
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, May 14, 1995                   TAG: 9505150033
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: D-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

EDWARDS: HOTEL WOULD HAVE DIED UNDER ALLEN

Democratic state Senate candidate John Edwards made it plain Friday he's running against Gov. George Allen and Allen's conservative philosophy of government as much as he is against Republican incumbent Brandon Bell - whom he called the governor's "soul mate."

Edwards called a news conference outside the Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center to say: "Had Governor Allen's philosophy prevailed [from the beginning], the Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center would not have opened. It would not have happened."

His evidence: Allen's proposed budget this past winter would have cut all funding for the Center for Organizational and Technological Advancement, a training program that Edwards called "the linchpin of the conference center's success."

Allen, Edwards said, thinks government should fund only "the most essential services - that's all." But Edwards believes in a "strong public-private partnership, with the commonwealth playing a critical role as a major partner," as it eventually did with the hotel, he said.

Edwards praised the role that the Roanoke Valley's Democratic delegates - Richard Cranwell, Victor Thomas and Clifton "Chip" Woodrum - played in getting $550,000 of the center's $700,000 in funding restored.

"At a time when we needed a strong voice, Senator Bell was silent," Edwards charged.

In fact, however, Bell also introduced a budget amendment to restore Allen's proposed budget cuts for the hotel and other Roanoke Valley projects, although he would have done it by slashing funding to the Virginia Museum of Natural History in Martinsville and the Museum of American Frontier Culture in Staunton by 50 percent.

Bell also pointed out that the Senate version of the budget this year would have restored $600,000 of the hotel funds. The House version provided only $500,000. The final state budget split the difference between the two chambers.

Nevertheless, Edwards - urged by fellow Democrats to be more aggressive in his campaign - said "Senator Bell has been the soul mate of Governor Allen, who wanted to cut any funding for the project."

Bell dismissed Edwards' charge as a "desperate attempt to breathe life into his campaign. Even his own party members say he's dead in the water."

Bell said he also found it odd that Edwards was spending so much time attacking Allen. "Making wild allegations about Governor Allen isn't going to help anybody," Bell said.

Cyber candidates

You can add the name of outgoing Virginia Democratic Party Chairman (and likely 1996 U.S. Senate hopeful) Mark Warner to the list of politicos with e-mail addresses.

Warner, a Northern Virginia cellular phone tycoon who has branched out into other technology investments, is accepting e-mail from interested citizens at: mrmrwarneraol.com.

As one of his final acts as state party chairman, he also is setting up a "home page" on the World Wide Web for Virginia Democrats. For those of us who aren't computer types, that's like a high-tech bulletin board, with words and pictures, on the Internet.

No word yet on when the home page will be available.

Keywords:
POLITICS

by CNB