Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 7, 1992 TAG: 9203090176
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG SCHNEIDER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
The action resolved one of the longest-running and most contentious issues of the two-month assembly session. Argued, defeated and mutated at various times in both chambers, the final package requires holding a popular vote this November on whether to borrow money for dozens of road projects all around the state.
Included is money for the U.S. 460 bypass in Montgomery County and the proposed "smart road" between Roanoke and Blacksburg.
To pay the 20-year debt, voters will be asked to approve a 2-cent increase - to 19.5 cents per gallon - in the state gasoline tax. In another referendum the same day, voters also will consider borrowing about $600 million for higher education, mental health and state parks building projects.
The second bond package was sponsored by Gov. Douglas Wilder and had cleared the assembly earlier this month.
Wilder has refused to say whether he will approve the transportation bonds, but has been reluctant to accept any package attached to a tax. Legislators have reminded him, however, that traffic-choked, vote-rich Northern Virginia is unlikely to support the other bond package without something for transportation.
Friday was the second time this week the Senate approved highway bonds. The House of Delegates cut the original Senate package by about $100 million, forcing a vote on the revised bill.
Senators who anticipated Friday's outcome nonetheless went through the motions of arguing about it.
"We're turning the General Assembly into a highway department. We're sitting here in a political atmosphere and determining where the roads are going to go," said Majority Leader Hunter Andrews of Hampton.
Andrews said if his colleagues were serious about solving transportation problems, they would quit parceling out pork barrel road projects and simply approve a 5-cent hike in the gas tax to really get things done.
"There are so many of my good friends in here who took pledges [not to raise taxes] and are hiding behind the referendum for two cents," Andrews said. What's more, the "swapping and dealing and moving around" of road projects, he said, "is not the Virginia that any of us want."
"I'm sorry democracy is inherently a messy sort of situation," replied Sen. Robert Calhoun, R-Alexandria. He pointed out that there were plenty of deals cut when Andrews pushed the governor's higher education bond package, "but those were done outside of this room."
YEA OR NAY\ ON ROAD BONDS\ IN FAVOR: Sens. Virgil Goode, D-Rocky Mount; Madison Marye, D-Shawsville; Jackson Reasor, D-Bluefield; Elliot Schewel, D-Lynchburg; Malfourd Trumbo, R-Fincastle; William Wampler, R-Bristol.\ OPPOSED: Sens. Brandon Bell, R-Roanoke; Frank Nolen, D-New Hope.
by CNB