
                         THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
                 Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 8, 1994                    TAG: 9406080017 
SECTION: FRONT                     PAGE: A14    EDITION: FINAL  
SOURCE: Medium 
DATELINE: 940608                                 LENGTH:

PEOPLE ARE POLICY: ALLEN;S CLEAN SWEEP

{LEAD} Gov. George Allen was every bit within his rights to replace 14 state agency heads last Friday. As anyone who has even a passing acquaintance with bureaucracy knows, people are policy. The governor will now be able to put his imprint on the state government. Unfortunately, he also gave his critics ammunition when he carried out the sweep in a manner that seemed to indicate he had something to hide or be ashamed of.

The best-known administrator broomed was Lottery Director Kenneth Thorson, who has held the post since the administration of Gov. Gerald Baliles. Also fired were Ralph Cantrell of the Virginia Employment Commission, Richard N. Burton of the Department of Environmental Quality and Robert B. Stroube of the state Department of Health.

{REST} The governor, it should be noted, has been saying since his election that he planned a major overhaul of state government administration, so the mass sweep on Friday really should not have come as much of a surprise. All the people replaced held political appointments, even though some of the jobs, such as state library director, don't seem terribly political to most people.

But others can have tremendous political impact. The Department of Environmental Quality, to take just one example. Environmental policy often seems to be driven more by politics than by science. It is imperative that the governor have someone in that post who can see to it that dubious environmental claims don't run off the jobs and economic growth Virginia needs.

In making the changes, however, perhaps the governor could have personally called the agency heads and told them the news instead of leaving the situation to his staff. And the fact that it was all done on a Friday afternoon on a heavy news weekend created the impression he was doing something underhanded.

That is false. The governor was elected on a pledge of giving Virginians value for their tax dollars, and he needs his own team to do that. by CNB