THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, October 26, 1995 TAG: 9510260440
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: ELECTION '95
THE CITIZENS' AGENDA
The Virginian-Pilot has asked people around the state what their major
concerns are leading up to the Nov. 7 election.
SOURCE: BY MARGARET EDDS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHANTILLY, VA. LENGTH: Long : 128 lines
With his beefy jaw and buzz crew-cut, John Tilghman ``Til'' Hazel Jr. could play the role of a Marine drill sergeant in ``The Great Santini,'' and at this moment he is sounding the part as well.
``We all know we're better than any other state,'' he says sweetly, before barking out the postscript. ``Nonsense!''
Til Hazel, Republican bankroller, Northern Virginia mega-developer, scourge of no-growth crusaders and friend of corporate bigwigs, is on a mission. The man who the Washington Post in 1991 said has done more to shape the Washington area than anyone since its original designer, Pierre L'Enfant, is leaving his mark on Virginia as well.
Blunt and unequivocal, Hazel is touring the state with the message that he is delivering this noontime to a group of Dulles Airport-area businessmen. In the past five years, says Hazel - who is flanked by an array of charts and graphs - there has been an ``absolutely astounding and appalling decline in support for higher education'' in Virginia.
In a year when partisan control of the General Assembly is at stake and voters are choosing between the tax-cutting message of Republicans and the services-saving view of Democrats, Hazel and a few dozen of the state's business leaders are calling - without flinching - for Virginia to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more on its colleges and universities.
The group, which includes both Republicans and Democrats, says its message is nonpartisan. But, with GOP Gov. George F. Allen leading the push for government retrenchment, the cry for more spending is seen by many as a challenge to Allen's judgment.
``This has been the most damaging part of the entire Allen governorship: having your agenda challenged and tweaked by a prominent Republican whom others listen to in the most populous part of the state,'' said Robert Holsworth, professor of political science at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Hazel's group - known as the Virginia Business Higher Education Council - ``ironically has succeeded in dividing the Republicans, although that has not been their intention,'' Holsworth added.
Hazel underscored that sense at last week's Dulles luncheon. While he carefully avoided criticizing Allen, he also challenged two of the governor's favorite ideas, building prisons and capping college tuitions. ``Schemes to cap tuition . . . I'm very suspicious of them,'' he said. And he noted that investment in education produces ``a positive response'' while keeping someone in jail is a ``totally negative response.''
Allen has answered by blaming his predecessor, Democratic Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, for the decline in higher education spending. Wilder sliced millions from the budget to avoid raising taxes during the recession of the early '90s. Allen's contribution last winter was to propose smaller increases for higher education than had been anticipated, a move that was rejected by the Assembly.
In a speech to the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce last month, Allen hinted that he is hearing the message of Hazel's council.
He took credit for forcing colleges to restructure their ``bloated administrative staffs and non-essential activities. . . . We cannot keep throwing more money at failed policies that are not working,'' he said.
But Allen added that colleges may be among the beneficiaries of a $700 million surplus in the next biennium. ``Everyone knows there will be a significant increase in our investment in education,'' he said.
Meanwhile, there are vastly different assessments of the impact Hazel and his group are having.
``I can't see where it has been significant,'' said Ken Stroupe, Allen's spokesman. ``Most folks don't know who Mr. Hazel is.''
Norfolk businessman Joshua P. Darden Jr., a former University of Virginia rector and member of the business group, disagreed. While business leaders have sometimes banded to push a gubernatorial initiative, he can remember no other time that such a group has formed to oppose a governor's policy, said Darden, a Democrat.
``It's had a very large impact on the (election) agenda,'' he said.
Until recently, Hazel, 64, was known to most Virginians, if at all, only as a major donor to statewide Republican campaigns. After supporting a fellow Northern Virginian, Earle Williams, for the GOP gubernatorial nomination in 1993, Hazel gave Allen $3,500 in the general election.
Some Republicans miffed at Hazel's education initiative privately suggest that it stems from Allen's defeat of Williams. ``It's just a personality thing between Til and the governor. . . . The governor's scratching his head over it,'' said one prominent Republican.
Darden discounted that notion. ``It's just not true,'' he said. ``I've never heard him say any word of animosity about George Allen, even in private.''
In an interview, Hazel - a surgeon's son who grew up in Arlington, was educated at Harvard, and went on to amass a fortune estimated in published reports at $100 million - insisted that his motivation is structural, not personal.
``I am not in the business of supporting any particular political leader,'' he said. ``I am in the business in this role of doing what I need to do for higher education. You can't move vigorously ahead if you're worried about the impact on any one individual.''
In speeches and news conferences, Hazel uses words such as ``humiliating'' and ``horrifying'' to describe his view of what has happened to funding for the state's colleges. While he acknowledges some public perception that the educational bureaucracy has grown ``fat, dumb, and happy,'' he appears minimally concerned about restructuring.
``Any institution that spends $1.5 billion a year has got a place for efficiency,'' he says.
For Hazel, the most telling figure is one showing that Virginia has slipped to 42nd among the states in per-pupil spending on higher education. (A report published last week lowered the ranking to 43rd.) North Carolina ranks seventh nationally. Meanwhile, tuitions at state colleges have risen to second-highest in the nation.
The solution of the Virginia Business Higher Education Council, whose members include Frank Batten of Landmark Communications, is to call for $440 million in additional higher education spending over the next two years.
That should bring Virginia back up to average in spending among Southern states. Typically plain-spoken, Hazel added, ``that's the lowest level we think is presentable without being an insult.''
Last week, Hazel's group announced that 165 of 248 candidates for the General Assembly - or about 68 percent - support the council's philosophical goals. And with a businessman's acumen for cinching a deal, he promised that the council would make sure the public knows of that commitment, both during the election and beyond.
``We have a new and unique opportunity to improve higher education in Virginia,'' Hazel said. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
by CNB