ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, April 25, 1997 TAG: 9704250037
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: PULASKI
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER THE ROANOKE TIMES
Trumbo, R-Fincastle, joined state Sen. Madison Marye, D-Shawsville, and Del. Tommy Baker, R-Pulaski County, at a luncheon meeting Wednesday of the Pulaski County Chamber of Commerce. All three men represent portions of Pulaski County in the General Assembly.
Trumbo spoke on his bill, recently signed by Gov. George Allen, allowing different counties and cities to form authorities and share revenue to build the kind of large industrial parks that can lure new business to the region.
Regional economic development officials say the law could help clear the way for a major new industrial park at the New River Valley Airport in Dublin.
Southwest Virginia does not have the financial resources to compete with Northern Virginia and Tidewater, he said, and has been losing population so more General Assembly representation keeps shifting to urban areas of the state. He suggested that the potential of shared industrial parks can help create jobs in Southwest Virginia so young people can stay here.
Baker, who handled the bill on the House side, said he was concerned about this year's legislation involving major league baseball in Virginia. What he opposed about the legislation was its earmarking of a certain amount of income tax revenue for the project.
"For the first time," Baker said, "we have started down the road of dedicating income tax to a particular program. That's not the only one. We did the same thing down in Norfolk with a hockey rink. And it gets easier to do, once you've done it once or twice."
Marye seemed most proud of a couple of his bills that did not get passed. One would have added a tax of 2.5 cents per year on a pack of cigarettes for four years, and the other would have tacked a nickel per gallon onto the gas tax.
"I knew where they were going, but I put 'em in anyway," he said of the bills.
Virginia has the nation's lowest tobacco tax, he said, and adding 10 cents over four years seemed "a very modest thing to do," he said. But the tobacco lobby argued that this would cost jobs.
After the session, he said, a pack of cigarettes went up by a nickel and "I haven't heard that anybody got laid off yet."
LENGTH: Short : 49 linesby CNB