
DATE: Wednesday, November 5, 1997           TAG: 9711050787

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A3E  EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JANIE BRYANT, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH                        LENGTH:   50 lines

WATERS GETS ANOTHER TERM AS PORTSMOUTH SHERIFF

Gary W. Waters, re-elected by a huge margin Tuesday as Portsmouth's sheriff, said he will spend the next four years continuing the services he has provided taxpayers for the last 16 years.

Waters has moved beyond managing the City Jail and related duties to offering community services ranging from a Drug Abuse Resistance and Education program for fifth-grade students to an inmate work crew that earned a state award this year.

Waters won in all but six precincts. Those were predominantly black precincts, which Paul Battle, an independent candidate, won. Battle, who is an African American, got 25 percent of the vote, and Voyce D. McGinley, the Republican candidate, got 15 percent.

``I really feel good and proud about all my hard-working deputies,'' Waters said as vote totals from the last precinct came in. ``All I've got to offer is service. That's what it's all about.''

Waters had said earlier that all his opponents had promised on the campaign trail was to enhance the programs he started.

``Believe me, if there was some way I could do that, I'd do it,'' he said. ``I just don't have the resources.''

Waters' opponents had criticized overcrowding at the jail, which Waters said will be helped when the Hampton Roads Regional Jail opens in March.

``We get 250 beds,'' he said. ``They're going to take the juveniles, the women, and take the medical problems. . . . So that will make our job a whole lot easier.''

Waters said he also had proposed in the capital improvement plan a renovation of the City Jail, which would provide more space for rehabilitation programs.

He said literacy is a big problem for many inmates and that he can get volunteers to help with those programs. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

STEVE EARLEY/The Virginian-Pilot

Portsmouth Sheriff Gary W. Waters...Elizabeth Aronson...Stan

Clark...

Graphic

WATERS 60%

BATTLE 25%

McGINLEY 15% KEYWORDS: ELECTION VIRGINIA RESULTS PORTSMOUTH

SHERIFF'S RACE