About two months after state Transportation Secretary Aubrey Layne lit into the leadership of the Virginia Port Authority over chronic operating losses, his boss weighed in.McAuliffe slammed the authority’s 20-year lease of the APM facility, which will cost the authority more than $70 million a year by the time the deal ends in 2030.
Gov. Terry McAuliffe said last week he will not put up with continuing losses at the port, plans “to make some very substantial changes to the board” and has asked Layne to see whether there’s a way to renegotiate the authority’s 20-year lease of APM Terminals’ Portsmouth facility.
“If I don’t see a good investment of our taxpayer dollars, we’re not doing it,” McAuliffe told executives at a Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce gathering Tuesday. “And if it’s something been done in the past, we’re going to unwind it. It’s got to make sense.”
“We found out that they weren’t meeting their debt covenants. Now how can that be? Now how many of you knew that? One person, very good. But folks, this is serious stuff.”
