfolk is a member of the Conference and participated in the annual survey.

This is poverty, folks. This is America, folks. This could be Park Place, Berkeley or Lamberts Point. It could be the fringe of Ocean View, Norview or the entire east side of Norfolk. It even afflicts a swathe of Ghent.

It's a plague on our house, yet we believe it's not our house. We believe it's someone else's house, that someone else should deal with this plague.

In Camus' The Plague, people in the fictional town of Oran, divided by religion, race and class, find solidarity in combating a mysterious and moribund plague affecting everyone, regardless of their money, status or thinking. Only in solidarity does the town survive. Yet discord is also a plague. 

The report differs not by much from previous reports. People are hungry and people are homeless, despite the goodwill of government, religious organizations and other social justice groups. But this isn't about social justice. This is about a living wage and a reasonable rent for shelter. This is about helping the popolo minuto.

Some of the findings:

Findings on Hunger – Seventy-one percent of the cities in this year’s survey reported that requests for emergency food assistance increased over the past year. Of those requesting assistance, 56 percent were persons in families, 38 percent were employed, 20.5 percent were elderly, and 7 percent were homeless.

Low wages led the list of causes cited by the survey cities, followed by poverty, unemployment, and high housing costs.

Findings on Homelessness – Overall, the total number of homeless persons increased across the survey cities by 1 percent.

The number of families experiencing homelessness increased by an average of 3 percent. Across the survey cities as a group, 28 percent of homeless adults were severely mentally ill, 22 percent were physically disabled, 15 percent were victims of domestic violence, and 3 percent were HIV Positive. 

Eighteen percent of homeless adults were employed and 13 percent were veterans. For families with children, the single leading cause of homelessness cited by city officials was lack of affordable housing, followed by unemployment, poverty, and low-paying jobs.

For unaccompanied individuals, lack of affordable housing also topped the list of causes of homelessness, followed by unemployment, poverty, mental illness and lack of needed services, and substance abuse and lack of needed services.

Read the report here. 

All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. Great works are often born on a street corner or in a restaurant's revolving door.

Albert Camus

Slover Library Parking A Dodgy Issue

Nothing is free in life, not even public library parking.

For decades, Norfolk’s library on City Hall Avenue, formerly known as Kirn Memorial, offered free parking.

What would Mr Franklin think? 

Come in and stay awhile. Don’t worry because we’ll validate your parking ticket. Free parking was a draw. Even with free parking, Norfolk’s downtown library, at its present site, The Seaboard Building, was an echo chamber of silence.

Parking had to be free or no one would really visit the library. In the Seaboard Building, the homeless hid downstairs hooked to computers; upstairs, a few stragglers, myself included, meandered through the sparse shelves seeking hidden teasures on the shelves. 

More often than not library personnel outnumbered patrons on any given day. (Disclosure: I did run into Chuck McPhillips more than once.)

Parking had to be free or otherwise you couldn’t find a space to park or if you did the city's ticket taggers, those delightful trolls who offer bland and baffling resistance to your weepy and ineffectual pleas, enforced the parking restrictions with military precision.

The Col. Samuel L. Slover Memorial Library, costing $64 million, give or take a few million here and there, opens this Friday, Jan. 9.

Indeed, the Slover Library is a precious gift to the community, an architectural blend of tradition and novelty and a fusion of the present with the future.

Yet for all that and less, there is this. And that is that if you want to visit the library, you will have to pay to park somwehere in downtown Norfolk. If you can't find a parking space, even during the free periods, you will have to park in a garage, for a charge.

It may seem trivial but it really is monumental. 

On Norfolk Public Library's Facebook page, someone asked if the library would validate parking tickets. The response is lucid in its opacity.

“The Library joins a host of popular downtown destinations and restaurants in our vibrant, urban core. These locations, including Nauticus and City Hall, do not offer free parking,” the Norfolk Public Library avatar said.

The sense of this justification is senseless. 

Yes, there is the “vibrant, urban core.” But there are also vibrant neighborhoods where libraries flourish and anyone can park for free. This is basic economics. Libraries flourish throughout the city. The Slover has competition for patrons. Should I drive downtown, try to find parking and pay for parking when can I easily and freely park at a library elsewhere in the city?

The rest of this exchange has been copied from the NPL's Facebook page and pasted at the bottom of this column.

Garner Goingson

Excited about the new Slover! Parking - will you be validating parking tickets for Norfolk lots and MacArthur Center? Inquiring minds (lots of them) want to know!

Like · Reply · January 1 at 8:25am

Norfolk Public Library

We are excited about Slover Library as well! The Library joins a host of popular downtown destinations and restaurants in our vibrant, urban core. These locations, including Nauticus and City Hall, do not offer free parking.

We encourage patrons to park and ride the Tide to MacArthur Square or use the many convenient parking garages, such as MacArthur Center. There is also free on-street parking downtown after 6pm on weekdays, free two hour on-street parking on Saturdays and free on-street parking all day on Sundays.

Like · January 2 at 1:12pm

Garner Goingson

Nice dodge, but my question asked if the Slover library would validate parking. I can assume the answer is no from your response, but wouldn't it have been more honest to just say so? Your suggestions all require $$$. What happened to free library?

Like · January 2 at 1:38pm

Tell me and I forget, teach me and I remember, involve me and I learn. 
-Ben Franklin

Are you feeling lucky, punk?

Most students think university professors are unbearable or maybe tolerable.

Now students might have to bear professors bearing guns, provided they are concealed.

Delegate Bob Marshall, a Republican's Republican, beneficiary of the NRA and the National Federation of Independent Business, wants to make it happen.

Bob's bill, HB 1411, proposes that faculty members of Virginia's institutes of higher education, an implausible and impious description, can pack some heat on campus.

In a legislature controlled by Republicans, it is more than just likely, though not entirely certain, that the bill will sluice through the legislature and wreck on the desk of Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a democrat.

It may wreck but not because of McAuliffe. 

The measure would lift a prohibition on weapons on campuses though not everyone would be able to freely foist a gun, according to the bill. The bill is very specific about nonspecific details.

Sorry adjuncts, you can't carry one. Sorry instructors, you can't carry one either. Sorry administrative staff, you are excluded, as well. Only full-time faculty members will be able to holster a gun before they can sling it.

Here again, full-fledged professors will enjoy the right to be right though most of them think they are already right.

Ah, the sting of elitism.

Del Marshall assumes, quite wrongly, that full-time faculty can shoot a gun though he assumes, quite rightly, that they can fondle a gun.

Many professors, I imagine, would spend hours describing in excruciating and irritating detail a gun as a symbol of male paternalism, as the worst in patriarchy and an example of gender-based blood lust.

Others might describe a gun in mechanistic or stochastic terms and language or marvel at its efficient killing power and elucidate in several peer reviewed papers the physical and chemical properties of its power.

Even better, some professors might see the gun, any gun, as the militarization of America and the dwindling power of American citizens.

Dirty Harry resonates in the Virginia legislature.

“I have one question for you. Are you feeling lucky today, punk?”

Such a question might be asked by a gun-toting professor of an unarmed student. The student, trembling with fear, might urinate on the pristine professor's leg with fear.

Quite a scenario.

Unless a student had a gun, as well.

Which makes the bill somewhat inequitable, don't you think?

In America, everyone has the right to bear arms, according to the Second Amendment of the Constitution, but only in some places.

Those places don't include institutes of higher education. Yet Del Bob wants to change the rules. But the rules aren't for everyone.

Quite the contrary.

You have to wonder if this a tenure thing: get tenure, carry a concealed weapon.

Go on, say it.

“Go ahead, make my day.”

Note: Delegate Mark Berg, a Republican introduced a similar bill, HB 1389

Quotes courtesy of Dirty Harry.

We are
Born like this
Into this
Into these carefully mad wars
Into the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness
Into bars where people no longer speak to each other
Into fist fights that end as shootings and knifings
Born into this
Into hospitals which are so expensive that it’s cheaper to die
Into lawyers who charge so much it’s cheaper to plead guilty
Into a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closed
Into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes” 
― Charles Bukowski

Up In Smoke: Norfolk's Public Housing

No Smoking signs could be posted on Norfolk's public housing by next year.

Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing authority officials want to ban smoking “to protect non-smoking residents from secondhand smoke, prevent cigarette fires and reduce the cost of rehabbing a vacant apartment.”

The policy, if approved, would prohibit the smoking of cigarettes, pipes, electronic cigarettes and marijuana on housing authority properties.

The proposal was presented to the housing authority 7-member board of commissioners Wednesday, Oct. 29. No vote was taken on the draft policy. 

Should the board approve the citywide policy, it would take effect July 1, 2015.

The prohibition would follow the nationwide trend in no smoking policies in government office buildings and private offices, bars and restaurants and in many cases rental properties.
In fiscal year 2010, 3,115 households, totaling 7,772 residents, lived in 11 government subsidized communities owned and managed by the housing authority, according to an economic impact study done by the William & Mary Mason School of Business in 2011.

Yet the policy would be more restrictive than no smoking policies in and around private rentals. Smoking would be prohibited, according to the policy, inside all housing authority properties, within 25-feet of a housing authority building and in a vehicle within 25-feet of an NRHA owned building.

NRHA spends three-quarters of its $90 million budget on housing, all of which is funded by the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development.

According to HUD, as of January 2012, more than 250 public housing authorities have prohibited smoking. There are approximately 1.2 million households living in public housing units, managed by some 3,300 housing authorities, HUD estimates.

HUD has “strongly” encouraged public housing authorities, as well as owners and managers of Section 8 housing, a federal program to subsidize a portion of rent, to adopt smoke free policies since 2009. Yet the federal agency has stopped short of issuing a mandate to housing authorities. 

Residents who violate the policy will receive two warnings. Residents will receive a verbal warning for the first violation and a letter for the second violation. A third violation results in a mandatory meeting. Residents who fail to show up at the meeting may have their lease terminated.

The prohibition applies to residents, members of the household, guests, service providers and contractors. The policy doesn't exclude smokers as tenants.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a report last year, saying that smoke-free subsidized housing would save $521 million a year.

The bulk of those annual savings – $341 million – would come from reduced health care expenditures related to secondhand smoke, the CDC said in a prepared statement. The study also estimates savings of $108 million in annual renovation expenses and $72 million in annual smoking-related fire loses, the CDC said.

Studies have shown that people who live in multi-unit housing can be particularly affected by unwanted secondhand smoke exposure, the CDC said. Other studies have shown that most people who live in subsidized housing favor smoke-free policies, according to the CDC.

"This new study reinforces the importance of the Housing and Urban Development initiative to promote the adoption of smoke-free housing policies in public housing and other federally-assisted multifamily housing," said Sandra Henriquez, HUD’s Assistant Secretary for Public and Indian Housing. 

"We have seen considerable momentum in the number of public housing agencies across the country adopting this policy, which saves health and housing costs, in places like Boston, San Antonio, Seattle, and all public housing in the state of Maine."

The Reinvention of Hampton Roads

Scene one, take 999.

That is the best way to describe the latest regional initiative: Reinvent Hampton Roads, an invention born of the well-meaning and well-endowed Hampton Roads Community Foundation, a regional non-profit whose missionary zeal to transform our poorly performing region into a much better performing metropolitan area has gained adherents and acolytes.

Gather together the leading starlets, start a discussion, meet on a regular basis, perhaps invite a moderator to the table, examine the strengths and weaknesses of the region, write and publish a report and stage an event.

Reinvent Hampton Roads is all that described above and more not less; but in its attempt to bring cohesion to the fractious politics and economy of the region, it may despair. For provincialism is the new normal of the region and regionalism is a dead word, an inert action and an intellectual exercise in futility.

 What Reinvent Hampton Roads lacks in provincialism, it gains in regionalism. That's a plus. And yet its regionalism must deal with the parochialism of the region. And that is the difficulty.

But give the group its due for an attempt to cohere the region.

If it takes another retake to get the people and policies off their collective backsides and accomplish something, anything, I applaud it. And they should take a bow, if only for the gesture.

Reinvent Hampton Roads has ambitious goals. They are threefold: creating great jobs; helping businesses and entrepreneurs thrive; and diversifying the region's economy.

Sensible enough: all of us want the same thing though some of us prefer something to nothing and in the region something is gradually eroding into nothing. Jobs are hardly overabundant, the business climate is stagnant and the economy rests on one shaky pillar: the government.

Phase one of this enterprise is finished. Phase two, taking action, is about to launch. What will happen post-launch will be noted later.

The action will take place Tuesday, Dec. 9, at the Westin Virginia Beach Town Center, starting at 7:30am. More information can be found here, here and here.

The panelists include:

Deborah M. DiCroce, President and CEO of the Hampton Roads Community Foundation;

Paul O. Hirschbiel Jr., Vice President and CFO of The Memory Center;

Matt Mulherin, Corporate Vice President of Huntington Ingalls Industries/President of Newport News Shipbuilding;

Doug Smith, Virginia Beach Deputy City Manager;

John O. “Dubby” Wynne,Chairman of Hampton Roads Community Foundation, retired President and CEO of Landmark Communications Inc.

The themes of the conference are threefold: Leadership, Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth. The tag line: A blueprint for building an economy to take us into the future.

The initiative is meant to inject some adrenalin into an otherwise anemic economy and an complacent if not lethargic population. But to accomplish something on a grand scale, a regional scale, everyone – every city, every politician and every civil servant – must jump on board.

Disruption is the key. Might it be accomplished? It could, if given the chance. 

Reinvent Hampton Roads is a start.

Educating Norfolk

Ask, first, not what you can do for your neighborhood.

In the election of school board members, ask, first, what you can do for your city and for the children of the city and for future generations.

Norfolk's parents, policy makers and educators squat on the precipice of a profound decision. It shouldn't be squandered and riven by partisan politics.

The Public has a choice.

The Public can choose to elect school board members from a pool of eligible candidates from the entire city in an at-large elections.

Or it can choose to elect school board members based upon the ward system, which would perpetuate incumbency and lead to decay and intransigence.

The Public can voice their concerns and register their comments at two public forums this month. The first meeting will be held Thursday, Dec. 4, at Ruffner Middle School. The second open forum will be held Thursday, Dec. 11, at Granby High School.

Both meetings begin at 6pm.

So far, the education of Norfolk has been rather sluggish; sometimes it was doubtful if Norfolk would finally enter the 21^st century.

Yet Norfolk trudges forward.

In less than two years, school board terms have been extended from two to three years and school board members will be elected by The Public rather than appointed by City Council. City Council is open to suggestions, hence the two public forums.

“Norfolk Council must provide specific guidance on how they wish to proceed regarding the method by which the citizens of Norfolk elect their school board,” wrote Bryan Pennington, Director of Intergovernmental Relations for the city, in an email.

“Under current law, the Norfolk Council has existing authority to have a popularly elected school board that is either elected at-large or by the current established Council Ward boundaries.”

Even political pundit Vivian Page advocates for an at-large election of school board members.

“I’ve lived here long enough to see that the ward system has not been good for Norfolk,” Page wrote in a column. 

“To get anything done in this city, you have to be able to count to 5,” Page wrote “Meanwhile, we voters only get to count to 3. We cast ballots for a ward, a superward and the mayor. How do we get council to listen to our concerns when they don’t need our votes?”

“We don’t need to make that mistake with the school board,” Page wrote.

Supporters of an elected school board say that it will give them more authority and more autonomy from City Council.

Should City Council swing in favor of a ward style election, voters will seek their own self-interest. It will end badly.

So consider the children, not your ward.

Fraim Flight Hides Possible Folly

You never take a knife to a gunfight, as the saying goes.

In the Fraim flight fracas, Mayor Paul Fraim took City Manager, Marcus Jones, and City Attorney, Bernard Pishko, his two top guns, to meet with representatives of The Cordish Cos. 

According to press reports, the three city officials flew to Baltimore June 16, 2014, at Fraim's expense. Cordish, a private developer based in Baltimore, will redo Waterside into Waterside Live!, a post-modern playground for adults.

The mayor is there because he's the mayor. The city manager because he can talk about city finances. And the city attorney is there because he is can render a legal remedy, presumably, to a legal problem.

So what could be the legal entanglement? Because if there is no legal impediment, there wouldn't be a need for the city's top attorney.

Why take a gun unless you plan to use it.

Let us assume the mayor, aided by his minions, wanted something from The Cordish Cos. We can further assume that Cordish was delaying its agreement with the city for reasons undisclosed to The Public and most likely wanted something from the mayor.

What do we know?

We know Joe's Crab Shack had a lease (a contract) with Waterside Associates LLP, whose managing partner is Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority.

We know Joe's had the option to renew its contract for five years, until 2018, according to a rider in the contract, and exercise its right to be the exclusive seafood restaurant in Waterside.

We know Joe's did exercise its option to renew its lease for five years and informed the landlord, Waterside Associates, of its option to do so.

We do know Joe's has a Federal Express receipt showing C. Richards signed for the package from Joe's saying it was renewing its lease for an additional five years. And we know the letter was addressed to the general manager of Waterside, whose name is still a mystery.

What don't we know?

We don't know what the parties discussed.

We don't know which restaurants or other entertainment venues will populate Waterside Live!, because Cordish has refused to disclose their names, at least to The Public.

We don't know if the city or the housing authority, or both, neglected to renegotiate Joe's lease within a 120-day time frame, as set out in the terms of the lease.

But it's a possibility.

We don't know if Mayor Fraim and his two guns wanted Cordish to bury the costs of buying out Joe's lease so as not to embarrass city officials should it ever become public that someone screwed up.

But it's a possibility.

We don't know if Cordish said no, you figure it out.

But it's a possibility.

We don't know if one top gun suggested an option: that of evicting Joe's for late payment of rent over a two-year period.

But that's a probability.

We don't know if one top gun suggested that if Joe's files a lawsuit, it would be financially less expensive and politically less condemning than public disclosure of a Big Mistake.

Certainly, it is probable.

In July, a month after The Cordish trip, Joe's gets a notice from the housing authority's law firm, Crenshaw Ware & Martin PLC, threatening eviction from Waterside and legal action if Joe's doesn't comply.

Of course, this is all speculation and should not be construed as an actual record of events leading to and prompting Joe's filing a lawsuit against Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority, the landlord, August 25 with Norfolk Circuit Court.

Here's a chronology of events, gathered from press reports, press releases and the lawsuit.

February 27, 2013 – Edward Engel, senior vice president and general counsel of Crab Addison Inc, otherwise known as Joe's Crab Shack, sends a letter to the general manager of Waterside Associates Limited Partnership, Waterside's landlord, saying it was exercising its option to renew its lease for five years, commencing July 1, 2013, according to section 1.2 of the “rider” to the lease.

February 28, 2013 – The Federal Express package with the notification letter was received by Waterside Associates Feb. 28, 12:57pm, according to a delivery receipt, and signed by C. Richards.

July, 2013 – A Cordish representative, Michael Stoltz, inquires about Joe's lease with Waterside. He contacts Thomas Hundrieser, director of Real Estate for Ignite restaurant Group, and Tara Schroeder, lease administrator for Ignite Restaurant Group. Both Hundrieser and Schroeder tell Stoltz the city received notification of the lease renewal and provided the Federal Express delivery receipt and tracking number.

Ignite Restaurant Group, the owner of Joe's Crab Shack restaurant brand, is a publicly traded company whose shares are bought and sold on the Nasdaq stock exchange.

August, 2013 – Norfolk chooses The Cordish Cos. to redevelop Waterside Festival Marketplace into Waterside Live!, a complex of bars, restaurants and shops.

November 20, 2013 – Shurl Montgomery, CEO/executive director of NRHA, notifies Joe's that its month-to-month lease would be terminated because The Cordish Cos. was assuming control of Waterside.

November 26, 2013 – In response, Schroeder “vehemently disagrees” with Montgomery that Joe's is a month-to-month tenant. Schroeder adds that Joe's has the legal right under section 1.2 of the “rider” to renew its lease for three five-year periods provided the landlord is given 120-days notice.

May, 2014 – NRHA CEO/executive director, Shurl Montgomery, announces his retirement, effective Dec. 31, 2014.

June 16, 2014 – Mayor Fraim, City Manager, Marcus Jones, and City Attorney, Bernard Pishko, meet with Cordish representatives in Baltimore.

July 24, 2014 – Attorney Delphine Carnes with the law firm of Crenshaw, Ware & Martin sends an eviction notice to Joe's and threatens legal action if Joe's has not vacated Waterside by Aug. 31.

August 25, 2014 – Joe's files a lawsuit against NRHA in Norfolk Circuit Court, dated August 25. Chairman of NRHA board of commissioners, F. Nash Bilosoly, served August 29, 2014, according to court records.

September 12, 2014 – Bilosoly, an attorney, announced his resignation from the board, citing an extensive workload at his law firm, Vandeventer Black LLP, of which he is a partner.

October 31, 2014 – Cordish takes control of Waterside.

Fury over Fraim Flight a Red Herring

For once, I agree with Councilwoman Theresa Whibley.

The fury over the Fraim flight was “the silliest thing I've ever seen brought up.”

Mayor Paul Fraim, accompanied by City Manager, Marcus Jones, and City Attorney, Bernard Pishko, flew to Baltimore June 16 to “meet with representatives from The Cordish Cos., the company Norfolk chose in August 2013 to redevelop Waterside” into Waterside Live!, an entertainment venue.

At Fraim's expense, not at the expense of The Public. For $1,400. Chump change.

This isn't a story of 654 words; this is a news brief of less than 200 words, at most. This isn't a column slamming an elected official for indiscreet use of money or that the trip was done in secrecy.

Some City Council members disagreed, puffing up their chests and acting as if they are acting in the interest of The Public. It seems they were acting more in their own self-interest than in the interest of The Public.

They can disagree all they want, but to do it in a public forum smells of politicking and posturing.

Mayor Fraim serves for two more years. He may or may not run for another term in 2016. But some City Council members smell blood in the water and are beginning to nibble at the edges. They should be careful: they might find themselves eaten alive.

Councilman Andy Protogyrou, who represents the least populated ward in the city, again blasted Fraim for not disclosing more details about the deal between the city and Cordish.

What's there to explain?

Go have a nice cup of coffee and talk about it. Why bring it up in a public forum?

Perhaps Protogyrou is upset that he wasn't told, that he was excluded from the discussions, that he wasn't invited on the trip. Maybe he should have been sent an invitation, courtesy of the Mayor's office.

Or maybe he was told something, but he wasn't satisfied with the answer. If he wants to know, or if any other Council member wants to know, they can pick up the phone and call Jones or Pishko, who, I am sure, would be more than willing to discuss the deal with them.

What's missing in this scenario?

That Fraim and two city officials flew to Baltimore and didn't tell Council isn't really the issue.

To me, the issue is why they had to go to Cordish instead of Cordish coming to us.

Norfolk is the customer, the buyer. Cordish is the seller, so the seller should act more like an interested party instead of a demanding buyer and should be more amenable to the demands of the city.

This is really much ado about nothing.

Oddly enough, a majority of City Council – Johnson, Riddick, Williams and Winn – didn't comment or, more precisely, weren't quoted in the article.

Let's discuss more serious topics.

I wonder who paid for lunch or dinner.

I wonder how that expense will be booked on this year's tax return.

Check Your E-ZPass Agreement

The terms and conditions have changed.

Virginia E-Zpass, the company that manages the electronic tolling system for the tunnels, added another item to its eye wrenching agreement.

The additional item – 13^th, by the way – is called Account Inactivity. The new agreement with the additional language went into effect Oct. 1.

The revised agreement follows criticism by Va. Secretary of Transportation of Transportation Aubrey Layne about the billing practices of Elizabeth River Crossings, a consortium of construction and financial conglomerates, Skanska and Macquerie.

The consortium is overhauling the Downtown Tunnel, installing a second tube at the Mid-Town Tunnel beneath the Elizabeth River between Norfolk and Portsmouth and extending the Martin Luther King Freeway from the Mid-Town Tunnel to Interstate-264.

Is there a correlation between Layne's remarks and a revised agreement? You decide, readers. 

Here's the language, in italics, inserted into the agreement, which did not exist in an earlier version.

Users who do not use their account for toll payment for period of six months may be subject to account closure.

In other words, the decision to close your account is not your decision. It is the decision of someone else. That someone else could be Elizabeth River Crossings LLC, Virginia E-ZPass or the Virginia Dept. of Transportation, or perhaps all three. But which one will decide is for you to guess or to attempt to find out. Did someone once say that this deal was transparent to The Public?

Users who fail to return their transponders shall be subject to the lost/stolen fee and further collection procedures and legal action by the Commonwealth of Virginia to collect any outstanding balance.

The costs to you, if you don't obey the rules, is $10 for a standard transponder and $20 for a flex transponder. If you don't pay, the bills will be sent to a debt collector (more money) and possible legal action by your government (even more money). So, your government, funded by you, the tax payer, will prosecute you for fees and for a lost or stolen transponder for a consortium of private companies headquartered in other countries. 

Any unclaimed balance will be treated as unclaimed property in accordance with the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

In other words, neither ERC nor Virginia E-Zpass nor the Virginia Dept. of Transportation will make any effort to find you and send you your money. Nor does the agreement spell out how long you have to retrieve your money. Seven months? A year?

Yes, the terms and conditions of the agreement can be changed by the E-Zpass Center at any time, presumably at the command of ERC or the Commonwealth of Virginia. You are supposed to receive a written notice either by email or by mail and the E-Zpass User “shall be deemed to have received notice 10 days after the notice is emailed or deposited with the United States Postal Service.”

These are the rules, laid down by lawyers and corporate Mandarins and sanctified by our government. 

I'm still waiting for my notice.