Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 12, 1994 TAG: 9410120085
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CATHRYN McCUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
They protested the end of yearly vehicle state inspections.
They decried the elimination of state funding for the art, science and transportation museums in Roanoke.
They opposed the privatization of social services.
They pleaded for the continuation of the Virginia Council on Child Day Care.
But by far, the most impassioned, creative speeches were made on behalf of the Virginia Museum of Natural History.
Dozens of people came by bus and car from Martinsville to attend the hearing before the Commission on Government Reform, which wants to eliminate $2 million a year in state funding for the museum.
They made up fables, cited statistics and handed over 4,000 signatures on a petition to save the museum, which they say will die without state support.
George Lester, a Martinsville businessman, promised to donate 25 acres in Henry County for the museum, which wants to expand - but only if the strike force strikes its recommendation.
Martinsville Mayor George Adams kept his comments brief. He simply asked for a show of hands from museum supporters. And hands went up throughout the packed 350-seat auditorium at Virginia Western Community College.
"This is vital in my opinion to the entire commonwealth," said state Sen. Virgil Goode, D-Rocky Mount, who joined the defense of the museum. The "museum without walls" serves more than the 18,000 people a year who visit its headquarters in Martinsville.
There also are the 5,000 people who attended an Indian Heritage Festival. Another 10,000 who went to Culpeper to see dinosaur fossils. And 4,000 saw woolly mammoth fossils at Saltville.
"We are truly a state museum," Goode said.
Two and a half hours into the meeting, 17 people had spoken on behalf of the museum, and another 13 supporters were signed up .
"I'm hearing the same thing over and over," commission Chairman Otis Brown said. With 142 people wanting to talk on any one of the hundreds of recommendations, Brown directed the museum supporters to meet separately with three commission members across the hall.
About 500 people showed up at the hearing, the first of four to be held around the state over the next couple of weeks.
They stood in the back, lined the wall, milled around the hallways. Many sat in the cafeteria where microphones piped in the proceedings.
John Eby, a muzzleloading hunter, opposed the recommendation to change the name of the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries to the "Department of Wildlife Resources."
Eby said the agency is funded by hunters and fishers, and feared that changing the name would allow "animal rights extremists to develop anti-hunting sentiment at the ballot box."
Jay Gilliam, representing the Izaac Walton League, urged the strike force to drop a recommendation for private property rights legislation, and add a recommendation to allow citizens the right to challenge state environmental permits in court.
Pamela Kestner-Chappelear, with the Council of Community Services, sat in the cafeteria taking notes on people's comments.
"There's no way you can go through all these recommendations," she said.
by CNB