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

DATE: SATURDAY, September 16, 1995                   TAG: 9509180128
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

BRIEFLY PUT . . .

GROUND WAS broken the other day, on a 38-acre site in Portsmouth, for an 875-bed jail to serve the cities of Norfolk, Newport News, Hampton and Portsmouth. "All four had a pressing need for inmate space," said the executive director of the Hampton Roads Regional Authority. "This regional facility is an economic answer to that."

What a contrast to the Roanoke Valley. Years ago, when both Roanoke and Roanoke County needed new jails, they were built separately. Expansion under way of the jail in downtown Roanoke is solely a city project.

Regional cooperation in the valley has progressed, if sometimes fitfully, on several fronts. Corrections isn't one of them. Nor are we taking anywhere near full advantage of the regional-authority concept. Local governments are still keeping watch on the walls dividing us.

DAVID DUKE tells Roll Call, a congressional newspaper, that he's going to run for U.S. Senate next year. Oh well. Can't keep a Louisiana racist down.

The former Ku Klux Klan leader and Republican state representative, widely repudiated by GOP leaders, says he can win as a Republican. He claims GOP victories in 1994 "validated" his anti-immigration, anti-affirmative action, anti-federal-government political agenda. Let's hope not.

"David Duke is yesterday's news," says a Louisiana congressman's aide. Of course. Mark Fuhrman is today's news.

by CNB