THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, December 23, 1994 TAG: 9412230501
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Short : 46 lines
Gov. George Allen is floating this idea for raising a quick hundred grand: Sell the state yacht.
But not everybody agrees with the assertion by the penny-pinching Republican chief executive that the state does not need the Chesapeake, a vessel whose yearly maintenance costs run to about $53,000.
``It's a bad idea,'' said Sen. Edward M. Holland, D-Arlington. His father, Edwin T. Holland, gave the 57-foot craft to the state 20 years ago.
Allen's proposed budget amendments, presented Monday to the General Assembly money committees, include the sale of the yacht. The governor believes the boat will fetch about $100,000 to help balance the state budget.
But Holland and several other lawmakers say Allen is being shortsighted.
The Chesapeake has lured business and jobs to Virginia by showing the state's ports, rivers and bays to the captains of industry. Senate Majority Leader Hunter B. Andrews, D-Hampton, said Allen's plan will reduce Virginia to ``taking people out in a rowboat.''
But Allen said the yacht is used little. It was deployed 15 times in the 1993 fiscal year, during the administration of Democratic Gov. L. Douglas Wilder.
Hugh Keough, who was director of the state Department of Economic Development for five years under Wilder and Gov. Gerald L. Baliles, said the boat ``was used sparingly at best.''
Allen said he is following the recommendation of the Governor's Commission on Government Reform.
In Accomack County on the state's Eastern Shore, where the Chesapeake is docked, County Administrator Arthur Fisher is bothered by the plan.
``I don't know about state priorities, but it's not welcome news to us,'' he said.
Fisher said the vessel is used to ferry medical and social service personnel and supplies to residents of Tangier Island, in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay, during bad weather when small boats and planes cannot reach the island. by CNB