Former Councilwoman Bébhinn Egger’s emails subject of FOIA request

Mayor Hollis Tharpe presents Egger with a plaque of appreciation for her 3 years of service on council.

FRONT ROYAL – The Royal Examiner has verified that former Front Royal Town Councilwoman Bébhinn Egger’s emails are the subject of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by a local private investigator. Town Attorney Doug Napier confirmed that the emails had been the subject of a June 23, 2017 request by Ken Pullen, of Ken Pullen and Associates, LLC in Flint Hill.

Ms. Egger’s father, Mark Egger said an email was sent to the former council member by Napier on Friday, June 23–her wedding day–informing her of Pullen’s request, though she didn’t actually receive that email until she arrived at her honeymoon destination and had a chance to check her email.

Miss Egger, who was elected November 4, 2014 and took office on January 1, 2015, announced in March that she would resign her council seat at the end of June, because she was getting married and moving to Maryland with her husband.

When contacted by the Royal Examiner, Pullen refused to comment on whether he had made a request for Egger’s email documents. Upon learning that this reporter had verified his request, he declined to say for whom he was working.

However, Pullen then commented that he had been reading the Royal Examiner, and was following the Front Royal-Warren County Economic Development Authority (EDA) stories that had been published, and that he found them, “interesting.”

In fact, Pullen said in a subsequent conversation that while he had stopped reading a local daily paper “three to four years ago”, a local weekly county paper “ages ago” and that he only read a local weekly paper when his own photographs appeared during Valley baseball season, he confessed that he regularly read the Royal Examiner.

EDA Executive Director Jennifer McDonald had no comment when asked if Pullen had been hired on behalf of the EDA.