Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 23, 1994 TAG: 9402230276
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Your argument lists five reasons why the amendment proposed by Gov. Allen is bad for Virginia, but you didn't suggest any other method to get things done that may be good for the people of the state but not necessarily good for legislators themselves. For example: How do we ever bring about term limits (a popular notion with the people), if no initiative path around the legislature exists?
Consider a case that clearly illustrates why initiative and referendum would be useful in Virginia. The Roanoke Times & World-News recently carried a story on how a legislative committee squelched an attempt to put some sense back into scheduling public school's starting dates. Apparently, lobbyists for big theme parks carried the day with the committee, against the best interests of school districts hit by a lot of lost days due to snow and ice. Those special-interests only had to convince seven of the 13 committee members, if my memory is correct. Could those lobbyists have convinced a majority of the electorate of the state? I doubt it.
Mandating that school districts all over the state cannot open until big theme parks are willing makes no sense at all to most of us. Is this a case where legislators know best? I think not. A referendum on the matter would likely show that voters favor local school-district option. Most of us don't want Virginia to be ``another California,'' but we obviously need some mechanism for the will of the people to prevail.
WILLIAM A. BLACKWELL
BLACKSBURG
State shouldn't pay to get Disney
I CONSIDER the proposal to spend $137 million in state funds to aid the Disney theme park in Northern Virginia an unwise and improper use of public money (Jan. 21 news story by staff writer Dale Eisman, ``Allen wants Disney to get $137 million bond break'').
The consideration that the Disney park will generate more in state taxes isn't based on sound reasoning. Employees will indeed pay taxes, but they'll also require government services. The state will hardly profit from this expenditure.
In Virginia, we have the homes and memorials of many fine Americans. Many of these, such as Patrick Henry's last home, the Anne Spencer House and the Long Way Home, operate primarily as local labors of love with small amounts of government support.
We should cultivate our own garden of greatness, rather than pay Disney to come to Virginia to trivialize our civilization.
DAVID BERNARD
BLACKSBURG
Virginia should keep the faith
THE JAN. 20 editorial, ``Wimpiness on retirees' taxes,'' invective about ``lucky pensioners'' who might get a refund of their illegally withheld taxes by the state, was a good example of one-way thinking.
Simply put, the state's thumbing its nose at the highest court in the land that decided the taxes were illegally withheld. The state is crying poor and is trying to refuse payment. It would be in a real bind if it had to go back to around 1945 when this mess started. The retirees are asking for just a pittance of what they paid in. Perhaps it's not the U.S. Supreme Court's duty to force compliance with its decisions. It simply dropped this hot potato back into the state's lap. Oh, that beautiful game of politics, with its deviousness.
The editorial writer mentioned that if Gov. Allen had his way, any money found or saved by the 1994 General Assembly will be set aside to pay off the pensioners, rather than used for such public purposes as education, prisons, transportation or economic development. Why can't Virginia's government look ahead and save a few dollars for such emergencies, instead of spending the tax monies before it even receives them? It's easy to see the state is copying the fiscal policies of our Big Brother spendthrifts in the marble halls of Washington.
I'm sure if the editorial writer were denied his or her money, the scream would be heard in Alaska. If the writer could follow Gov. Allen for a week or so, some of the governor's sense of fair play might rub off. Fair play now, not when the retirees die. They're not juveniles with many years ahead of them; their time in this dimension of life is short. A good thing for Virginia would be to drop the motto on its seal, Sic Semper Tyrannus (thus ever to tyrants) and build up enough courage to change it to the Latin, Servabo Fidem (I will keep faith).
ROGER MITCHELL
BLUE RIDGE
North hasn't got hang of it yet
POOR Ollie North. Hasn't he been around long enough to know how to win in politics? This is the '90s. The biggest mistake he ever made wasn't the arms cover-up but hanging around with the religious right (Christians, in other words).
It's OK to be seen on television carrying a Bible and going to some dead church uptown - just so you don't f+ireallyo believe the Bible or take it seriously. Like Clinton does. You see, Ollie, if the liberal media perceived that you really believe the Bible, they know that you're going to be against killing innocent babies and catering to the Sodomites. In morally bankrupt America today, that's political suicide.
And don't forget, Ollie, you've got to make promises that you can't possibly keep. Just promise jobs, free health care and, in general, life on easy street. You don't really have to deliver. They never do, you know. Haven't the American people already proved that they're ready to sell this great nation to the devil for a bowl of soup or a false promise?
LONNIE W. MALCOMB
HILLSVILLE
by CNB