SCHOOL BOARD ELECTIONS A BIT CLOSER

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, February 4, 1992                   TAG: 9202040343
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: THOMAS BOYER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Medium
SCHOOL BOARD ELECTIONS A BIT CLOSER
A bill to permit elected school boards in Virginia zipped through a legislative panel Monday as the General Assembly's debate shifted from whether to allow elected boards to when the first elections should be held.
The House Education Committee voted 16-2 to send the full House a bill that would end Virginia's status as the only state with appointed-only school boards. But the panel added an amendment to delay the bill's implementation by two years, so that the first elections could not be held until 1996.
The measure is expected to win easy approval in the 100-member House of Delegates, but there probably will be a fight over its timing.
"I'll make the floor amendment to move the date back [to 1994], and we'll go get 'em," vowed Del. Frank Wagner, R-Virginia Beach. Residents of his city voted overwhelmingly for an elected school board in an advisory referendum last fall.
The first floor action should come Wednesday or Thursday.
Today, activity on the issue shifts to the Senate Privileges and Elections Committee, which is handling elected-school-board bills in the upper chamber. The panel, which plans a public hearing at 3 p.m., has killed similar legislation in past years but is expected to endorse it in some form this year.
Republicans, who overwhelmingly support the legislation, control six of 15 seats on the panel, and the chairman, Joseph Gartlan Jr., D-Fairfax County, has changed his position and now favors elected boards.
Still, Sens. Hunter Andrews, D-Hampton, and Clarence Holland, D-Virginia Beach, plan to push for an alternative measure to permit elected boards only with their own taxing power. Such a measure would require a constitutional amendment - itself a nearly three-year process - and advocates of elected school boards have labeled this approach a dodge.
Del. David Brickley, D-Woodbridge, who has been pushing for elected boards for 16 years, said the maneuvering could mean the House and Senate will pass dramatically different bills. That would kick the issue to a House-Senate conference, and the outcome might not be clear much before the end of the session March 7.
In the House committee Tuesday, even longtime opponents said they had no way to stop elected boards this year. "I will vote aye, seeing this train is running very well," said Del. Mitchell Van Yahres, D-Charlottesville.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB