THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, July 11, 1995 TAG: 9507110301
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: POQUOSON LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines
Gov. George Allen took questions from citizens of this tucked-away Peninsula city Monday and then boarded a motor home for a tour that he said is intended to make state government more accessible.
``Each area has its own idea of what our problems are,'' Allen said following a 45-minute give-and-take session with about 200 people who came to a community meeting at Poquoson High School.
The governor dismissed suggestions that the trip is political. All 140 seats in the General Assembly are up for election in November, and Allen's Republican Party could gain a first-ever legislative majority by winning just three more seats in the Senate and House of Delegates.
``Whether there's any politics involved, I wouldn't say there isn't,'' said Vernon Brown, a local GOP activist who invited Allen.
Mayor Cornell Burcher, whose city is usually overshadowed by huge neighbors Hampton and Newport News, said it was the first time in anyone's memory that a governor has come to Poquoson.
Burcher presented Allen with the keys to the city, and local seafood dealer Billy Moore gave the governor a pound of Poquoson's chief product, crab meat.
Allen, meantime, led the crowd in singing ``America'' and then fielded a variety of questions and complaints that ranged from violence and drugs on school grounds to what one resident called ``environmental communism'' - federal regulations that limit how landowners can use wetlands.
Asked to reconsider a stand that has kept Virginia from getting about $1.7 million from the federal Goals 2000 education program, the governor said he was concerned that Congress might impose standards that would dictate how the money is spent.
Allen cited his 2-year-old administration's accomplishments in prison sentencing and welfare reform. He said the focus in the future should be education and law enforcement.
The governor also made another plea for returning profits from the Virginia lottery to localities, the subject of one of the questions on a survey handed out by Allen aides as the meeting ended.
The 10-question survey listed six possible choices as the governor's ``top priority'' - fight crime and drugs; continue welfare reform; improve academic quality in public schools; create jobs; reduce wasteful government spending; or improve roads and highways.
The survey also asked for opinions on such subjects as raising academic standards and increasing accountability in schools; reducing the payroll of the state government's central bureaucracy; truth in sentencing; requiring welfare recipients to work; and notifying parents when an unwed minor daughter is going to have an abortion.
The survey listed an Aug. 4 deadline for responses.
After the Poquoson meeting, Allen traveled to Gloucester, Urbanna and Tappahannock. The governor will be in Richmond today but will go back on the road Wednesday to the Eastern Shore. He'll be in the Lynchburg area Thursday and swing across Southside Virginia Friday. ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Gov. George Allen took to the road Monday, stopping in Poquoson to
answer questions from the public. Allen is shown talking with a
group of men waiting for him outside B.C. Smith's General Store.
After the Poquoson meeting, Allen traveled to Gloucester, Urbanna
and Tappahannock.
by CNB