
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, March 9, 1990                   TAG: 9003091905
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: M. POOLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                 LENGTH: Medium

GAME WARDENS LOSE HAZARDOUS-DUTY BID

Del. Victor Thomas, D-Roanoke, went down fighting Thursday in his quest to provide state game wardens with the same hazardous-duty retirement benefits available to state troopers and sheriff's deputies.

"They're good people; they work hard," Thomas said of the state's 183 game wardens.

But House Majority Leader Thomas Moss, D-Norfolk, said statistics showed that working as a game warden was far less hazardous than working as a trooper or deputy.

Moss added that giving enhanced retirement benefits to game wardens would make it impossible for the General Assembly to say "no" to other groups such as prison guards and alcohol enforcement officers.

"It's wrong and unfair because we're turning others down," Moss said.

The Senate has approved hazardous-duty retirement benefits for game wardens. The House did the same, but required that the 1991 General Assembly also approve before it takes effect.

Thursday, Thomas sought to remove the re-enactment clause, which the Senate had rejected. But the House voted 66-31 to stick with the clause.

Earlier, Thomas recived the annual "Et Tu, Brute?" award given in jest to the delegate who engages in the most dubious example of "skullduggery, deviousness and outright thievery."

Del. Vince Callahan, R-McLean, who presented the award, congratulated Thomas on circumventing the Appropriations Committee in his efforts to "allow game wardens to retire at age 35, or after their second snake bite - whichever comes first."

Thomas was presented with a sword - to stab his colleagues in the back - and a game warden's hat.

In other General Assembly action Thursday:

Proponents of "parental notification" legislation lost their final attempt to enact the abortion measure this year.

Speaker A.L. Philpott, D-Bassett, ruled that a parental notification amendment was not germane to an unrelated child abuse bill.

The House has approved a bill requiring unmarried girls under 18 to notify their parents before seeking an abortion. The bill later died in a Senate committee.

The Senate agreed 35-13 to accept House amendments to a bill that bars large oil companies from opening new service stations for a year and allows service stations to sell more than one brand of gasoline.

Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY

by CNB