THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 25, 1995 TAG: 9506230171
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Bill Reed
LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines
Our esteemed Guv should be a stand-up guy.
Tall, square-jawed, ex U.Va. jock, he's the son of the late Redskin coach by the same name and is a rock-ribbed conservative, advocate of family values and hard work and apple pie.
But, when it comes to remembering a community of 400,000 people who voted nearly two-to-one to put him in office two years ago, the Guv seems to have developed acute amnesia as the Lake Gaston saga continues to unfold.
Instead of trying to smooth out the differences between conflicting areas of the state, he is tap-dancing around the issues like his pants are on fire.
For instance, on Wednesday, he said it would be ``nearly miraculous'' for a proposed Lake Gaston settlement to pass the General Assembly by June 30. A few hours later, however, he was slightly more optimistic, telling state lawmakers to prepare to attend a special assembly session next week.
The session would be called to approve the settlement, which would be another in a series of laborious steps toward securing a water supply for Virginia Beach.
But, as the Guv says, any agreement on the issue may be in doubt and a special session of the assembly may be just as iffy.
State Sen. Stanley C. Walker, D-Norfolk, summed it up this way: ``A lot of people don't want a session of any kind right now because it's election time. In Hampton Roads, the issue doesn't bother us so much. But in other parts of the state I know it can be a very troubling issue for them.''
Translation: Crucial elections are coming up in November and all the seats in the General Assembly are up for grabs. What is more, the Guv doesn't want to offend any particular section of the state so as to diminish the chances of more Republicans getting voted into office.
Not only that, pols in areas like Danville and Southside where resistance is strong to the Lake Gaston pipeline, can't suddenly waffle on the issue lest they tick off constituents and get shellacked by - heaven forbid - Democrats!
What the Guv would dearly love to have - and has been campaigning vigorously for since the Democratic majority in the assembly deep-sixed his budget - is a Republican majority.
That would mean he'd have legislative support to build a kazillion more prisons in the state and force all welfare mommas to get off their butts and into productive jobs, chop government down to town hall size and thereby reduce the number of paper clips and manila folders in use in state and local offices.
Now all those goals aren't bad, but a Guv - once elected - is the Guv of all the people in the state, not just Republicans. He should stand ready to use the power of his office to ease the settlements of sticky problems such as the Lake Gaston water source standoff.
Why? Because it would benefit over a half-million people in South Hampton Roads by providing them with a plentiful and reliable source of water.
And, it would help him in the long run. Most of those half-a-million people who voted for the Guv nearly two years ago would gladly vote to put more Republicans in the General Assembly, if he showed more than a half-hearted interest in problems that plague them.
Ah, but statesmanship has rarely stood in the way of political gain in this country, right? Getting elected, or seeing to it that one's cronies are elected, always seems to take precedence over doing the right thing.
But opportunism isn't the sole preserve of Republicans, as we all know. The Guv's Democratic predecessors had ample opportunity to ease the water crisis in South Hampton Roads, but looked the other way, ignored it or refused to do anything about it to pursue other political gains.
That's show biz. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Gov. George Allen
Half-hearted statesman
KEYWORDS: LAKE GASTON PIPELINE by CNB