Dinwiddie could make English official language

BY T. DEVON ROBINSON
STAFF WRITER
09/15/2007



MANDANA MARSH/STAFF PHOTO Jessica Andrade holds her 9-month-old daughter Liliana at her father's store, Andrade's Grocer on West Washington Street. She says she speaks English and Spanish to her baby so she will learn to be bilingual.


DINWIDDIE - The Board of Supervisors will vote on a resolution Tuesday that would make English the county's official language.

Board Chairman Michael W. Stone presented the draft resolution during a special meeting of the Board of Supervisors Sept. 10. He said his rationale was to save the county money by having all county forms, documents, signs and polices solely in English.

"This resolution makes English the official language for Dinwiddie County and thus all county forms, documents, county signs and policies will only be printed in English," Stone said. "Anyone wishing to conduct business with the county will have to understand English."

"Some localities that have not adopted this have been taken to court and made to spend taxpayer money to print forms in several languages and even to have the county Web sites up and running in multiple languages," he said. "To do this takes a great deal of resources and I feel is a waste of taxpayer money."

Nelson Diaz, regional manager for central Virginia for the Telamon Corp., has noticed the growing trend of jurisdictions to bring resolutions of this caliber to a vote.

"It's a big deal going on," Diaz said. "I think it's just political."

The Telamon Corp. is a 40-year-old nonprofit organization that began providing services to migrant and seasonal farm workers in Virginia in 1975.

Diaz said he would attend the Dinwiddie Board of Supervisors meeting because of the resolution.

Stone also submitted another resolution that will request the General Assembly to research the burden on state and local resources caused by illegal aliens.

"I will continue to work with other localities to restrict services provided to illegal aliens and to toughen whenever possible the penalties [or] fines on businesses that employee illegal aliens or undocumented workers," Stone said.

Tao Li, co-owner of the Canton Restaurant in Petersburg, is in agreement that English should be the official language because the country was first settled by English-speaking people.

"The country's first language is English," Li said.

As for the areas that have large numbers of Spanish-speaking people like Florida, Texas and California, Li said that they originally were Spanish colonies.

"California used to belong to Mexico," he said.

County Attorney Michael Drewry reviewed the resolutions for their legality in time for the release of the board packet Friday afternoon. He said the board was legally able to raise the motion.

The Dinwiddie Board of Supervisors meeting begins at 3 p.m. Tuesday. The public hearings portion of the meeting begins at 7 p.m. The resolutions will come to a vote under action items during the 3 p.m. portion of the meeting. Action items do not have a public hearing portion before the final vote.

The English language resolution does not change any multilingual items that are provided by the county by law. No county agencies will be prohibited from providing items in any language other than English as well.

These two resolutions were spearheaded by the Culpeper County Board of Supervisors. Both resolutions were passed by Culpeper Aug. 8 along with an encouragement for other counties in the state to join them in a coalition.

On Sept. 11, the Spotsylvania County Board of Supervisors was the first county to join the coalition.

The Code of Virginia already includes language that declares English as the official language.

. T. DeVon Robinson may be reached at 722-5160 or at trobinson@progress-index.com.

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