Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, September 29, 1995 TAG: 9509290051
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
The candidates asked each other two questions apiece and answered another 15 from both radio listeners and from the audience of more than 80 at Virginia Tech. Though Linkous, the Republican challenger, stressed his independence and Shuler, the first-term Democratic incumbent, reiterated his support for higher and public education.
The format of the fast-moving, hourlong session, sponsored by Tech-affiliated public radio station WVTF-FM (89.1), amounted to a cross between a campaign forum and a one-on-one debate. The broadcast went to an audience from Charlottesville to Marion, though the men are running only to represent Blacksburg, northern Montgomery County and parts of Christiansburg and Giles County.
Shuler, like most Democrats this fall, continued to hammer home the education theme. He suggested public education would be better off if local governments made it a higher budget priority, in what amounted to a not-so-subtle jab at Linkous, a four-year member of the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors.
Local education advocates contend the supervisors have steadily reduced their commitment to education as a percentage of local spending. Linkous responded with a memo from the county administrator indicating school spending increased by $8.65 million, or 22 percent, from 1991-92 to the present
Shuler also called Linkous' commitment to public service into question by pointing to his resignation from the county Planning Commission in 1990 after five years.
"The reason for that resignation ... was to get my things in order so that I could do other things in my life," Linkous said.
Shuler said Linkous missed more than 10 meetings while a member of the county Planning Commission from 1985 to 1990 and, while a supervisor in 1992 and '93, missed all 19 meetings to shape the county's controversial open-space plan.
The missed meetings on the open-space plan were not regularly scheduled Board of Supervisors meetings, but were optional public sessions to help draft the proposal, said Linkous, who was one of five votes to kill the plan.
"That's been 14 years ago," Linkous said of the missed Planning Commission meetings, a figure he later conceded was incorrect. "You're digging way back to find things, Jim. ... Those kind of implications seem to be the trend. Instead of talking direct proofs there's been a lot of innuendos and that seems to be the way it's going."
For his part, Linkous challenged a Shuler vote that he said took much-needed money for capital projects away from Tech. He also pointed to another bill, which Shuler co-patroned, dealing with the unfair dismissal of employees. Shuler voted against his own bill three times, Linkous said, including a committee vote that effectively killed it. Linkous suggested Shuler is nothing more than a pawn of his political party.
Shuler said he voted against the first measure, a gubernatorial budget amendment, because it split money between prison building and college capital projects. Moreover, he said, it paid for both by selling off surplus state property, something that could have forced Tech to dispose of property that had been bequeathed to the university.
"I for one was not going to support something that was going to pull the rug out from underneath Virginia Tech's land holdings," Shuler said. On the second measure, Shuler said Linkous was wrong and needed to understand the legislative process, which he then recited step by step.
"What was the answer?" Linkous responded.
Neither candidate stumbled badly, though Linkous missed the point of a question about the state retirement system and Shuler seemed to be pushing it by asking if Linkous - a former Democrat - was "on record as agreeing with the principles of the extreme far right?"
"I agree with a lot of the principles if it has to do with family values," Linkous said. "I'm not aware of all the principles of the far right. I could probably honestly say no, I'm not. ... I don't agree with the principles of the far left either. I've been a pretty independent thinker."
For a taped snippet from the debate, courtesy of WVTF, call the Roanoke Times Infoline, 382-0200, and punch in extension 7810 on your touch-tone phone.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB