Submitted by admin on Wed, 2005-10-19 08:00. ::
VIRGINIA BEACH — Despite a quiet campaign for the 83rd House District, candidates Leo C. Wardrup Jr. and Georgia F. Allen have earned reputations for outspokenness.
Wardrup, a seven-term incumbent, is known for his Republican partisanship. As former chairman of the Republican caucus, he cajoled members into line behind car-tax cuts and other key GOP initiatives.
Allen, a Democrat, is a first-time candidate for public office. As president of the Virginia Beach NAACP for almost five years, she was known to rankle city officials, especially when it came to hiring minorities.
For Wardrup, 69, the race boils down to experience and leadership. Since 1992, he said, there hasn't been a piece of state legislation that he hasn't touched in some way.
“So, to an extent that you like such things as the Standards of Learning … welfare reform … three strikes and you're out, and some of the other, I think, very progressive criminal legislation that helps protect the innocent and keep the guilty off the streets, if you like those types of things, then you like what I've done,” he said.
Wardrup, a retired Navy captain, easily defeated challenger Delceno C. Miles in the Republican primary. It was the first time he faced opposition within his own party.
Allen, a former executive administrative secretary with Alltel, left her job about a year ago when her department was dissolved. She remains unemployed and until last year was enrolled at Virginia Wesleyan College.
She said she has temporarily relinquished her title with the local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to focus on her campaign.
Allen said state lawmakers have wasted too much time studying traffic woes instead of solving them. She said she, too, would support toll roads, plus a more regional approach to mass transit.
Wardrup favors spending more on community colleges. He questioned the amount of money going to public universities to provide “a cornucopia of courses and majors” such as urban studies, political science and cultural studies.
Allen said she is concerned about early childhood education. She supports a proposed universal pre kindergarten program that Timothy M. Kaine, the Democratic candidate for governor, is touting. She said the state also should explore the educational successes of other countries, including China.
Allen said the federal government must guarantee that Oceana will remain in Virginia Beach before state money is spent to buy property around the base or before giving the city condemnation authority. Wardrup said he thinks state money should be used only to buy property around the base from willing owners.
The 2005 General Assembly session produced a number of moral issue bills, including a constitutional amendment banning gay marriages. It passed the House and Senate, but it must pass both houses again before going to voters.
Allen had filed for personal bankruptcy in 1990. She said this happened after she had emergency surgery while she was working for a small company that could not afford health insurance.
She filed for personal bankruptcy again in 1997 and lost her town house at Thalia Wayside in a foreclosure. Allen said she got behind on her mortgage after helping several relatives with housing and financial assistance. She has since bought a home on Merrimac Lane.
Property he owned stood in the way of a student housing project. Wardrup was a partner in a group that bought the property for $16,600 two years earlier. He and his group sought $370,000 from ODU for the 5,000-square-foot lot.
In November, Wardrup invoked his legislative privilege to halt a Norfolk City Council vote on ODU's request to rezone land around the property. Eventually, the parties settled. ODU's Real Estate Foundation paid $175,000 for the land.
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