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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 12, 1994                   TAG: 9401130026
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

LET VIRGINIA'S BIG SHOW BEGIN

RINGLING BROS. and Barnum & Bailey Circus usually performs at the Richmond Coliseum about this time each year and draws good crowds despite having to compete with a superior extravaganza down the street.

Fierce, snarling, old lions and fearless whip-snappers. High-wire acts of great daring. Flame-throwers, sword-swallowers, bullet-biters (don't try this at home, kids). And, of course, the clowns.

The circus is fun, too.

But the '94 General Assembly, which opens today at the state Capitol, promises to be a show of shows.

A new governor - the first Republican in 12 years - as ring master. A new administration, peopled by many who've never been under state government's Big Tent before, making its debut.

A House and Senate where breath-taking feats of partisanship may be spotlighted. Republicans, including several freshmen legislators in training, testing their unprecedented numerical strength. Democrats, holding on to majority status by the thinnest of threads, attempting balancing acts to keep their toehold on power - without the safety net of a governor from their own party.

Even from out here in the hinterlands, it'll be fun to watch. It would be nice, though, if the event were more than spectacle.

Before the grand promenade on March 12, the '94 session's scheduled adjournment, will the Richmond performers deal with any of the serious issues facing Virginia? Of these, enough are pending to scare up a circus elephants' stampede.

Gov.-elect Allen, for instance, declares that Virginia will be "open for business, again" after he takes office Saturday. This is a nod to those who felt outgoing Gov. Wilder let economic-development efforts languish to the point that Virginia has lost ground to competing states.

This is important not just to the suits at Chamber of Commerce meetings. At stake is the availability of decent jobs for many Virginians who can't find them now, including many now adding to cities' disproportionate burden of providing services for the poor. Thus is Allen's hope to reform welfare and revitalize cities intertwined with his promised commitment to economic development.

In turn, economic development is linked to reforms in public-school financing and the rescue of Virginia colleges and universities from a slide toward mediocrity. Without more reasonable and equitable investment in education, the state's young people won't make up the kind of work force that attracts new jobs.

The list of deferred issues is long.

Tough-on-crime rhetoric notwithstanding, the new governor and lawmakers need to do more to prevent crime, not just build more prisons and send the public the bill.

And while Allen has already appointed a blue-ribbon commission to help him reinvent state government, the state's archaic and clumsy system of local governments is more urgently in need of reinvention.

The measure of this year's three-ring circus at the capital won't be political ploys and entertaining pratfalls, but what Richmond can accomplish for the good of the commonwealth. Everything else is sideshow.

Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1994

by CNB