Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 1, 1995 TAG: 9503020010
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
RICHMOND - The state will begin mailing refund checks soon to federal retirees in Virginia who have battled for nearly six years to get state income taxes illegally collected from them.
Gov. George Allen signed a bill Tuesday authorizing refunds totaling $306 million for 147,506 pensioners or their survivors.
The state Department of Taxation is to mail the first checks March 31. Those who are due the smallest refunds will get the full amount; the rest will be repaid over five years.
The refunds amount to only 76 percent of what retirees were illegally taxed, but those who took the offer say they've waited long enough.
- Associated Press
Teacher's African clothing prohibited
AMELIA - A black teacher has been told not to wear an African headdress to Amelia County High School because it violates school policy.
Some white students said that if Delmartri Womack can wear clothing resembling African tribal dress, they should be allowed to wear clothes with Confederate flag designs. School policy prohibits the wearing clothing displaying Confederate or Malcolm X emblems.
- Associated Press
Embattled gay sailor receives medal
ARLINGTON - The Navy awarded an achievement medal Tuesday to a lieutenant it is trying to expel because he's gay.
Lt. Tracy Thorne, 28, received the Navy Achievement Medal in a ceremony at Naval Air Systems Command, his last active-duty posting. Thorne, a reservist living in Richmond, has been waiting since July for Navy Secretary John Dalton to rule on the discharge recommendation.
Thorne said he didn't know how the Navy could have approved the citation given that it's been trying to oust him since he publicly disclosed his orientation in May 1992 on ABC's ``Nightline.''
The citation recognizes Thorne's ``professional achievement in the superior performance of his duties'' between January and October 1994, while he was director of the Help Desk at Naval Air Systems Command information and technology division.
- Associated Press
Environmentalists left off permit panels
RICHMOND - The Allen administration has quietly appointed three panels of business and government officials to study streamlining Virginia's environmental permit process.
Each of the panels consists of up to seven people: two from state government, one from local government, a lawyer, one or two consultants, and a business representative. The panelists were selected by Peter Schmidt, director of the state Department of Environmental Quality.
Absent from the panels are representatives of environmental groups, and environmentalists are upset about it.
The dispute is the latest wrinkle in Gov. George Allen's ``Blue Ribbon Strike Force,'' a government reform program that includes a campaign to assess the worth of 50 environmental laws.
- Associated Press
County supervisor sues her colleagues
ALEXANDRIA - A member of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors has sued her colleagues in federal court, claiming they held secret, illegal meetings.
Bobby McManus alleges that five other board members agreed behind closed doors to vote against her nominees for a county sewer board. The $250,000 suit filed Monday in U.S. District Court claims the other supervisors denied McManus' constituents their voice in government.
McManus also alleges that the supervisors violated Virginia's open-meeting laws by discussing voting strategies privately as they drove to dinner. Board Chairman Kathleen Seefeldt and other supervisors have denied the charge.
- Associated Press
Memo: NOTE: Shorter version ran in Metro edition.