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byline: Avery Shackelford

Heritage Trail complete

Del. Chris Peace, D-Hanover, announced the completed expansion of a major heritage trail to include 10 new sites, which he said he hopes will draw more tourists to Virginia.

The expansion of the Road to Revolution Virginia Heritage Trail is the result of Peace’s bill passed last year that allowed the trail to double in size to include Mount Vernon, James Monroe’s birthplace, Montpelier and Monticello.

Peace and other members of the Legislative Tourism Caucus said they believed encouraging visitors to come to heritage sites by making them part of a tour would strengthen the state’s tourism industry as a whole.

Heritage travelers spend on average $50 more than leisure travelers, according to 2011 data collected on Virginia tourism.

Del. Mark Keam, D-Fairfax, co-chairman of the caucus, said that history was the number one reason tourists came to Virginia.

Keam said that after the success of the movie “Lincoln,” which was filmed in Richmond, the state had become the undisputed place in the country for tourists interested in history.

With its rich history and many landmarks, Virginia has become a draw for filmmakers to come and share stories for millions across the nation and the world, said Rita McClenny, president and CEO of the Virginia Tourism Cooperation, who is in charge of promoting the state as a location for shooting movies and television productions. 

The goal of the trail expansion is to go beyond focusing on Virginia history to focus on the history of the whole East Coast, said Jack Berry, president and CEO of the Richmond Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau (RMCVB).

“Virginia’s history is the U.S.’s history,” Berry said. “It all began here.”

RMCVB is one of the trail consortium’s partners and markets to travelers, event planners and tour operators to increase tourism in the Richmond area.  Two of the new trail sites, the Wilton House Museum and the John Marshall House, are in Richmond.

The expansion of the trail, and a new website and brochure were made possible by a federal highway grant through the Virginia Department of Transportation, which provided 80/20 in matching funds.

Payday lending restrictions fail in General Assembly

Sen. Donald McEachin and Del. David Yancey discussed at a press conference Thursday their goal of minimizing payday lending in Virginia despite failed legislation that would have further restricted the practice.

McEachin, a Democrat from Henrico who has sponsored past legislation restricting predatory lending practices, said he was happy to see that many local payday-lending locations had been closed in recent years.

Between 2008 and 2011, payday-lending locations decreased from 769 to 267 in the state. But many former payday lenders are still able to give out loans due to a loophole in Virginia code, said Jay Speer, executive director of Virginia Poverty Law Center.

Companies who wanted to avoid stricter laws on payday lending dropped their licenses and began to offer clients loans without set periods to be repaid, which is not subject to any regulation in Virginia, Speer said.

Yancey, a Republican from Newport News, introduced a bill this session that would have prevented companies from extending credit under an open-end plan at interest rates that exceed the legal rate of
interest. 

Although Yancey’s bill failed this session, he said he intended to bring it back next year.

Sen. John Miller, D-Newport News, introduced a bill that would have kept payday loans at a maximum annual interest rate of 36 percent.  His bill was killed 11-4.

General Assembly members from both parties oppose stricter regulations on payday lending because they think that it is a better solution for borrowers than going to loan sharks on the street, McEachin said.

Another concern is that rewriting the code to restrict open-end lending would group credit card companies into the same category.

Dana Wiggins, a spokeswoman for the Virginia Partnership to Encourage Responsible Lending (VaPerl), said this would not be an issue because most credit card companies were regulated under the federal government.

Wiggins said that VaPerl members were working toward decreasing the number of people who fall victim to predatory loans by offering a list of alternative lenders and advertising these resources online.

These online ads are important because many people seek to borrow money from Internet lenders, which are not licensed to offer payday loans in Virginia, Wiggins said.

It is a class six felony to offer a payday loan without a license, but Speer said the law was not being enforced.

“Other states are enforcing the law, particularly Arkansas, and West Virginia,” he said. “These states are willing to help us.

Yancey said he was concerned about financial literacy in the state, especially among young people, who might be facing unemployment in a difficult economy and thus try to borrow money from predatory lenders. 

To help prevent young people from falling into predatory loan traps, Yancey said it was imperative that schools educate students on making smart financial decisions.