Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 30, 1995 TAG: 9502010021
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Straddling a fence can be uncomfortable. Watching Bell try is definitely unpleasant.
As a local legislator with an ear to constituents' cries, Bell says he'd like to see funds restored for a Virginia Tech-sponsored management-training program at the Hotel Roanoke's conference center, as well as for Explore Park and various Roanoke museums and cultural organizations.
But as a loyal soldier of George Allen's Republican juggernaut, Bell also wants to stay in the governor's good graces and remain true to Allen's overall budget plan.
What's a state senator to do, especially with an election coming up?
Bell's answer, in apparent hopes of offending neither his constituents nor his party's leader, is to offend interests just outside his district.
He argues it's unfair for the state to pay 100 percent of the Martinsville and Staunton museums' operating costs because they're state agencies, while paying only about 20 percent of the budgets of Roanoke facilities such as Center in the Square and the Virginia Museum of Transportation, which are not state agencies.
He's right about that. We've argued the same. Public-private partnerships should be encouraged, not penalized. (We've also argued that a reasonable fate for the state natural history museum would be to move to Explore Park, for the benefit of both.)
The way to address funding inequities, however, is not simply to raid other regional museums' budgets. The proper course is one pushed for several years by Del. Victor Thomas and other members of the Roanoke Valley delegation:
Put state funding for all of Virginia's nonprofit museums and cultural programs, regardless of whether they're state-owned, on a rational basis. Let state money for each be determined by specific, established criteria - attendance, population served, etc.
Bell's proposal is less than serious. It might even end up hurting the Roanoke programs he purports to be protecting.
One of the reasons that Roanoke and other communities in Western Virginia have fared as well as they have in past budget fights is that the region's legislators, Republicans and Democrats, have tended to stick together on matters of regional interest.
The late House Speaker A. L. Philpott of Henry County, who long preached legislative solidarity for regional survival, is doubtless scowling from his grave. And, notwithstanding Bell's public rhetoric and private assurances, local organizations threatened by the governor's budget proposals probably see in Bell something less than a champion.
He should have learned a lesson from his predecessor, Democrat Granger Macfarlane of Roanoke. Macfarlane developed an unfortunate habit of throwing monkey wrenches into regional pursuits when he served in the state Senate. For instance, he once tried a gambit similar to Bell's - introducing a budget amendment that would have transferred money intended for Roanoke's Explore Park to other programs, including ones he deemed more worthy in Eastern Virginia.
Attempted end-runs around other legislators, as well as Bell-like efforts to remain the governor's best bud, helped earn Macfarlane a Senate colleague's epithet: ``world-class klutz.'' Ding-dong, Bell. Wake up before the label gets permanently attached to Roanoke's seat in the Senate. This is a time to be serious.
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GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1995
by CNB