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

DATE: THURSDAY, April 4, 1991                   TAG: 9104040528
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-12   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

IN A DEMOCRACY, EXPLORE WOULD BE MERE MEMORY

I COULDN'T help but laugh after reading your March 22 news article, "Explore crowd tiny, supportive." Apparently, Explore supporters have been spending too much time wandering through the cold, snowy woods with Bern Ewert. Those visions aren't real. They were induced by the cold.

I hardly think eight people attending an Explore meeting represents valleywide acceptance of the project. I believe the lack of attendance has less to do with support for Explore than it does reconciliation to the inevitable. Not unlike terminal cancer.

Virginians didn't support the project then and they don't now. If a referendum were held today (as it would be in a democracy), the Explore Project would be reduced to nothing more than an ugly memory.

The Explore people know this as well as do Congressman Jim Olin and Del. Richard Cranwell. After all the protest, the very existence of the project illustrates the glaring lack of representation the average citizen receives in the Old Dominion.

Obviously, the good-old-boy, buddy system of politics is alive and well in Roanoke. It works very well for the wealthy few who will benefit the most. These same people then scratch their heads and wonder why people are leaving the Roanoke Valley. BURMAN SNIDER JR. ROANOKE

by CNB