As the state budget inches closer to passage by the General Assembly, the Virginia Department of Transportation is hoping to raise money by selling the naming rights for roads, bridges and highway stretches.

“We look for revenue generation opportunity where we can, and we try to be creative with it,” VDOT spokeswoman Tamara Rollison said.

She said it has been a struggle for VDOT to maintain Virginia’s infrastructure in light of the department’s financial troubles.

“Our resources and revenues have been dwindling over the years,” she said, noting that a 1986 gas tax increase was the most recent serious increase in revenue. “When we can find innovative ways to partner with the private sector and generate some revenue, we try to do that.”

A legislative conference committee soon will begin deliberations to reconcile the House and Senate versions of the state budget, which would take effect July 1.

“We are cautiously optimistic that a solid, fiscally prudent budget will emerge from conference and be voted into law within the next few weeks,” House Speaker William J. Howell, R-Stafford, said Tuesday.

A number of sticking points could delay any agreement. They include road tolls in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads, different provisions on Medicaid eligibility and the shuffling of money between education and transportation. The Republican-heavy conference committee could mean that a budget looking more like the House version will come out of the deliberations.

At the start of the 2012 legislative session, momentum was building for the General Assembly to repeal Virginia’s so-called “Kings Dominion law,” which prohibits public schools from opening before Labor Day without special permission.

Legislators had filed 13 bills to rescind the law and let local school boards decide when classes would start. Even Gov. Bob McDonnell weighed in, saying the current restrictions should be lifted.

But by the session’s end, each of those bills had died. And so the law nicknamed after the theme park in Hanover County remains in place: Public schools cannot open before Labor Day unless they obtain a waiver from the Virginia Department of Education.

Opponents of drunken driving are commending the Senate and House for approving bills that will require first-time DUI offenders in Virginia to install a Breathalyzer to prevent them from operating their vehicle while intoxicated.

Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, the Senate’s presiding officer, signed off on Senate Bill 378 this week. House Speaker William J. Howell signed off on a companion measure, House Bill 279, last week. Both bills would require Virginia drivers to have an ignition interlock installed in their vehicle after their first DUI offense.

SB 378 and HB 279 now go to Gov. Bob McDonnell for his approval or veto. If signed by the governor, the legislation would become law on July 1.

Why are bar and restaurant owners frowning when it comes to advertising “happy hour” specials?

Because in the age of Twitter and Facebook, Virginia law prohibits advertising drink specials using social media.
Drinking establishments can legally sell alcohol at lower prices until 9 p.m. The problem is, they aren’t allowed to advertise that fact in the media – not even on the Internet or with social media.

This year, legislation to end that ban looked like it was soaring through the Virginia General Assembly. But last month, the bill’s sponsor, Delegate David B. Albo, R-Springfield, decided to pull the plug on it for this session.

Virginia’s animal welfare groups have had both successes and setbacks this legislative session, and the past week reflected that mixed record for the fighters for the furry, the feathery and the leathery.

First, a House subcommittee tabled a top priority for the commonwealth's animal advocates: a bill allowing humane societies and animal shelters to trap, vaccinate and sterilize feral cats before releasing them back into the wild.

Senate Bill 359, sponsored by Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Bath, had the support of animal welfare groups throughout Virginia. On its “Every Life is Precious” blog, the Richmond SPCA said the measure “would save the lives of countless feral cats.”

Father’s rights advocates say they are down but not out after passage of a substitute bill originally aimed at giving both parents joint custody rights in divorce cases.

The legislation is House Bill 84, sponsored by Delegate David Albo, R-Springfield. Originally, it stated that in a divorce “in which custody or visitation is at issue, there shall be a rebuttable assumption that it is in the best interests of the child that the parents be awarded joint physical custody and that no parent’s share of physical custody shall be for a period of less than two-fifths of the child’s time.”

Fathers and their advocates strongly supported that wording.

A measure authorizing prosecutors to charge repeat juvenile offenders as adults for drug-related crimes passed the Senate on a 26-14 vote Thursday.

House Bill 718, sponsored by Delegate Terry Kilgore, R-Gate City, would enable commonwealth’s attorneys to transfer jurisdiction of juveniles 14 or older to the circuit courts if the youth is charged with a third felony offense of distributing, selling or manufacturing an illegal substance.

“There’s a big concern in some areas of the state where kids are selling and they are getting the juvenile punishment ... and get right back out on the street,” Kilgore said.