Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 3, 1994 TAG: 9402050009
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Del. Clifton "Chip" Woodrum's legislative prowess, it seems, has prevented passage of a bill that, in all likelihood, would have led to Roanoke's loss of the Commonwealth Games. And that would have been a significant loss.
The Games, staged here since 1990 by the Virginia Amateur Sports group, have brought some 24,000 athletes, thousands of visitors and $14 million to the Roanoke Valley economy - not to mention invaluable promotional benefits.
What Woodrum did was to win Virginia Beach Del. Glenn Croshaw's agreement to drop a bill that could have put control of the Commonwealth Games in the hands of a new state bureaucracy - a bureaucracy potentially dominated by Tidewater and Richmond interests with a propensity for choosing a Games' site other than Roanoke.
(What Croshaw got in return were assurances that Woodrum wouldn't oppose efforts by the Virginia State Games, run by Tidewater-Richmond interests, to get state funding, as the Commonwealth Games have gotten since 1989. The competing Games are each seeking $75,000 at this year's assembly session.)
There's still no guarantee, of course, that Roanoke can keep the Commonwealth Games forever, or that they'll grow in prestige and importance. But Woodrum has negotiated a better chance of that by blocking what looked like a power grab for something that Roanoke's worked hard to develop.
In some sports, it may hold true that whether you win or lose doesn't matter, only how you play the game. In the legislature, it matters mightily whether you win or lose. Woodrum has won one for Roanoke, or at least kept us in the game.
Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1994
by CNB