The six-year plan released this week reflects last year’s priorities since nothing has changed.
Someday: Olde Towne Road will be straightened at the sharp turn in front of The Colonies at Williamsburg. When the timeshares were developed, VDOT gave up surplus right-of-way for buffers and The Colonies gave up land to fix the curve. The project will cost $2.66 million.
Croaker Road will be widened to four lanes from Richmond Road to the James City County Library. The project includes replacing a new two-lane bridge over the train tracks. The total project cost is $12.67 million, of which $984,211 is already funded.
Longhill Road will expand to four lanes between Route 199 and Olde Towne Road and get sidewalks. The road is already over capacity. The project will cost $11.8 million, with about $135,000 in hand.
County officials consider this project the most urgent, but Olde Towne and Croaker will likely reach the construction phase beforehand.
Racefield Drive would be paved under a project that sets aside money annually until enough has accrued to complete a project. So far, the county has $69,000 toward $177,600 needed.
Hicks Island Bridge over Diascund Creek will be replaced under a similar funding scheme. The bridge has a low sufficiency rating and has been pinpointed by VDOT as priority for replacement. The project will cost $726,000, of which $280,800 is funded.
The Board of Supervisors will review the priorities next week.
Want to go? The supervisors will meet at 7 p.m. Tuesday, May 22, in Building F of the County Government Complex, off Mounts Bay Road.
Valley business on the brink - Worcester Telegram & Gazette

The lack of a plan across communities hampers development and mires daily life with traffic hassles and long slogs between housing, shopping and work. Development that does come may be haphazard.
“There are so many infrastructure issues that are coming to light now. Developers can go to another town and have it all ready,” said Blackstone Valley Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Jeannie Hebert, who spearheads economic development in the valley.
“What we're talking about here is (an opportunity for) development by choice, not by chance,” said Vera L. Kolias, principal planner for the Central Massachusetts Regional Planning Commission, or CMRPC.
CMRPC launched a Blackstone Valley Prioritization Project this spring, focusing on identifying economic development, transportation, workforce and preservation priorities in eight of 11 towns in the Blackstone Valley. Grafton, Upton and Hopedale were included in a similar project CMRPC recently undertook with the 495/MetroWest Development Compact.
Lawrence B. Adams, CMRPC executive director, said that coordinated, regional plans for development would be most likely to get state and federal grants that can make or break a project. “The state's role is to identify where their investments will have the best return,” he said.
CMRPC staff and partners from the Blackstone Valley Chamber of Commerce and the John H. Chafee Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor Commission are meeting over the next few weeks with planning boards and officials in Sutton, Mendon, Northbridge, Douglas, Uxbridge and Blackstone to target priority areas in their towns. More regional events, including a public forum to bring together the issues from each town, will be held in June.
While planners talk of traffic corridors, spot locations, expedited permitting and infrastructure — words that make the average citizen's eyes glaze over — it comes down to quality of life.
Job creation, for example, creates more travel and congestion if people don't have public transportation or housing nearby; and if you build housing, you have to provide for services that families who live in those houses need, explained Mr. Adams. At the same time, you don't want to harm the character of small towns.
These impacts of growth cross town lines.
Shopping is one of the regional needs both created by and affecting growth.
Cold Spring Brook Place, a mixed-use retail parcel that would include a grocery store and bank, has sat undeveloped along Route 146 in Sutton for a decade, an example of hurdles facing business development. Originally delayed by lack of water and sewer and the costly requirements for roadway improvements, and then a victim of the economy and the former developer's bankruptcy, the site may get a boost soon.
Two years ago, the state committed to funding $6 million to widen the road and improve traffic flow on that section of Route 146, removing one major headache from a new developer.
Jennifer S. Hager, planning director for Sutton, said a purchase and sale agreement was recently signed for Cold Spring Brook Place.
“It's basically about state funding,” Ms. Hager said about the benefits of looking at development from a regional perspective. “Now the developer doesn't have to shell out $6 million worth of improvements.
“The regional impact (of Cold Spring Brook Place) put it in line for funding, so the state gets the biggest bang for the buck. The (Blackstone Valley Prioritization) project will identify areas like that.”
Michael G. DeCaro, president and CEO of Classic Envelope Inc., has been counting on regional development support since he moved his business from the Whitinsville section of Northbridge across Route 146 to Douglas last month, a move that allowed him to add at least 25 new jobs. A crucial element to bringing in the infrastructure Classic Envelope requires, including natural gas, sewerage and larger water lines, is a plan to build a road between Gilboa Street, near his plant in the former Hayward-Schuster mill and Whitins Road in Sutton, across from the Sutton Industrial Park.
Once the road is built, “Then you get gas lines, sewer lines, you can bring in an industrial park and bring in jobs for people; hopefully transit, too,” Mr. DeCaro said.
The West Side Connector Road, as the plan is called, would open up 300 acres of industrial and office-zoned land in Douglas and Sutton, without changing the rural character of the towns. It has received preliminary approval from the Sutton, Douglas and Northbridge planning boards and conservation commissions, according to Douglas Town Engineer William Cundiff, but the towns are waiting for a cost estimate from consulting engineers. There are other pieces of putting together a multitown project that need to occur before grants can be sought, too, and the process, according to Mr. DeCaro, is frustratingly slow.
Craig L. Blais, president and CEO of Worcester Business Development Corporation, said his nonprofit organization has offered to work with the towns like it did with developing CenTech Park in Grafton and Shrewsbury. He said a project like this “needs someone to quarterback it, to get up everyday to pursue grants.
“That's one area that we could make a difference in.”
Mr. Blais said that having a regional development “roadmap” that is expected to come out of the Blackstone Valley Prioritization Project will be useful in grant requests to show that both private developers and local communities will benefit from a project.
“Coming into a community knowing that this process has occurred adds to predictability,” Ms. Kolias said. “Time is money.”
Ms. Hebert said, “This project is going to open doors to a lot of communities.”
CMRPC plans to conduct a similar project later this summer with 13 towns arcing around Worcester from Southbridge to Boylston.
A schedule of Blackstone Valley Prioritization Project public meetings can be found at www.cmrpc.org.
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DTI Business Registration Grows 8% - Manila Bulleting Online
MANILA, Philippines — Business registration in 2011 was up 8 percent over the previous year indicating that more Filipinos are into the entrepreneurial mode this year.
Data from the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) showed there were a total of 318,920 businesses registration in 2011 compared to 294,410 in 2010.
The significant increase in business name (BN) registrations last year was attributed to the DTI’s electronic Business Name Registration System or EBNRS which was launched in October 2010. The EBNRS automated the registration processes which led to a faster and more efficient handling of transactions.
“The EBNRS is one of the Department’s anti-red tape initiatives in line with the government’s policy of streamlining the bureaucratic processes and curbing corruption in the frontline agencies," said DTI Secretary Gregory L. Domingo.
Domingo has emphasized the government’s effort to improve the ease of doing business in the country by undertaking reforms such as automation of business registration processes to attract more investments in the country.
“We are continuously studying our processes to simplify business registration and license applications to improve the Philippine business environment. We are closely working with other government offices and the local government units or LGUs to make business easier in the country,” Domingo said.
The application through the EBNRS only takes 15 minutes, and only requires a one-page application form and one signature compared to the previous application scheme. This has drastically improved the process by cutting the length of time, the number of documents and signatures required to register a business name.
With EBNRS in place, entrepreneurs can get their DTI Business Name Registration Certificate in less than 30 minutes. “The automated system not only made the transactions easier for businesses but also for the Department,” said Domingo.
Registration of business name with DTI is only the first step for an entrepreneur to start a business. Other regulatory agencies require businesses to register, as well as the local government units (LGUs) to issue them permits and other licenses to operate. (BCM)
Aquino has nothing to fear from anti-money laundering law, says spokeswoman - Global Nation
Philippine Daily Inquirer

President Benigno Aquino III. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines – President Benigno Aquino III has nothing to hide and has nothing to fear from the country’s Anti-Money Laundering Act even when he’s no longer the Chief Executive.
Reacting to Senator Joker Arroyo’s comments that the anti-money laundering law may be used by a vindictive administration against officials of a past regime, Abigail Valte, one of the President’s spokespersons, said Mr Aquino “has no apprehension regarding such things.”
“The President has always been willing to answer any issue that has been thrown at him,” Valte said on radio. “The President has always been very upfront with what he has and he‘s always been very willing to answer questions on it.”
Valte said that even before President Aquino’s statement of assets, liabilities and net worth for 2011 was released, he already indicated the increase in his net worth because of his inheritance of the entire Times Street residence from his late parents.
Arroyo has been quoted as saying that he and Senator Edgardo Angara warned then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo about the dangers of an anti-money laundering law.
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