Museum needs $7 million to complete construction

From: Hampton Roads Daily Press, VA - 26 Jan 2003

The Virginia Living Museum in Newport News was a big hit last week with state lawmakers in Richmond.

In the General Assembly building, museum workers set up a display that included a great horned owl. The handsome creature sat on a roost and gave the eyeball to passing politicians. ("I'm the symbol of wisdom. And you?")

But we jest - and the museum had more than fun on its mind.

Each year, more than 127,000 Virginia students visit there. Anyone driving along J. Clyde Morris Boulevard will see the ongoing expansion: a semi-circular building with habitat areas under construction that will allow visitors to explore a cave, a swamp and an Appalachian cove.

The building costs $22 million, which brings us to the other point of the display. Sure, museum officials wanted the visibility. Besides the great horned owl, at various times during the week the display included a bullfrog, a screech owl and a skunk. (Sorry. Only one political joke per column.)

The museum considers itself one of the best-kept secrets in the state, and it's looking for state help toward construction of its new building.

Gloria Lombardi, executive director, said the state provided more than $700,000 to help plan the new museum, but hasn't yet come up with money for construction. Private donors and the city of Newport News have already come through.

Del. Phil Hamilton and Sen. Tommy Norment are seeking an additional $7 million through budget amendments this year.

Lombardi realizes that times are tough, but the museum's funding problem won't go away. "Ultimately, we will need $7 million," she said.

DECISION TIME?

For years, the Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind at Hampton has been in the crosshairs. Should the state shut it down? Should it be merged with a similar school in Staunton? Should the state build a new school?

One lawmaker counts 27 studies on the issue. That's procrastinating, even by General Assembly standards,

This legislative session brings yet another attempt to answer the question. Del. Steve Landes has introduced a bill calling for the state to close the Hampton school and merge it with the Staunton school.

Landes lives just north of Staunton. Appearing last week before the House Education Committee, he conceded: "I have a little bit of a preference" when it comes to picking which school should stay and which school should go. He had other arguments as well. If one school must remain open, Staunton is more conveniently located for students who would have to travel from around the state.

The committee didn't reach a decision on the Landes bill. Several members of the Hampton Roads delegation sit on the committee, and they won't allow it to pass without many, many questions.

Hampton and Newport News public schools have a stake in the debate, too.

Hampton operates two programs on school grounds, a preschool and a charter school for alternative education. A closure could increase costs at Newport News schools as much as $450,000 because Newport News families who now send their children to the Hampton school may not send their kids to Staunton, according to Patrick Finneran, a Newport News school spokesman.

There is no telling where the Landes bill will end up, but Del. Karen Darner had an intriguing suggestion: Why not put all the interested parties in a room, lock them up, and don't let them come out until they've hammered out a solution?

The strategy is half in jest, but the more people thought about it, the more they thought something like it made sense. Part of the problem, they said, is that people of different interests aren't talking to each other.

Landes said he wants closure.

"No one wants to deal with this issue," he said.

THE COST OF POLITICS

Attorney General Jerry Kilgore is sending a message to every other Republican leader in Virginia: If you want the GOP nomination for governor in 2005, it's going to cost you.

Kilgore has raised $1.2 million in the past 13 months. Some of the money, about $300,000, was spent on inaugural activities but most of it has gone into his political action committee - i.e. gubernatorial campaign - Virginians for Jerry Kilgore.

"No other attorney general has ever raised this kind of money within their first year in office," said Ken Hutcheson, the executive director of Kilgore's PAC.

As a statewide official, Kil-gore's considered a leading candidate, if not the frontrunner, for the GOP nomination for governor in 2005.

Many GOP activists expect someone to fight Kilgore for the nomination, but there's no clear candidate. A former governor and a pair of congressmen are mentioned most often, but none is showing any sign of running yet.

Still, Kilgore's people are nervous and hopeful that the early fund-raising will demonstrate that despite Kilgore's relatively low name recognition, he's got a broad base of support all over Virginia.

"The Republican Party is coalescing around Jerry Kilgore as their future leader," Hutcheson said.

Of that $1.2 million, $150,000 has come from John M. Gregory, an executive with a pharmaceutical company in Bristol, Tenn., according to data compiled by the nonprofit Virginia Public Access Project.

Contact Hugh Lessig at (804) 225-7345 or via e-mail at hlessig@dailypress.com. Contact Terry Scanlon at 247-7824 or via e-mail at tscanlon@dailypress.com

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