DATE: Thursday, May 22, 1997                TAG: 9705220540

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B11  EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: FROM WIRE REPORTS

                                            LENGTH:   83 lines

VIRGINIA

Delayed payments

might stall opening

of Colonial Downs

RICHMOND - Delayed payments to contractors have left the state's first pari-mutuel racetrack hard-pressed to open on time, a state engineer who is overseeing the project said Wednesday.

``The odds of completion in a timely manner, in my judgment, are less today than they were 30 days ago,'' Daniel Shockey of the Virginia Racing Commission staff said at a meeting of the agency. ``You need absolute support for contractors on the job. You can't fiddle around.''

But Gil Short, general manager of the Colonial Downs racetrack under construction in New Kent County, said that while not all landscaping will be completed by opening day, all essential structures will be ready.

Colonial Downs is scheduled to open Sept. 1 for 30 days of live thoroughbred racing.

Beyer's record wins nod

from state teachers group

RICHMOND - Democratic Lt. Gov. Donald S. Beyer Jr., who pledged to be the ``education governor'' if he wins November's election, won the endorsement Wednesday of the state's largest teachers association.

The Virginia Education Association's political action committee chose Beyer over Republican Attorney General James S. Gilmore III primarily because of the Democrat's record, not his promises, VEA president Cheri James said.

Gilmore spokesman Mark Miner shrugged off the VEA's backing of Beyer.

``Jim Gilmore has the support of teachers throughout the commonwealth because of his record of keeping his promises,'' he said. SOUTHWEST

Black employees enter

discrimination complaints

ROANOKE - Fifteen black employees of a lighting-distribution center and five former black employees have filed discrimination complaints against the company, the local president of the NAACP said Wednesday.

``We've never had this many employees do this at one time,'' said Martin Jeffrey, president of the Roanoke Valley chapter. ``We sometimes get two or three current employees, and more often we get complaints from a few terminated employees.''

Cooper Industries' Crouse-Hinds Distribution Center in Roanoke employs about 200 people, most of whom assemble, pack and ship lighting fixtures and electrical products.

Plant manager Steve Liedke referred questions to Joe Hooker, vice president for human resources at Cooper Industries. Hooker was out of the office, but he wrote in a letter to Jeffrey last month that the company treats employees equally.

A statement issued by the company Wednesday said it never comments on ``matters pertaining to individual employees.''

Several employees complained to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People that white workers are given preferential treatment when work assignments and promotions are considered. One black worker said his supervisor made a racist remark to him.

Representatives of the NAACP board and the company plan to meet Saturday in Roanoke to discuss the complaints. NORTHERN

Bigger-than-usual cat

crosses woman's path

WOODBRIDGE - A woman walking her dog near a suburban elementary school came face-to-face with what she thought was a mountain lion, police said Wednesday.

The woman told police she was on a path near Westridge Elementary School at 5 p.m. Tuesday when the cougar crossed the path in front of her, Prince William County police spokeswoman Kim Chinn said.

It was the second sighting of what police believe is a cougar living in the wooded back yards and parks in a heavily populated area near Interstate 95.

The state Department of Game and Inland Fisheries said then it was unlikely, but not impossible, that the animal Mary Hill saw was a cougar.

The only known wild population of cougars east of the Mississippi River is a small number in the swamps of Florida.

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