Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 14, 1992 TAG: 9202140257
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: GREG SCHNEIDER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
SCHOOL-BOARD BILL READY TO PASS
Elected school boards are virtually guaranteed success in the General Assembly after 16 years of failure, thanks to the swing vote on Thursday of a single ailing senator.Already passed by the House of Delegates, a bill allowing elected boards by 1994 beat its final real challenge, 8-7, in the Senate Privileges and Elections Committee.
Now even opponents acknowledge that the bill will clear the full Senate, where 23 of the 40 members are said to have pledged support.
"It feels great!" shouted Del. David Brickley, D-Woodbridge, who has sponsored the legislation since 1976. One more day, one less vote, and Virginia would have gone one more year as the only state in the country to prohibit elected school boards.
Committee Chairman Joseph Gartlan, D-Fairfax County, convened Thursday's unscheduled meeting solely to consider the school-board bill. Away from work last week because of back pain, Gartlan said he soon will undergo back surgery.
"I may not be back anymore this session," he said as aides pushed him out in a wheelchair.
Gartlan cast the key vote last year to kill a similar bill in the same committee, but he changed his stance last fall during a close re-election race.
Cautioning Thursday that he still has problems with the idea of elected school boards, Gartlan said he voted for the bill so the public would be able to decide for itself.
Powerful opponents such as Senate Majority Leader Hunter Andrews, D-Hampton, and Sen. Clarence Holland, D-Virginia Beach, sounded resigned to failure as they made perfunctory arguments against Brickley's bill.
"I think the deed is done," Holland said later. There will be virulent debate on the Senate floor, he predicted, "but I'm not saying it'll change the mathematics."
Holland and Andrews say that if a school board is elected, it should have the power to raise taxes, which Brickley's bill does not provide. But taxing authority would require a constitutional amendment, a process that takes at least three years.
Opponents also worry that fewer minorities would win seats on elected school boards.
Madison Marye, D-Shawsville, was among those opposing the bill.
Under Brickley's bill, a city or county could hold a referendum this fall on whether the local school board should be elected instead of appointed, and the first elections would be held in 1994.
Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.