THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 14, 1995 TAG: 9507140435
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: STAFF REPORT
DATELINE: RALEIGH LENGTH: Short : 40 lines
Partisan wrangling appears to have played a part in recent membership changes on the Joint Legislative Commission on Seafood and Aquaculture.
Rep. William T. Culpepper III, a Chowan County Democrat, was replaced on the study commission recently by Rep. Zeno L. Edwards, a Beaufort County Republican, at the request of the Republican House leadership.
Culpepper, a lawyer, was reassigned to two other study commissions - the North Carolina Courts Commission and the General Statutes Commission.
He said Wednesday that he was asked to make the change by assistants to House Speaker Harold J. Brubaker, a Randolph County Republican.
``I did not ask to get off the seafood and aquaculture study commission,'' Culpepper said from Raleigh.
``In fact, I was looking forward to it because it impacts my district mightily.''
Edwards, a retired dentist, said earlier this week that Brubaker made the change after agriculture Commissioner Jim Graham named Rep. E. David Redwine, a Brunswick County Democrat and former co-chairman of the study commission, as one of his representatives to the panel.
Brubaker ``wanted another Republican on the commission,'' Edwards said.
The Joint Legislative Commission on Seafood and Aquaculture is a panel of House and Senate members and members of the state's fishing and aquaculture industries that studies fishing and aquaculture-related issues between General Assembly sessions.
The study commission members are expected to play a key role in coastal fisheries issues in 1996 when committees studying the state's oyster industry and the state's fisheries management programs are scheduled to report their findings. by CNB