THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 14, 1996 TAG: 9601120200
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
LENGTH: Long : 226 lines
Following are Virginia Beach legislators' key issues for the 1996 session, which began Wednesday, and some of the bills they plan to introduce. All of these bills will have to pass through a number of legislative hurdles before becoming law.
Staff writer Karen Weintraub compiled this list from interviews. Only those legislators whose entire districts lie in Virginia Beach are included.
[Photo]
Sen. Edward L. Schrock
(R-7th District)
SCHOOL-CITY FINANCES CONSOLIDATION: Schrock, the only newcomer in the delegation, said he plans to be the Senate sponsor of the bill requiring the city and the school district to combine their financial service departments.
g1vbcv14b Schrock He expects to co-patron a number of other bills, but said he will have a low profile at the beginning, as he learns the ropes. Schrock, a career military public information officer, resigned his job as a stock broker in late 1994, shortly before announcing his intention to run for the State Senate. He said he plans to remain a full-time legislator for a while, although he's had ``a couple of nice job offers.''
Sen. Kenneth W. Stolle
Photo
(R-8th District)
JUVENILE JUSTICE REFORM: Stolle will carry several bills, including one that would open up juvenile court proceedings to the public. Now, most juvenile offenders are not identified by law enforcement officials, and juvenile cases are closed to the public. PENALTIES FOR AIDING CRIMINALS: Stolle plans to submit a bill that would increase penalties for people found guilty of being accessories after the fact of a crime, for instance, driving a getaway car.
WOMEN'S HEALTH ISSUES: According to his legislative assistant Susan B. Goldsticker, Stolle also hopes to require health insurance companies to provide coverage for Pap smears and mammograms.
Del. Frank W. Wagner [Photo]
(R-21st District)
STATE FUNDS FOR SCHOOLS: Wagner would like to change the way the formula is tabulated to determine which school districts are financially stressed and therefore more in need of state funds. He said the current formula favors rural districts because it does not include a community's tax rate as part of the equation.
His change would mean significantly more money for urban and suburban districts, like Virginia Beach, Wagner said. ``This, for the first time, starts to tilt the tables back to our area,'' he said. ``I'll maintain that our poor are just as poor as their poor.''
PARENTAL DRUG TESTING: Wagner said he plans to reintroduce legislation that failed last year that would allow parents to have their junior and senior high school-aged children tested for drug use.
TEEN DRIVERS' LICENSES: He also plans to support a measure that would deny a driver's license to teenagers who are not working hard in school. ``Are you making a good-faith effort to live up to your end of the education contract? And if you're not we're not going to allow you to get your driver's license,'' Wagner said.
PORT EXPANSION: He said he hopes to initiate a study for the long-term expansion of Hampton Roads port, with ``an eye'' toward using half of Craney Island in Portsmouth for that expansion.
Del. Glenn R. Croshaw [Photo]
(D-81st District)
As a member of the House Appropriations Committee and head of the Public Safety subcommittee, Croshaw said he will be too busy this session to offer as many bills as usual.
Most of what he plans to offer are housekeeping measures, Croshaw said Thursday.
CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM: He intends to resubmit a bill that has failed in two previous General Assembly sessions that would place a limit on contributions to candidates for the General Assembly and statewide offices. Individuals would be limited to $1,000 contributions and Political Action Committees could not give more than $2,500 to one candidate, he said.
Del. Harry R. ``Bob'' Purkey
[photo]
(R-82nd District)
SALE OF STATE LAND: Purkey said he hopes to change the state's formula for allocating money generated by the sale of unneeded state-owned land. Now, half the money generated by those sales must go to parks, and the other half to the general fund.
Purkey would like to split that money four ways, instead of two, sending equal chunks to higher education and law enforcement or prisons, as well as parks and the general fund.
If that measure fails to win support, Purkey said he would try a more modest shift, by allowing the parks money to be spent also on museums. Now, most of the money from such sales goes to the rural parts of the state, which have the most park land, he said. Hampton Roads would receive more funding if the money could be spent on museums.
In past years, Purkey said, the allocation of such funds wasn't so important because the state wasn't selling off much land, maybe $3 million to $4 million per year. But now, with the governor's commitment to sell unneeded property, those funds could top $100 million this year, he said.
HOSPITAL EMPLOYEES: Purkey said he wants to require hospitals to do background checks on all employees involved in the selling or storing of medications, to prevent misuse of those drugs.
MEDICAID COSTS: Purkey hopes to help reduce Medicaid costs by shepherding legislation that will privatize the auditing of Medicaid's bills and expenses. He also would like to speed up the process of reimbursing doctors and hospitals who serve Medicaid patients, so they don't have to wait up to six months for payment.
WILDLIFE TRAPPING: He hopes to ban the commercial trapping of animals within a one-mile radius of First Landing State Park and the Virginia Marine Science Museum, so the efforts of those state-supported entities aren't undermined by trappers. Purkey said he is particularly concerned about otters that used to thrive near the state park, formerly called Seashore State Park, but now are hard to find.
PARTY AFFILIATION ON BALLOT: He hopes to win passage of a bill that has failed in previous legislatures that would include a candidate's party affiliation, such as Republican, Democrat or Independent, on voting ballots.
HISTORY LESSONS: He would like to require all high school students to spend at least one semester studying the Virginia and the U.S. Constitutions before they are eligible for graduation.
Del. Leo C. Wardrup Jr.
[Photo]
(R-83rd District)
DRUNKEN BOATERS: Wardrup plans to champion a bill requested g6vbcv14b Wardrup last year by the Virginia Beach City Council to expand anti-drinking and driving laws to include people who get behind the wheel of a boat while intoxicated.
ELECTION RULES: He intends to submit a bill that would require local candidates to run for office as Republicans, Democrats or Independents. That would limit the number of people who could run for office, increase the quality of the candidates and lead to less voter confusion, Wardrup said. The Virginia Beach City Council unanimously opposed his proposal last month.
PARTY AFFILIATION ON BALLOT: He wants all candidates for statewide office to be identified on the ballot by their party affiliation. This bill closely resembles one submitted by Purkey, but would allow candidates of smaller parties, such as followers of Lyndon LaRouche to identify their party, instead of being labeled an ``Independent.''
STATE ADMINISTRATORS: He would like to require all state administrators to be out of office for at least two years - instead of one year, as required now - before they can represent a client before a state agency.
LEGISLATIVE CONFLICT OF INTERESTS: He would like to prohibit members of the General Assembly from representing clients before any state agency, such as the State Corporation Commission or Alcoholic Beverage Control Board.
TERM LIMITS: He would like to limit all General Assembly members to 12 years in office, or three terms for a state senator and six for a House member. ``If a person can't accomplish what he wants to accomplish in 12 years, he ought to turn things over to somebody else,'' Wardrup said.
LEGISLATORS' LICENSE PLATES: Wardrup doesn't like the fact that he's losing his license plate and he wants to change the state law so he can keep it. Now, legislators receive numbered license plates based on their seniority. Last year, Wardrup said he was lucky and got number ``83'' - also his district number - as his license plate. Wardrup thinks the seniority system should be thrown out and the rules changed so all legislators receive their district number as their license number.
Del. Robert F. McDonnell
Photo
(R-84th District)
REPLACING SCHOOL BOARD MEMBERS: McDonnell said he hopes to take the circuit court out of the business of selecting replacements for elected school board members who cannot serve out their g7vbcv14b McDonnell terms. The Virginia Beach Circuit Court, for example, selected two of the current Beach School Board members, when sitting members stepped down. But it makes more sense, McDonnell said, for the remaining members of the board to select replacements, as city council members do.
SCHOOL EMPLOYEES: He will put forward a Beach School Board request that school systems be notified if any of their staff members are arrested on felony charges.
DAY-CARE SMOKING: He plans to introduce a bill banning all smoking in day-care centers.
FAKE FIREARMS: He wants to amend the crime bill passed last year to penalize criminals who use fake guns or weapons that look like firearms, as much as if they had used real firearms.
He hopes to fix several legal loopholes that allowed two suspected murderers from Hampton Roads to go free.
Del. Robert Tata
[Photo]
(R-85th District)
SCHOOL BOARD ACCOUNTABILITY: Tata said he hopes to g8vbcv14b Tata change state law so that elected school board members are held personally responsible for any unexpected financial deficits in the school system, like the one that plagued the Virginia Beach School Board last year. Board members, like council members, would have to receive insurance to cover the risk that they might be forced to make up deficits such as the shortfall in the Beach's 1994-95 school year, which totaled $12.1 million. ``That way, maybe somebody would read the budget,'' Tata said.
SCHOOL BUDGETS: To help other school districts avoid similar overspending problems, Tata also plans to introduce a measure that would require school districts to intentionally underestimate the amount of money they will be getting from the state, so that they won't spend more than they have coming in.
SCHOOL BOARD ELECTIONS: He said he intends to correct an oversight in a bill he sponsored last year to change the way the City Council is structured. The bill required the council to redraw its own districts, so that all seven council boroughs have roughly the same number of people. The bill neglected to mention the district lines for the School Board members, although he wants the changes to pertain to them as well.
SCHOOL EMPLOYEES: He wants all school employees from custodians to principals to undergo criminal records checks before being hired. More than 600 crimes were committed in Virginia last year by school employees, Tata said. Some districts, like Virginia Beach, already do background checks, Tata said, but he would like to make them mandatory. A similar bill passed the House last year but failed in the Senate, he said.
HOSPITAL BIRTHS: Tata would like to require hospitals to give new mothers the opportunity to stay under hospital care for 48 hours after giving birth. When his daughter-in-law gave birth recently, Tata said, she was rushed out of the hospital the next morning. ILLUSTRATION: Photos
KEYWORDS: GENERAL ASSEMBLY DELEGATE ISSUES by CNB