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http://www.newsadvance.com/news/local/preserving-and-protecting-virginia-s-wild-places/article_85e02710-2593-11e4-988c-001a4bcf6878.html

Preserving and protecting Virginia’s wild places

Thousands of acres are set aside to maintain wilderness habitat

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  Max Oden / The News & Advance)

  Colin Haag leads Steve Haag and Justin Gregory down a section of the Appalachian Trail in The Priest Wilderness last Wednesday morning. (Photo by Max Oden / The News & Advance)

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Max Oden / The News & Advance)

Steve Haag and Justin Gregory hike down The Priest last Wednesday morning during their section hike of the Appalachian Trail. (Photo by Max Oden / The News & Advance)

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Anyone who would like to donate money may contact St. Andrews Society at (434) 299-5956.

Posted: Saturday, August 16, 2014 6:20 pm

Alex Rohr

A trickling brook follows a downhill corridor of smooth rocks and boulders engraved by time along an imposing mountain called The Priest.

Mosquitoes meander above water that pools on pebbles before it finds an opening in the moss-covered rocks to make its way down the Nelson County mountain. The thick August foliage creates shade and traps humidity in the forest.

A man known on the Appalachian Trail as i-Robot appears as the trail bends against a shaded backdrop of vivid green flora and stark, brown trunks.

Blue and black braces reinforce his 68-year-old knees, and he eases the burden on his legs with two silver hiking poles. An iPhone is strapped to his chest and a mouthpiece hangs from a water tube that curves from his backpack.

He doesn’t know it, but Marv Wooten is in the Priest Wilderness, an area protected under the provisions of the Wilderness Act of 1964, which marks its 50th anniversary this year.

Along with Three Ridges — The Priest’s paternal twin across Crabtree Falls Highway — the James River Face and Thunder Ridge wildernesses on the northwest border of Bedford County, the Priest’s 5,963 acres will not be intruded on by modern machinery, nor see significant interference from the hands of humans.

The original act did not name any Virginia areas as wilderness and was seen early on as an initiative more fit for the West. But individuals and group efforts at the national, state and local levels preserved the natural landscape largely as it was when Europeans arrived at Plymouth and Jamestown in 23 wilderness areas in the George Washington and Jefferson national forests.

“A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own work dominate the landscape, is herby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain,” according to the act.

New roads and structures are prohibited in wilderness areas, as are mining and cutting timber. No motor vehicles — or even mountain bikes — are allowed on their trails. Volun-teer trail-maintenance groups, such as the Natural Bridge Appalachian Trail Club, cannot use chainsaws or motorized weed trimmers. Groups are limited to 10 people to minimize human interference.

Exceptions exist for emergencies, such as wildfire rescue missions or cutting a fire line.

“Now that I know that,” Wooten, said, pausing to reflect after learning about the Wilderness Act, “I think it affords the visitor, the hiker, whatever, the opportunity to tread the ground, go through an area, visit wilderness in something that comes close, approximates this country as it was three centuries ago before it became, quote, ‘civi-lized.’”

Proponents say the wilderness areas are nature’s by-right, that native plants and ani-mals deserve a segment of land left alone save for a few trails and limited visitation. They appreciate the solitude in such a recreational experience and the game available in the larger spaces.

Opponents say a hands-off approach is not the best way to manage wildlife, which may suffer from disease or be assailed by invasive species. The restrictions on cutting and mining in these areas would prevent potential valuable resources from being extracted in the future.

Managing the wild

Many wilderness areas are cordoned out of larger sections of national forest, such as the George Washington and Jefferson national forests, which stretch across the state’s northern border.

While the average hiker may not be able to tell a wilderness area from the rest of the forest that surrounds it, subtle differences reveal the congressional designation. The grass grows taller and weeds advance farther over hiking trails. The signage shares no mileage.

The U.S. Forest Service is guided by an overall management plan, which is supposed to be updated every 15 years. The last plan for the George Washington forest came out in 1993. The last updating process, which included public input, has not yet yielded a plan.

Just as a locality may be zoned with certain areas designated as commercial or residen-tial property, federal land is divided and managed by the Forest Service to balance ecology and economy.

In many sections of national forest, trees can be cut and resources extracted by outside interests, but the Forest Service is responsible for sustainable management.

“The trees are renewable. The agency or company are going to assure there’s going to be regrowth in a generation or two and you’re going to have toilet paper to wipe your behind,” said David Benavitch who worked for the Forest Service as a land manager for al-most 30 years.

Trees may also be cut or areas of the forest burned to promote the health of wildlife.

But as each wilderness area is named — usually after being suggested in a management plan and then designated by an act of Congress — the landscape is left as it is.

West of the Mississippi River, these areas were designated on federal land, one reason western wilderness areas span millions of acres instead of thousands as in the East. In theEast, the federal government purchased land, much of which had been stripped barren, Benavitch said from his cellphone while taking a break from one of his three weekly hikes on the Appalachian Trail near Buena Vista.

“I know some timber companies in the area back in the early 1900s, they owned hundreds of thousands, maybe tens of thousands of acres of these mountains and their only interest was the one-time removal of the timber,” Benavitch said.

The result was erosion and frequent fires. Sediment ran into rivers, causing navigation problems in some areas. Through a succession of congressional actions beginning in 1911, the federal government purchased cheap land, first to protect watersheds, and eventually to preserve natural habitat, as well.

“Those lands that were picked up for a buck an acre, now they’re priceless,” he said. The Wilderness Act passed in 1964 designated 9.1 million acres in the U.S. as wilderness, and opened the possibility of more protected zones.

Reclaiming scarred land

James River Face, in Bedford and Rockbridge counties, was the first wilderness designated in Virginia through the Eastern Wilderness Act of 1975 and encompasses 8,886 acres. Before that, the 1964 law was seen as more applicable to virgin land in the West.

Benavitch said much of the James River Face is cut with logging roads, old strip mines and railroad beds now overtaken by overgrowth.

“There will be scars on the land that won’t go away, but it will regenerate itself over time through fires or hurricanes or insects and disease; maybe not on a broad scale but individual groups of trees and so forth. But it will be interesting for future generations to have the 8[,000]- or 10,000-acre tracts of land to compare to the rest of the place,” Benavitch said.

James River Face is bordered by Thunder Ridge Wilderness — in Bedford, Botetourt and Rockbridge counties — to the south, which received its wilderness designation of 2,344 acres in 1984.

The Three Ridges’ 4,608 acres, along with The Priest, were designated in 2000.

Benavitch referred to these areas as “postage stamp wilderness” compared to vast acreage in western U.S., such as the largest one, Wrangell-Saint Elias Wilderness, which encom-passes more than 9 million acres in Alaska. But he said their small size increases their value.

“They’re jewels. They’re like little, small places, but they’re special,” he said.

In the East, wilderness lands are largely in areas that no longer have a direct economic use or are not commercially viable in the future.

“It’s probably rough ground and the mining, all the minerals have been depleted, they’ve been removed so there’s no more interest in there; (they are) steep and rugged and the removal of timber would be uneconomical,” Benavitch said.

They’re also chosen to protect endangered species or preserve particularly splendid views or unique geological formations. But politics arise when conservation groups, such as the Virginia Wilderness Committee, choose their battles.

Preserving postage stamps

The Virginia Wilderness Committee was founded in 1969 and has played a leading role in setting aside Virginia’s 217,625 acres of wilderness.

When Ernie Dickerman, “our old guru,” died in 1998, Jim Murray took over as president of the committee. That year the group began work to protect the Priest and Three Ridges from development. The Nelson County sites were picked for their prominence and majesty, but also for realities in gaining political support.

“They are particularly spectacular mountains. As you know, they stand out from the main ridge of the Blue Ridge and therefore they make a very significant sort of intrusion on the flatlands. They stand up in the air in all their glory,” said Murray, now a retired University of Virginia biology professor.

“They also have a very rich botanical and zoological plant and animal community around them, so they are very special.”

In terms of practicality, Murray said any lands in the 6th District, which includes Lynchburg, Amherst and a part of Bedford counties, were nonstarters because of opposition by Rep. Bob Goodlatte, who represents the district. The Roanoke Republican said in a written statement this week that he values preserving forest lands for future genera-tions, but the wilderness designation is inflexible to land management.

“The restrictions placed on these lands have the greatest impact on local communities, making it more difficult for individuals to access these lands for hiking or biking and to maintain roads for hunting and other recreational purposes,” the statement said.

The forest management plan at the time named both The Priest and Three Ridges as potential wilderness, but the Virginia Wilderness Committee still needed local support and a legislator to propose the bill.

“At that point, we got our two really important co-conspirators,” Murray said.

“One of them was Al Weed, who is a proprietor of Mountain Cove Vineyard down in Nelson County, who gave us a real entrée into the local politics of Nelson County, and the other was David Carr, who is an attorney with the [Southern Environmental Law Center,]” headquartered in Charlottesville.

Murray, Weed and Carr then met with then-Independent Virgil Goode, who then represented the 5th District — which includes Nelson, Campbell, Appomattox counties and part of Bed-ford County. He told them he would sponsor the bill if the Nelson County Board of Supervisors supported the notion.

“Actually, Virgil was better than his word because we never actually got a formal reso-lution from the board in favor of wilderness, but we did get them to a point where they would say they were neutral,” Murray said.

Republican Sen. John Warner sponsored legislation in the U.S. Senate and the bill became law in 2000, preserving the Nelson County area in perpetuity.

The last wilderness bill concerning the commonwealth is the Virginia Ridge and Valley Bill as part of the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009.

Migrating threats

Although secured from chain saws and mining drills, the wilderness areas, along with the forest around them, are threatened by invasive species and disease. The gypsy moth popu-lation has moved south across the area damaging oak trees in particular, according to Ken Landgraf, a natural resource group staff officer with the U.S. Forest Service’s Roanoke office.

The hemlock tree population has also been reduced by the hemlock woolly adelgid, a small insect accidentally introduced from Asia, he said by email. And American chestnut trees in the Eastern U.S. were decimated by a blight-causing fungus brought from Japan around 1900.

A host of non-native plants, such as garlic mustard, tree-of-heaven and Japanese stiltgrass, have also invaded the region. Even in the wilderness, they are found near trails and the break with the larger forest where human interaction is more common. A non-native plant may be brought in accidentally in the tread in a hiker’s boot or by a migrating animal.

“They displace native flora, and they don’t generally have any kind of predators because it’s not their ecosystem. In other words, there aren’t insects that eat them or keep them in control or diseases because they haven’t evolved with Virginia’s ecosystem,” said Laura Neale a member of both the trail club — that maintains a portion of Bedford County Wilderness trail — and the Virginia Wilderness Committee.

Goodlatte said in his statement that the Wilderness designation “hinders the ability to combat disease infestations or restore plant and animal habitats.”

Landgraf said that even though the type of equipment and “anytime activities” in these areas are restricted, “this does not necessarily prohibit us from completing activities to control native species.”

Regardless of the politics, challenges and philosophical debates presented by the con-cept of wilderness, hikers still perch on the top of The Priest’s 4,000 foot elevation after a four-mile uphill trek.

They compare the view of rippling mountains carpeted with thick forest green with that from a false summit on the other side facing flat farmland dotted with buildings.

Thunder reverberates from the distance, announcing a storm’s approach. Gray clouds pur-sue them past the top-of-the mountain campsite of i-Robot and a handful of former strangers he met on the Appalachian Trail.

Although Wooten’s trail name implies technological fixation, he uses the smart phone primarily for a special AT map. He doesn’t understand those hiking with iPod buds stuck in their ears.

“I just like to listen to the sounds of silence,” Wooten said. “If you’re listening to an iPod, you’re not going to hear this little brook, you’re not going to hear insects around you, you’re not going to know when a mosquito is around you.”

Contact Alex Rohr at arohr@newsadvance.com. Find him on Twitter: @arohr_reporter. Facebook: The News & Advance Bedford County Beat.

http://www.godanriver.com/opinion/community_viewpoint/finding-a-way-forward-on-blight/article_c091c5d2-0ed5-11e4-8e6c-001a4bcf6878.html

Finding a way forward on blight

Steven Mantilla/Danville Register & Bee

840 North Main street is one of many structures on the blight list.

By Lee Vogler

Danville has a blight problem. That statement will not make headlines. We have known this for decades, and in the past several years, the city has taken many steps in addressing this problem, primarily centered around demolitions.

Of the 2,000 plus blighted structures in our city, we are only able to demolish roughly 100 a year. Clearly, we cannot demolish our way out of this problem.

Fortunately, our city leaders recognize this as well and have adopted other measures in addition to demolitions, including a low-interest loan pool for repairs, a receivership program and the establishment of the Old West End Rental Inspection District. With that being said, there are still other methods that we can, and must, explore.

Recently, I proposed to my fellow council members that Danville adopt an online auction system for the blighted properties that the city is in possession of. Granted, many of the properties the city has are beyond any hopes of repair and demolition is the only viable solution. However, there are some properties that can, and should, be restored and returned to occupation. For these homes, an online auction system would be a prudent and financially responsible solution.

Several cities across the nation have recently put in place some form of an auction system as a way to deal with their blighted properties, with Detroit being the most high-profile example. Very rarely do I ever look to Detroit for ideas but in this case, they have found a good one. Their program, known as “Building Detroit” is simple: a website is setup that features all of the blighted properties that the city has made available for purchase. If a person sees a property he likes, he can bid on it.

There are, however, some strings attached:

» You must be a Michigan resident, a non-Michigan resident who will live in the property after rehab or a company or organization authorized to do business in Michigan;

» The person or the entity they represent cannot have any unpaid delinquent property taxes or any unresolved blight or code enforcements in the city of Detroit; and

» They are also limited to the purchase of one property per month through the bidding process.

In addition to these stipulations, there are requirements to meet after the property has been purchased:

» Within 30 days after closing, the buyer must provide the Land Bank an executed copy of a contract to rehab the home.

» If they can demonstrate to the Land Bank they have the skills to rehab the house themselves, within 30 days after closing they must provide the Land Bank receipts showing they have purchased the materials necessary.

» Within six months after closing, they must provide the Land Bank with a Certificate of Occupancy for the house and demonstrate that the house has an occupant.

» If the buyer fails to meet these deadlines, they forfeit both the purchase price and the property and are forbidden to bid in all future auctions.

Obviously these requirements are strict and some would deem too stringent to be worth the time and effort. These requirements, however, are very important and would be vital to the success of a potentially similar program here in Danville.

First of all, they prevent “slum lords” from coming in and buying up large amounts of cheap property and then sitting on them for several years. We are dealing with some of these issues already. Second, the potential buyers would know exactly what they are getting into and what is required of them before they make a purchase.

Admittedly, I was, at first, skeptical of how successful a program like this could be but after doing a lot of research, I’ve found the results in Detroit and other cities has been very encouraging. Many houses are being sold far above the median values of their surrounding properties. Most of them have been rehabbed and inhabited within the six-month window.

In Danville’s case, we may only be dealing with a couple dozen homes that would fall into this auction system, but at a time when budgets are becoming increasingly tight and the costs for demolitions continue to rise, we need to utilize every tool available to us in our efforts against blight. This partnership with the private sector can provide that and save the taxpayers valuable dollars at the same time.

What’s most interesting about this proposal is how it came to my attention. It was a citizen who sent me the link to a newspaper article discussing the success of the Detroit Land Bank program. It only reaffirmed what I came to believe several years ago: many of the solutions to the problems Danville faces will be found outside of city hall. That’s not to say that good ideas don’t come from our city leaders, because they do. But I’ve often found that creativity and innovation are best discovered in the minds of the people who call Danville their home.

As we find a way forward on blight, this new land auction proposal is a great example of how such a task force would be beneficial.

I strongly believe that the more we can get our citizens informed, engaged and involved in the issues we face, the better off Danville will be. Our greatest asset is our people and it will be the people of our city that propel Danville forward into a new era of prosperity. I’ve often said that I still believe Danville’s best days lie ahead and when we’re working together to achieve our goals, those best days become closer to reality. Because when we stand together, there’s nothing we can’t achieve.

Vogler is a member of Danville City Council.

Paralegal

Virginia Legal Aid Society seeks paralegal to provide telephone intake & advice under supervision of attorney; screen for eligibility & legal issue; enter in computer database; make appropriate referrals. Requires bachelor’s degree or equivalent skill and accomplishment in analysis and writing; data entry speed and accuracy; excellent verbal, writing and people skills with clients and team members. Position in Lynchburg, VA. Fluency in Spanish preferred. FMI see http://www.vlas.org, and http://www.discoverlynchburg.org. Salary $25,100 – $33,800 DOE. Excellent benefits, EOE. Send cover letter & resume by email to: applicationsLL@vlas.org. Posting date: 7/17/14

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/07/13/firm-targeting-college-students-draws-scrutiny/12585657

CINCINNATI — A controversial company targeting college students is growing on campuses here, especially at the University of Cincinnati, that some complain is causing kids to drop out of college and get themselves in big financial trouble.

The Federal Trade Commission has received more than 160 complaints nationally against the Arizona-based company Vemma, including a dozen here. The Enquirer obtained the complaints after filing a Freedom of Information request. Consumers are claiming that the company preys on young adults disillusioned with the current economy, enticed by get-rich promises.

One Mason parent reported to the FTC that his son dropped out of college and seemed “brainwashed,” no longer able to think for himself as he chased his get-rich-quick dreams and denounced family members who questioned the company. And a UC student left the Vemma sales force after he watched classmates he’d recruited leave school in financial straits.

Vemma sells several drinks, including Verve, which the company hypes as a healthier alternative to energy drinks such as Red Bull and Monster. It is the latest in generations of companies that sell products by recruiting people to recruit more people and make money through recruitment bonuses and a take on the next person’s sales. That’s not a new business model – think Amway, for those of you over 50.

What’s unique is that Vemma targets young adults, some straight out of high school

The company touts that salaries in the $50,000-a-year range are possible, when Vemma’s own income disclosures indicate that more than 97 percent of its active affiliates earn $12,000 a year or less – far below a minimum-wage full-time salary. Nearly 80 percent earn less than $1,600 a year.

Company officials and distributors – most of them college students – interviewed by The Enquirer dismissed the critics as “haters” who don’t understand the business model and are afraid of the unfamiliar. But business experts and consumer advocacy groups say that Vemma warrants a federal investigation as demand grows for stronger regulation of the controversial multilevel marketing industry.

A controversial industry

Vemma’s web videos – a key component of its recruiting strategy – are slick, with throbbing music, fast edits and sleek cars. One opens with two attractive women driving a convertible while sipping cans of Verve as their long hair whips in the wind. Another includes shots from inside a pulsing night club, images of Verve’s bright, orange can interspersed throughout.

Most of the videos feature B.K. Boreyko of Scottsdale, Ariz., the company’s founder and CEO, describing how, in less than a decade, his company has skyrocketed to $100 million in sales, struggling economy be damned.

“The worse the economy gets, the better we do,” he says in a video posted on YouTube, where he talks to the camera from behind the wheel of a big-ticket SUV as he drives from his gated home. The bad economy “is the driving force behind this business model.”

Boreyko’s pitches are enthusiastic and practiced. For more than 20 years, he’s been a leader in what’s known as multilevel marketing. It’s a controversial industry, one that draws comparisons to pyramid schemes because both rely on members recruiting other people to make money for those above them. Multilevel marketing is legal when participants are paid more for sales unrelated to recruiting, unlike pyramid schemes, which are illegal.

Before founding Vemma in 2004, Boreyko headed New Vision, which had its own run-ins with the FTC. The agency investigated Boreyko in 1999 after New Vision claimed its product “God’s Recipe” was an effective treatment for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Boreyko agreed in a settlement to quit making unsubstantiated health claims about his products. Recently, a consumer advocacy group charged that Vemma sales reps were violating that order by claiming that the products prevent disease.

In promoting Vemma, Boreyko doesn’t call it multilevel marketing, preferring “network marketing” instead. Since this spring, Boreyko has made a few tweaks and started referring to Vemma as “affiliate marketing,” likening it to Amazon.com.

Marketing experts say the changes are window dressing, and that Vemma – like Amway and Mary Kay and Herbalife – is another multilevel marketing company that relies in part on its distributors recruiting other distributors. On its own, whether that’s a problem is debatable: The business model is controversial but legal, so long as most of a distributor’s money is made from product sales to consumersas opposed to sales to himself or other distributors.

Vemma operates in more than 50 other countries, and not without similar controversy: It was investigated in Italy and declared a pyramid scheme there by the Competition and Markets Authority, which leveled the equivalent of a $140,000 fine against the company.

‘We received complaints from distraught parents whose children were threatening to drop out of college, with family members deep in debt.’
Bonnie Patten, executive director of the consumer advocacy group Truth in Advertising

Vemma’s emphasis on recruiting young adults is unique in the multilevel marketing world, experts say. It markets what it calls the Young People Revolution (Twitter hashtag #YPR), a Vemma-created slogan that represents sales force members younger than 30.

Why recruit so young? Brad Wayment, Vemma’s chief operating officer, told The Enquirer that the company never set out to target such a young demographic, but that the product was a hit with college kids, and the company simply wanted to be supportive.

In sifting through hours of Vemma videos posted at various outlets online, The Enquirer found footage of Boreyko providing another reason: so that young adults can hit up their parents and grandparents to buy the products.

“It’s perfect marketing,” he said in a video blog shot aboard a private jet. “It’s like when a little girl comes to you wanting to sell you Girl Scout cookies. Even though you don’t want to eat them, you buy them to support them in business.”

Bonnie Patten, executive director of the Connecticut-based consumer advocacy group Truth in Advertising, said the emphasis on young adults is concerning. Most haven’t had much real-world experience and are too trusting, she said.

“We received complaints from distraught parents whose children were threatening to drop out of college, with family members deep in debt,” said Patten, who’s been investigating Vemma for more than a year. “I have to give it to B.K. and Vemma: It’s a slick-looking operation. Their products are packaged very well, and they know their target audience.”

Student’s journey from salesman to critic

Among the targets was UC business major Daniel Cao. Last summer, he was invited to a pool party that was actually a recruiting event hosted by a few Mason students. Cao was intrigued. He liked the way Verve tasted and figured he’d be buying Red Bull or another energy drink anyway, so he might as well try to sell Verve and make some money.

His parents were skeptical of the business model, but Cao promised that if he didn’t make $5,000 within six months of hard work, he’d bail. At his peak, he had a “team” of 17 beneath him, called his “downlines.”

When the six months were up, he’d barely broken even on product sales. He kept his promise to his parents and bailed, and has since become a vocal critic of Vemma’s practices.

“I’d been told Dr. Oz and Oprah were sponsors, which wasn’t true,” Cao said.

Worse, he said, he recruited others who ended up in worse financial shape than he. Two dropped out of UC, he said, and one was kicked out of his family’s home.

“You cannot possibly make the money they’re telling you you could make,” he said. “The top 1 percent makes 99 percent, and they make it seem like that 1 percent is 50 percent, that your odds of making it up there just depends on how hard you work.”

It’s a familiar refrain to William Keep, a pyramid scheme expert and dean of the School of Business at The College of New Jersey. A former University of Kentucky professor, he has been a trial expert in several government cases against companies suspected to be pyramid schemes.

“There’s a sense of belief in the unverifiable that comes with MLMs,” Keep said. “They’ll talk about what’s possible – $1,000 a month, $2,000 a month, maybe more – but how that might be possible isn’t particularly clear and is generally associated with phrases like, ‘It takes hard work.’ “

It sounds reasonable, he added, but it often isn’t true.

‘There’s a sense of belief in the unverifiable that comes with MLMs. They’ll talk about what’s possible – $1,000 a month, $2,000 a month, maybe more – but how that might be possible isn’t particularly clear and is generally associated with phrases like, ‘It takes hard work.’ ‘
William Keep, a pyramid scheme expert
Douglas Brooks, a Boston franchise lawyer who has brought several class-action suits against multilevel marketing companies over the past 20 years, agreed. Brooks is pushing for tighter industry regulations in the wake of the FTC investigating another multilevel marketing company called Herbalife.

After studying Vemma’s 18-page compensation plan, Brooks said it appeared “very similar” to Herbalife. “It’s heavily weighted toward the top,” he said. “People who are making tremendous amounts of money are a fraction of 1 percent, whereas most of the distributors, the affiliates, the bronze-level people – which collectively is about 77 percent of the company – the average earnings are between $78 and $130 a month.”

He couldn’t say whether Vemma might be a pyramid scheme because current regulations require a complete disclosure of each company’s finances to make that determination. “They don’t have to disclose everything you need to know in order to make that judgment,” Brooks said.

The FTC has the power to determine if the company is a pyramid scheme, but spokesman Peter Kaplan said FTC investigations – or even the existence of investigations – aren’t public. The FTC has acknowledged that it’s investigating Herbalife because the company disclosed it first.

The attorneys-general offices in Ohio and Kentucky said they haven’t fielded complaints about the company, but Better Business Bureau offices nationwide have received dozens.

Wayment said Vemma is transparent. “We’re not a pyramid scheme. We’re a legitimate company,” he said. “This isn’t a get-rich-quick program; this is a work program. You’re going to be grinding it and working hard.”

In an interview, Wayment touted the value of education and said he personally has dissuaded young Vemma sales recruits from dropping out of college, which he called “critical.”

That college-friendly emphasis isn’t as evident in Boreyko’s online videos.

“Last week, I read this article in Forbes magazine and they were calling the college education system in this country a pyramid scheme,” said Boreyko – himself a high school graduate – in one video blog posted on YouTube.

“Do you realize that 40 percent of those college graduates that have found jobs work in jobs that don’t require a college degree, yet they’re still stuck with the debt?”

That’s the type of sales pitch that worries consumer protection advocates. Multilevel marketing companies have developed and honed their messages for decades “to push people’s buttons and get them to suspend critical thinking,” said Brooks, who last October filed a petition with the FTC on behalf of an international consumer advocates coalition asking the agency to investigate the industry.

Having those messages unleashed on impressionable kids is dangerous, Brooks said.

“They’re subject to all sorts of influences, they’re financially challenged because of the tremendous cost of a college education, and the recruitment techniques that are used by MLMs in general are very deceptive techniques,” he said.

“How do you get all these people to go to these meetings, stand up on their chairs and shout, when 98-plus percent are losing money? They just get so excited about being part of this group and they’re thinking, it’s just a matter of time – if they just stick with it.”

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/07/08/companies-cramming-charges-phone-bill/12357155/

Are phone companies ‘cramming’ charges onto your bill?

Angelique Soenarie, The Arizona Republic

If you haven’t looked at your cellphone bill recently, you may want to start reviewing it for suspicious charges. The practice of placing misleading or unauthorized charges on a consumer’s cellphone bill — also known as cramming — has bilked billions of dollars from customers over the years, according to reports by the Senate Commerce Committee. Last year, the committee introduced legislation that would prevent companies from billing unauthorized third-party charges to consumers’ landline phone bills. In response, wireless telephone carriers vowed to stop “premium text messages,” which represent a majority of third-party charges, according to Law360, a legal-news service.

But consumers can still be vulnerable. Last week, the Federal Trade Commission filed a suit against T-Mobile USA Inc., one of the country’s largest wireless carriers, alleging the company collected millions of dollars from customers in the form of unauthorized charges for premium text subscriptions.

STORY: FTC: T-Mobile knowingly added bogus charges to bills

STORY: T-MobIle CEO: FTC ‘sensationalizing’ bill claims The FTC alleges that the company received up to 40 percent of the total amount charged to consumers for third-party text services such as horoscopes, flirting tips and celebrity gossip that cost $9.99 a month. John Legere, T-Mobile’s president and chief executive officer, wrote in a blog last week that the FTC is “sensationalizing” the issue. “It is true, that back in 2009 thru 2013, all of the big carriers in the wireless industry, including T-Mobile, began carrying what became known as the Premium SMS services. We were all billing for these services on behalf of the content providers who were responsible for obtaining the customers’ authorizations,” Legere wrote. “As we all know now, there were some fraudsters in that bunch. That is why, as we found them, we terminated them and, ultimately, made the decision in November 2013, as did all four of the wireless companies, to eliminate this from our service offerings,” he wrote. Jeff Blyskal, senior editor for Consumer Reports, said phone numbers, like credit-card numbers, can be misused by scammers. He said wireless companies haven’t been required to block out these unauthorized charges because the Federal Communications Commission rule on cramming applies to landlines, not cellphone service. t-mobile T-Mobile says the accusations that it added bogus fees are false.(Photo: John MacDougall, AFP/Getty Images) It’s not unusual for third-party merchants to sell goods and services through phone or wireless carriers. But “when a customer doesn’t authorize the service, it’s called cramming,” said Brian Shull, an FTC attorney with the division of financial practices.

For example, consumers can be tricked into handing over their cell numbers, often because they believe they are signing up for an innocuous text service, such as a daily horoscope. The solicitation often comes via text, and there is usually a charge associated with the service, which is touted by a third-party company working with the phone company. Cramming has been around since the 1990s, when third-party merchants began adding unauthorized charges to customers’ landline phone bills. The FTC has been pursuing third-party merchants who use deceptive practices for some time, but the action against T-Mobile marks the first time the commission has filed such a suit against a wireless carrier. In 2012, Scottsdale technology entrepreneur Jason Hope and his company, Jawa, reached settlements in two separate lawsuits related to allegations of deceptive billing practices by the mobile-phone application developer and its affiliates. Verizon Wireless had accused Jawa of a scheme that used premium text-messaging campaigns to defraud both Verizon and its mobile-phone customers. The Texas Attorney General’s Office accused the Scottsdale company of “improperly adding expensive, unauthorized charges to Texans’ cellphone bills.” In 2004, the Arizona Corporation Commission approved rules against cramming, requiring telecommunications companies to remove charges from bills promptly and give a refund within 45 days from the date the bill is changed. A settlement has not been reached in the T-Mobile case, and it remains in litigation, according to the FTC. Tips for avoiding ‘cramming’ charges According to reports by the Senate Commerce Committee, cellphone consumers have been charged millions in unauthorized fees.

In order to avoid these ‘cramming’ charges, follow these steps: • Don’t enter your phone number online unless it is with a reputable company. • When you get your phone bill, read it closely. • If you don’t understand or recognize an item on your bill, call your carrier. Don’t wait, because some companies have a short window to grant a refund. • Ask your cellular provider if it has a blocking service for cramming. Usually it’s free. • Don’t ignore small charges. Crammers try to go undetected by submitting $1.99 or $2.99 charges. • If you have a prepaid phone, stay on top of how many minutes you have. Instead of being billed for a charge, you could have minutes deducted from your phone. • Read all forms and promotional materials before signing up for a telephone or for services charged to your phone bill

Sources: Federal Trade Commission, Consumer Reports, Arizona Corporation Commission, Federal Communications Commission

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http://www.lynchburgbusinessmag.com/mag/five-hot-topics-in-2014-employment-law/

Five Hot Topics in 2014 Employment Law

Issue: June 2014 by John W. Francisco, Esq., Edmunds & Williams

Legal Employment law is a volatile area because political and economic tensions seem to most quickly influence employment-related regulatory activities at federal and state levels. As we approach the halfway point of 2014, there are five noteworthy topics/trends in employment law that you should be aware of in order to proactively address potential high risk areas for your business and stay compliant with the law.

1. Misclassification of Employees as Independent Contractors

There is a growing trend of audits by regulatory agencies (and the IRS) of employers’ classification of workers as “independent contractors.” All employers must remember that the legal test utilized by most federal and state regulatory agencies to search out and identify worker misclassifications is usually more stringent than both the IRS’ and common law tests.

Most employment agencies presume as a default that every worker is an employee, and the burden always remains on the employer to prove otherwise. Whether a particular worker may be free from “direction and control” is just one factor to consider. To survive scrutiny, an employer also must establish that (1) the services the worker performs are either outside the employer’s usual course of business or outside the employer’s place of business, and (2) that the worker is engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, profession or business. In addition, the US Department of Labor (USDOL) and the IRS have now made worker misclassification an area of priority of investigation and control.
For example, on November 12, 2013, a bill was introduced in the U.S. Senate entitled the “Payroll Fraud Prevention Act of 2013.” If passed, it will amend the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and impose significant penalties on employers who intentionally misclassify workers as independent contractors. Even if not ultimately passed, it evidences a priority on the federal level. In light of this trend of increased scrutiny and the potential risk of significant penalties, if your company has recently made a “close call” in classifying workers as independent contractors, it would be wise to consult with an attorney to confirm the decision is proper.

2. Misclassification of Non-Exempt Employees as Exempt

It appears that many employers continue to assume (incorrectly) that all of their “salaried employees” are not entitled to overtime pay. In fact, paying an employee a salary does not necessarily mean the employee is exempt from the minimum wage and overtime requirements of the FLSA and similar state laws. In addition to determining merely whether the employee is “salaried” and stopping there, employers also must consider the duties the employee performs and whether those duties qualify the employee for an exemption.
Because misclassification can result in liability for two years of back pay (three years for willful violations), as well as double damages and attorneys’ fees, this issue has become an easy target like low hanging fruit for the USDOL and, more importantly, to plaintiffs’ attorneys (who see a ripe source of damage with which to justify generating large fees). To assess whether an employee is properly classified as exempt, there is a lot of information online to provide an initial guide. But, we also strongly recommend that your company consult with an attorney before making a final determination on classifications (especially in the case of any reclassification process).

3. Criminal Background Check Practices as a Basis for Scrutiny

If you haven’t already done so, it would be prudent to review and possibly update your criminal background check procedure in your Employee Manuals. Although the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has been under attack in recent months on this issue, the agency continues to aggressively pursue compliance with its updated Enforcement Guidance on the Consideration of Arrest and Conviction Records in Employment Decisions Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Therefore, you must be very cautious now in asking job applicants to answer generic questions about their criminal convictions on employment applications, as the new trend is for state and local jurisdictions to deem such inquiries to be illegal.

4. IRS’ Tipping Rule for Employers in the Hospitality Industry

Effective January 1, 2014, gratuities automatically added to customers’ bills by employers in the hospitality industry (for example, an automatic 18 percent gratuity on parties of six or more) will not be considered “tips,” but rather “service charge wages.” This will impact not only employer recordkeeping and reporting obligations, but also compliance with overtime rules under the FLSA, as such mandatory tips need to be included as part of an employee’s regular rate of pay in order to properly calculate the overtime rate. Failure to comply with the rule may subject hospitality employers to increased scrutiny by the IRS, the USDOL and plaintiffs’ attorneys. Accordingly, employers in the hospitality industry should review their recordkeeping and reporting practices and wage calculations regarding these mandatory gratuities.

5. Geographic Limitations in Restrictive Covenants

A recent case from a Circuit Court in Fairfax, Virginia, is instructive on how courts are continuing to struggle with balancing the protection of employers in making resource investments to train employees versus allowing such employees to go out and earn a fair living once separated from the company. (See, Wings, LLC v. Capitol Leather, Fairfax County Circuit Court, March 2014).
In the case, the employer sued two ex-employees who went to work for a competing residential vinyl, fabric and leather repair business. The vast majority of the plaintiff-employer’s customers were automobile dealerships and collision repair centers that hired the employer to furnish interior features in vehicles. The employer had spent significant time and resources providing extensive technical training and marketing and business development methods to the ex-employees as technicians and then assigned them to territories in which to regularly contact customers.

When the two employees quit and went to work for a competitor, the employer filed the lawsuit and attempted to enforce restrictive covenants which sought to prohibit the ex-employees from working “in a position that was the same or substantially the same” as their jobs with the employer, with any business that had within the past 12 months competed with the employer, and it sought to apply the prohibition to any U.S. state or foreign country in which the employer had conducted business within the last 12 months.

Evidence demonstrated that, during the previous 12 months, the employer had conducted business in Virginia, Maryland and West Virginia. The court, however, refused to grant a preliminary injunction enforcing the agreement because the geographic restriction was overly broad and not narrowly drawn to protect the employer’s legitimate business interests. As drawn, the agreement would prevent the former employees from working, for example, in Abingdon, Virginia, more than 300 miles away from Fairfax and an area in which the employer did no business and had no legitimate interest in protecting from competition. According to the court, requiring these two residents of Northern Virginia to attempt to locate work outside Virginia, Maryland or West Virginia simply put too much of a burden on them in their efforts to earn a living.

As you can see, the trend continues to be for courts to strike down non-competes in Virginia, and it is increasingly difficult to attempt to draft a non-compete agreement carefully enough so as to not appear to be over-reaching. Again, we suggest that you retain a lawyer to assist you in carefully crafting these restrictive covenants as narrowly as possible so that they have a chance to be enforced under Virginia law.

The preceding is for general informational purposes only and not intended to constitute specific legal advice or form an attorney/client relationship. Please seek the services of a licensed attorney for specific legal advice.

http://www.newsadvance.com/news/local/new-laws-that-start-july-including-brendon-s-law/article_53793876-0049-11e4-b8ca-001a4bcf6878.html

New laws that start July 1, including ‘Brendon’s Law’

Posted: Monday, June 30, 2014 7:26 am

BY OLYMPIA MEOLA Richmond Times-Dispatch

It was nearly one year ago that 7-year-old Brendon Mackey was killed by a falling bullet while walking with his father to a Fourth of July fireworks show near Swift Creek Reservoir.

In the intervening year, state lawmakers set their sights on celebratory gunfire, passing “Brendon’s Law” that makes a conviction for celebratory gunfire in which a person is wounded a Class 6 felony, punishable by up to five years in prison.
It’s among hundreds of changes in law that take effect in Virginia on July 1, from requiring a photo ID at the polls to overhauling the state’s mental health system.

Voter ID

Starting July 1, voters must present a photo ID to vote. Acceptable forms include a Virginia driver’s license; a U.S. passport or any other photo ID issued by the U.S., Virginia or one of its political subdivisions; a student ID issued by any institute of higher learning in Virginia; or any employee ID card. Voters without one of those forms of ID can apply for a free, state-issued photo ID card with registrars in any locality.

Hybrid car tax

The unpopular $64 annual license tax on hybrid vehicles hits the trash heap July 1. The tax was implemented as part of a major transportation funding overhaul passed last year. After an outcry from drivers, lawmakers this year scrapped the fee, and the state will provide for refunds of the tax paid for registration years beginning on or after July 1.

RMA

The legislature approved a proposal to equalize representation on the Richmond Metropolitan Authority, ending a long political battle. The law christens the Richmond Metropolitan Transportation Authority and gives equal representation among Richmond and its neighbors, Chesterfield and Henrico counties.
School ratings
Implementation of the state’s A-F system to rate schools was pushed to Oct. 1, 2016.
Legislation passed this year also says the Virginia Board of Education should decide, in consultation with the education committees, whether to assign a single letter grade to each school or a series of letter grades based on multiple factors, such as the standards of accreditation, alternative assessment, student mobility and per-pupil funding.

SOL reform

Fewer Standards of Learning tests will be administered to students in grades three to eight as a result of legislation passed this year.
Testing in the early grades will focus more on reading and math, but school boards need to certify that students were given an alternative assessment in the SOL subject areas that no longer require an SOL test.
A Standards of Learning Innovation Committee was created to continually review and make recommendations regarding the state’s assessment system.

Sunday hunting

Lawmakers rolled back one of the state’s “blue laws” that barred Sunday hunting.
Under the new rules, a landowner and his immediate family or a person with written permission from the landowner may hunt or kill any wild bird or wild animal, including any nuisance species, on the landowner’s property on Sunday.
Hunting within 200 yards of a house of worship is prohibited, as is the use of dogs to hunt deer or bear on Sundays.

Mental health

The rules changed for holding people involuntarily for mental health evaluations after state Sen. R. Creigh Deeds, D-Bath, was attacked by his son in November. Austin C. “Gus” Deeds, 24, killed himself after repeatedly stabbing his father, 13 hours after being released from an expired emergency custody order.
Lawmakers increased the duration of emergency custody orders from six to eight hours and required the state to find a bed for further temporary detention at one of its mental hospitals. The state then would have an additional four hours to locate a bed at a hospital closer to the person’s home.

The omnibus legislation sponsored by Deeds and a number of other legislators also increased the length of temporary detention orders from 48 to 72 hours and mandated the creation of a Web-based psychiatric bed registry that state mental health officials had promised for years but failed to make happen.

Ethics

Lawmakers passed an omnibus ethics reform bill that sets a cumulative $250 limit on the amount of certain gifts elected officials can accept. It requires disclosure of gifts given to spouses and immediate family members and increases transparency of financial disclosure forms by putting them online. It also lowers the threshold for reporting of stock holdings and investments on financial disclosure forms from $10,000 to $5,000.
Dominion Virginia Power
Dominion Virginia Power secured legislative permission to write off most of the $570 million it has spent planning for possible construction of a third nuclear reactor in Louisa County. Critics say the accounting maneuver embedded in the legislation may prevent the power company from having to reimburse ratepayers for surplus profits. The utility says approval of the bill would send a signal to go ahead with construction of the plant and says the costs it has incurred would sooner or later be incorporated into rates paid by customers.

New moped rules

Moped and scooter drivers in Virginia do not need to be licensed, but will be required to carry government-issued photo identification. Drivers and passengers will also be required to wear a helmet, as well as a face shield or safety glasses or goggles. Mopeds and scooters operated in Virginia also need to be titled and registered. Titles cost $10, and the annual registration fee is $20.25.

Bicycle safety

Bicyclists will have more room between them and passing cars under a law that requires motorists to give 3-foot clearance to cyclists. Previously, the law required 2 feet of clearance by passing vehicles.

Fox penning

Virginia is phasing out pens in which dogs chase captive foxes. The legislation passed allows Virginia’s more than 30 pens to keep operating for up to 40 years, but bans new pens.

Pet owners protection

Pet shop or licensed pet dealers will be required to provide breeder information for dogs or cats for sale and to reimburse consumers for some medical costs related to dogs or cats certified by a veterinarian as unfit for purchase. Previous law only required dealers to refund the purchase price or exchange the unfit pet for one of equivalent value.

Illegal images

It is now a Class 1 misdemeanor to disseminate or sell an unauthorized nude or sexually explicit image of another person with the intent to harass, coerce or intimidate the person depicted.

omeola@timesdispatch.com (804) 649-6812 Staff writers Michael Martz and Jim Nolan contributed to this report.

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