Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 30, 1994 TAG: 9406300139
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
NORFOLK - Gov. George Allen took a walking tour Wednesday of one of the city's most blighted, crime-ridden neighborhoods as his Commission on Citizen Empowerment opened a series of public meetings on welfare reform.
Allen, Secretary of Health and Human Resources Kay Coles James and other officials dodged puddles from a recent rain as they went through Diggs Town. The low-income housing project has been undergoing modernization intended to improve the lives of the community's approximately 4,000 residents.
``We need something to keep our spirits up instead of feeling that we can't go anywhere,'' Hattie Anderson, a Diggs Town resident for 22 years, told Allen and James as they sat in her renovated town house.
Despite the recent improvements to her home, Anderson said she wouldn't feel safe walking at night in the neighborhood. She said the area needs more playgrounds and other facilities for children.
``I think I would like to live somewhere else,'' she said.
The Diggs Town project is a state-run demonstration being funded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Most residents of the 1950s-era neighborhood are on welfare, and many households are headed by single mothers.
- Associated Press
Portsmouth layoffs include executives
PORTSMOUTH - City Manager V. Wayne Orton has announced the layoffs of 35 city employees, including some senior executives.
The layoffs announced Tuesday had been expected but still stunned some workers.
``I worked for the city for 27 years. I'm still in shock,'' said Bryant K. Rowley Jr., 49, assistant director for the Traffic Engineering Department. ``I have already put my house up for sale.''
The decision was based on an efficiency study performed by a consultant.
The layoffs included top executives such as Charles Johnson, director of human resources, and Kenneth R. Kee, director of manpower and quality development. Also targeted were assistant department heads, middle managers, supervisors, engineers and paraprofessionals.
The pink slips went to all age groups and followed almost exactly the racial breakdown among the city's 1,851 workers.
- Associated Press
Man sentenced to 70 years for killing
PETERSBURG - A judge reluctantly agreed Wednesday to a 70-year prison sentence for a man who pleaded no contest to the first-degree murder and robbery of a Virginia State University student.
``It's not the agreement this court prefers,'' Petersburg Circuit Judge Oliver A. Pollard said in sentencing Wilsean A. Wright, 20, for the slaying of Sonnet L. Morrison, 23.
Morrison was shot twice in the head in what police described as an execution-style killing. His roommate, Delmar J. DePriest, 22, was shot three times in the head in the same Feb. 25, 1993, incident.
The charges against Wright carried a maximum possible sentence of two life terms plus three years in prison. He will be eligible for parole in about 12 years.
Prosecutors earlier this month decided not to seek a capital murder conviction and death penalty.
- Associated Press
by CNB