Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 22, 1993 TAG: 9302220244
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
EXPERTS AT STUDYING AND STALLING
A STUDY group, headed by former state Sen. Granger Macfarlane of Roanoke, spent much of 1992 doing exactly what Gov. Wilder had commissioned it to do:It reviewed the century-old Dillon Rule doctrine, which essentially says that the only powers of Virginia's cities, counties and towns are those expressly granted to them by the General Assembly.
At a cost of about $9,000, it held nine public hearings around the state, plus several work sessions in Richmond. It heard from dozens of individuals representing local governments, the business community and sundry organizations.
And, in November, it put on Wilder's desk what he had asked for: Recommended modifications in Dillon-based laws "necessary to provide local governments with the ability to address local and regional issues."
There, the Macfarlane commission's report sits.
If the governor has read it, he hasn't let on. If legislators read it, they haven't let on. Not a single bill was introduced at the current session of the General Assembly to implement any of the report's recommendations.
Meanwhile - because of the Dillon Rule - the town of Cedar Bluff in Southwest Virginia had to go to the assembly this year to get permission for its planning commission to meet every two months instead of once a month.
The city of Richmond had to get the legislature's permission to disconnect water service for nonpayment of landfill-refuse fees.
Other local governments must spend time at the assembly, lobbying for innocuous changes in their charters; for approval to enact weed-control or animal-control ordinances, etc.
Meanwhile, legislators - pity, pity - complain they are being brutally overworked by the record number of bills. Never mind that many of those bills are the result of rigid and ridiculous Dillon Rule interpretations.
Members of the Macfarlane commission have reason to be perplexed - and miffed. They worked hard; they did what was expected of them. They came up with common-sense proposals, most of which were not controversial. Why has their report been totally ignored?
Perhaps Wilder felt it was useless to push for Dillon Rule reforms this year because legislators had already signaled they would not consider any bills that diluted their control over local governments before they conduct their own study of proposed changes.
Perhaps legislators so signaled because, once again, Wilder snubbed them - not appointing a single lawmaker to the Dillon Rule study.
Perhaps the Macfarlane group's recommendations simply got thrust aside because gun-control legislation has been so all-consuming at the '93 session.
Perhaps it's because House members face re-election in the fall. (In election years, lawmakers' creed seems to be: Do as little as possible. Since legislative elections are every other year . . . go figure.)
Whatever the reasons, they are unacceptable.
Local governments have pleaded for decades for some relaxation in the Dillon Rule. Indeed, some of the Macfarlane group's recommendations were recommended by the former Grayson Commission.
The Grayson Commission, for that matter, studied various issues pertaining to local governments for five years - and got virtually no assembly action for its trouble.
At this point, it appears that most proposals from another Wilder-appointed study group - on government ethics and campaign-finance reform - also will be tabled for at least a year. Perhaps in a snit because the governor didn't appoint them to this commission, either, legislators insist they must conduct their own study.
Ditto for recommendations issued this year by an anti-poverty study group pertaining to prevention of teen pregnancy. These were basically the same recommendations on teen-pregnancy that a Wilder-appointed study commission made last year, which also were completely ignored in the assembly.
Talk about reproduction. Studies beget studies that beget more studies. Problems mount and cry out for resolution; unresolved, they proliferate.
Not for nothing does Virginia's assembly pride itself on being the oldest, continuous, deliberative body in the new world.