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

DATE: Sunday, September 18, 1994             TAG: 9409160244
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER       PAGE: 06   EDITION: FINAL 
TYPE: Letter 
                                             LENGTH: Short :   44 lines

PEOPLE FIRST

Last Sunday Kerry Sipe wrote an editorial for The Clipper mocking my support of the Chesapeake Farm Bureau's objections to a $49,500 study of the canebrake rattlesnake being conducted at Northwest River Park by the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. In an attempt to be cute, Mr. Sipe strives to portray those objecting to this study as individuals desiring to rid our parks of ``poison oak, toadstools, and other icky things.'' If Mr. Sipe had attended the Chesapeake Farm Bureau meetings on this subject or even had the courtesy to contact me, he would have known this portrayal was inaccurate and perhaps understood our concerns. I thought your readers would be interested in knowing the points upon which Mr. Sipe and I disagree. They are as follows:

I do not believe that in an economic environment where our children are attending school in portable classrooms and our teachers, firemen and policemen are often underpaid that the state should be spending $300 per rattlesnake to install radio transmitters to monitor their social relationships.

I think it is improper, if not reckless, for the state to support a study that takes poisonous rattlesnakes from a laboratory at Old Dominion University and places them in a park where children play.

I do not believe any study conducted by the Commonwealth of Virginia should allow any of its participants to go on the land of private property owners and damage that land without their permission.

I do not believe a farmer or other resident of our city who does kill or catch a rattlesnake on his property should be subjected to a potential jail sentence as is currently the law in Virginia.

Hopefully, one day Mr. Sipe will agree with the Chesapeake Farm Bureau and me that before we can meet the special needs of our rattlesnakes, we must first meet more of the needs of our people.

Del. J. Randy Forbes

Johnstown Road by CNB