‘Keep your expectations low’ Gillispie warns newest Councilman Rogers on revisiting EDA dynamics towards end of council work session

The Front Royal Town Council work session of Monday evening, November 14, began with just over 42 minutes of work session discussion of fairly routine matters. Those included authorization of several Special Use Permit (SUP) applications for public hearings on, guess what – two Short Term Rentals, one at 200 East Main Street (upper floor rentals) and another at 206 Lee Street (currently listed as 24 Stonewall Drive, full home rentals) – as well as one SUP application by Life Point Church to re-institute a daycare center at its 1111 North Shenandoah Avenue location; and a longer list of nine matters scheduled for Consent Agenda approval of more routine, if occasionally expensive budgetary, authorizations. All were approved for inclusion on the November 28 regular meeting agenda.

Town Finance Director B. J. Wilson, upper right at podium, discusses pending Fiscal Year budget transfers totaling over $14.6 million to accommodate uncompleted General Fund, Special Project, and Enterprise utility and service department fund purchase orders moving into the next fiscal year.

Two other agenda items were then addressed and authorized by council without dissent (Zach Jackson absent). First was an update to the Employee Handbook, adding “Juneteenth” (June 19th) as an official holiday commemorating notice of the post-Civil War end of slavery. Second was the donation of a “Retired” bucket truck to the Warren County Public Works Department. Responding to questions about the truck’s value, cited by Councilman Gary Gillispie as once about $100,000, and Vice-Mayor Lori Cockrell from one source more recently at $15,000, Interim Town Manager Kathleen Leidich noted that with its length of service and accumulated mileage, the bucket truck was now “fully depreciated” with essentially no assessed value. On a side note, a line item in the “FY23 Budget Amendment for Outstanding Purchase Orders” section of the agenda indicated a current price of $180,000 for “Replacement of Bucket Truck”.

With the County Public Work’s interest indicating its being seen as of some value today, likely for restoration maintenance or spare parts, Vice-Mayor and Mayor-elect Cockrell, chairing the meeting for absent Mayor Chris Holloway, called the donation a positive indication of cooperation between the town and county governments. At a time when the Town continues to pursue hostile civil litigation against the now-County overseen FR-WC EDA over disputed liabilities and lost assets from the financial scandal circa 2014-2018, such gestures may be more valued.

Town EDA suit legal costs

On a side note, that the Town’s civil litigation against the FR-WC EDA is running up some expenses was indicated, if not directly addressed by council, in Monday’s meeting agenda packet. Under Item 2D – “FY23 Budget Amendment for Outstanding Purchase Orders” on page 13 of the agenda packet, page 1 of the Budget Amendment package, under “Legal Dept.” budget line item 2201, are listed “LEGAL FEES EDA COURT CASE – $158,139” and “AUDITING SERVICES TO SUPPORT EDA CASE – $26,155” for a total of $184,294 of taxpayer money. As has been previously reported by Royal Examiner, that civil litigation was launched by council over the objection of then-Mayor Eugene Tewalt, circa 2019/20, despite a reformed FR-WC EDA staff and Board of Directors offer of “good-faith negotiations” to determine who was owed exactly what from what was cited as the unauthorized movement of EDA, Town, and County assets to personal gain alleged by former EDA Executive Director Jennifer McDonald and co-conspirators during the 2014-2018 time frame.

In civil litigation the now-County overseen FR-WC EDA has been awarded, on paper at least, about $23 million of the estimated $26 million in assets cited as misdirected as part of the financial scandal. However, on the now dueling Town/FR-WC EDA civil litigation fronts both sides have only legal expenses to show for their efforts with little, if any, time yet spent in a courtroom. And town residents, as dual town-county citizens, find themselves in the position of paying taxes to support both sides’ legal costs.

But perhaps we jumped the gun above in stating that council didn’t “directly address” the potential expense of its decisions regarding its former half-century-old joint EDA and current unilaterally created Front Royal EDA (FREDA). Because after the first six work session agenda topics, the final of those being an “Update of Capital Improvement Projects (CIPs) by Interim Town Manager Leidich, council reached the “Open Discussion” portion of the meeting. That is for non-agenda items of concern to council members. And among those were several from recently appointed Councilman Skip Rogers on topics he said had been brought to him by constituents, including: “About FREDA and the Front Royal-Warren County EDA”.

Rogers told council he had been discussing the topic with Councilman Gillispie, and has broached it in a preliminary manner with council as a whole. “I really do want to have an opportunity to try and open up a communication line and to just sit down and kind of talk about things, whatever that might be … And I would like Gary to join me and kind of see what we can do – and it may go nowhere,” Rogers admitted, adding, “But just for me in my time on council, it’s one of those things I want to address” at which point Gillispie entered the conversation, reminding Rogers of something he told him during their one-on-one conversations on the topic.

“I told you to keep your expectations low,” Gillispie said, drawing some laughter from his colleagues.

Skip Rogers, second at bottom left of table, and Gary Gillispie, third from bottom left, prepare for their input on one-on-one discussions on the future of Town and County EDA relations. Gillispie’s advice to Rogers – ‘keep your expectations low’.

“We’ll see,” Rogers replied, perhaps remaining as optimistic as a shorter-tenured (as in weeks) council member might be on such topics that may have developed a litigious or municipal momentum of their own regardless of operational costs or likelihood of legal success. The conversation then segued into discussion of the topic of blighted properties and illegal activities that may occur in or around them, such as drug use in the community.

“I really do like the conversation we’re having on blighted buildings … and I want to move it further than blighted buildings,” Rogers said, gaining a head of steam for what he pointed out is the last 11 months of his 12-month appointed tenure. “I really do believe there’s something we can do to approach some of the areas that may be problem areas … and let’s see what we may be able to do – and we may not be able to do anything. But I want to make a real effort to identify those areas that seem to be consistent with drug use, drug arrests, and overdoses.”

Surviving the chair’s humorous reminder that, as he had noted, he only had 11 months left for his initiatives, Rogers then tackled one close to council’s collective interests – the partisan political committee endorsement of elected town office candidates in what by Town Charter is supposed to be a non-partisan town election.

“I want to start an open conversation … I would really like us to address the Town Charter, the non-partisan elections, and whether or not we’re really following our guidelines in this town as it relates to identifying non-partisan elections as it relates to engaging the entire community and not maybe isolating some of them because of Hatch Act and other things,” Rogers said acknowledging federal laws disqualifying federal employees from participation in politically partisan elections.

Subsequent discussion on these final two topics raised concerns first, on a blanket policy regarding blighted structures negatively impacting poorer segments of the community not involved in such illegal activities as cited. Vice-Mayor Cockrell suggested involving as many “stakeholders” as possible, including county and town law enforcement, landlords and motel owners, to try and rectify the situation without a blanket effort that would ban poorly kept residential properties often a last resort for lower income individuals and families. Rogers agreed, noting previous discussion with some of those stakeholders.

On the partisan election topic, Councilwoman Morris herself, like Mayor-elect Cockrell and all but independent conservative Bruce Rappaport, an incoming Warren County Republican Committee endorsed candidate in this November’s town election, cited the party line on such charter violation concerns. That line is that there is a legal distinction between an “endorsed” candidate and one “nominated” by a political party, nomination resulting in an “R” or “D” by a candidates’ name on the official election ballot. How that line may be blurred by sample ballots with party designations handed out at polling places on Election Day, or a published offer by a WC Republican Committee recruitment official to fully handle “endorsed” candidates’ campaigns, has not yet been addressed by a partisan endorsed-dominated council or its legal staff. Might it be over the next 11 months? Stay tuned, sports fans.

See the work session’s six action items, including budget status and transfers for coming and delayed Capital Improvement Projects, discussed over the first 42-plus minutes of the linked Town video. The Open Discussion” begins at the 42:50 mark, with Councilman Rogers’s Open Discussion remarks starting at the 52-minute video mark.

Watch the Front Royal Town Council Work Session of November 14, 2022, here.