Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, December 15, 1993 TAG: 9312150188
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG SCHNEIDER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
The executive directors of the Virginia Port Authority, the State Council on Higher Education, the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries and state museums all got reprieves Tuesday.
Allen's staff said those top bureaucrats should not have been asked to quit because they answer to boards and not to the governor. The new administration blamed the error on names submitted by Gov. Douglas Wilder.
"It really appears that after 12 years the party in power has lost all accountability of just how large state government has grown," said Allen spokesman Ken Stroupe.
Wilder had included those executive directors on a list of state employees who can be fired by the governor. Allen drew more than half of his targeted bureaucrats from Wilder's list.
Glenn Davidson, Wilder's chief of staff, conceded Tuesday that there may have been mistakes in the Wilder list. But that doesn't excuse Allen's failure to review every name before sending out termination letters, he said.
"It's unfortunate that they proceeded without finding out what each individual's role in state government is," Davidson said.
The Wilder-Allen head-butting wrecks what had been a cordial transfer of power from the Democrat to the Republican.
In a news release, Allen said Wilder's criticism Monday of his action was "misinformation that has contributed to groundless fears among state employees and compounded the inevitable difficulty of the situation."
There has been near-panic among some state employees, with rumors flying about who got cut and who is in the shadow of the blade.
Allen and his staff show "a combination of the ruthlessness of Stalin and the competence of the Clinton transition team," said Richard S. "Major" Reynolds III, a former state delegate and now a commissioner of the Virginia Port Authority.
Four port authority employees - including the executive secretary to the director and the general counsel - remain on the resignation list. Stroupe said those positions are among those being given a closer look.
Also among them are the state's eight deputy chief medical examiners, who were asked to resign as potential shapers of state policy even though their main duties are to perform autopsies.
Dr. Faruk Presswalla, acting chief medical examiner, called Allen's staff and said he and his deputies refused to resign. State Sen. Kenneth Stolle, R-Virginia Beach, is working with Allen's transition team and handled Presswalla's complaint.
"I told him it was not the intention of the Allen administration to affect non-policy-makers like this and that in my opinion [the medical examiners] did not fall into the policy category," Stolle said.
Stolle said no official action has been taken on the matter.
"Candidly, there are many positions on that . . . list that should not be there and we're trying to determine which ones those are."
Stolle said the new administration hopes to have the confusion cleared up by the General Assembly session that begins Jan. 12.
by CNB