RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - Gov. Terry McAuliffe appointed a new executive director on Friday for the recently created Virginia Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission, which changes the way the state doles out its money from the national tobacco settlement.
McAuliffe tapped Evan Feinman for the post on Friday. Feinman previously served as deputy secretary of natural resources and as deputy policy director for the governor’s post-election transition team.
Virginia is one of many states that settled lawsuits for claims of smokers’ deaths and health costs against tobacco companies in 1998 in return for annual installments of money. The state’s tobacco commission has spent more than $1 billion of that money in an effort to spur economic development in southwest and Southside Virginia, longtime tobacco territory.
The Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission is the new name for the Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission. The name was changed during the recent legislative session as part of an effort to reform how the commission operates.
The commission has come under fire previously for what critics say is an opaque, haphazard system of awarding grants often based on political considerations.
A 2011 study by the General Assembly’s Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission was critical of several grants the tobacco commission made, saying they did little to boost local economies.
The commission has also drawn scrutiny of federal investigators. A former commissioner stole $4 million from the commission and is serving a 10-year prison sentence, and the FBI investigated last year whether a state senator was lured into resigning - and flipping control of the state Senate - with the promise of a lucrative commission job. Prosecutors said in December that the case was closed and did not file any criminal charges.
The Associated Press reported last year that the commission had approved grants that helped organizations with ties to commission chairman GOP Del. Terry Kilgore’s family members, and that the commission may have approved millions of dollars more than was necessary to help build a natural gas pipeline intended to benefit Dominion Resources, Inc.
Kilgore has steadfastly defended the commission’s spending and said the new legislation should not be viewed as an admission that the commission had done anything improper.
Among other things, legislation requires a dollar-for-dollar match for all economic development grant awards, creates an online database of all commission awards and requires a biennial comprehensive strategic plan process.
The new law also reduces the number of commission members from 31 to 28 and requires at least 13 members to have expertise in business, economic development, investment banking, finance or education.
McAuliffe’s office said in a statement that the legislation “will focus investments on initiatives with clear and measureable outcomes.”
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