EDA Director McDonald submits resignation by email prior to Thursday meeting

The EDA board comes out of closed session shortly after 11:30 a.m. Friday – its only business was unanimous acceptance of the resignation of its executive director of a decade-plus. Photos/Roger Bianchini

Following a 2-hour-and-20-minute closed session at a special meeting called for Thursday morning, December 20, the Front Royal-Warren County Economic Development Authority Board of Directors unanimously voted to accept the resignation of Executive Director Jennifer McDonald.

McDonald was not present for the meeting which immediately adjourned to closed session to discuss the executive director’s job performance and an ongoing audit of EDA debt and accounting service practices.

As first reported by Royal Examiner’s Norma Jean Shaw,  EDA finances have been under scrutiny since the Town of Front Royal’s Finance Director B. J. Wilson discovered eight years of overpayments by the Town to the EDA on debt service. An initial figure slightly over $291,000 was reported, though a final number and other related matters have yet to be presented by EDA auditors.

McDonald’s emailed resignation letter was received by EDA and County Attorney Dan Whitten at 9:37 a.m., 23 minutes prior to the 10 a.m. convening of Thursday’s special meeting. McDonald’s letter and a brief board statement in reaction to it were both brief and polite.

“Dear Mr. Dan Whitten, Please accept this as my official notice of resignation. Over the past 20 years I have enjoyed the work at the EDA and want to continue to see the County grow and prosper. I wish everyone the best and look forward to working with everyone in the future on other projects,” McDonald wrote.

“Jennifer McDonald, Executive Director for the Front Royal-Warren County Economic Development Authority, has tendered her resignation effective December 20, 2018. Mrs. McDonald has served as EDA Director since April 2008 and has worked diligently to bring new business, investments and jobs to the County of Warren and the Town of Front Royal. The EDA board members thank Mrs. McDonald for her service and wish her the best in her future endeavors,” said the EDA board statement read into the record, as was McDonald’s resignation letter, by Chairman Gray Blanton.

Contacted later by phone, McDonald said, “I was ready to move on with the next phase of my career. A lot was accomplished during my tenure as Director and I am proud of those accomplishments.”

McDonald was instrumental in pushing forward ITFederal as the first commercial client at the former Avtex Superfund site’s projected 147-acre Royal Phoenix Business Park, as well as the start of phase one of the West Main St. connector road through the site.

Several board members including Greg Drescher, Ed Daley and Vice-Chairman Bruce Drummond declined comment following the meeting’s adjournment. Drescher, who served as chairman in recent years and worked closely with McDonald on EDA business prior to his August 24 resignation from the chairmanship one day after he and McDonald sat down with Town officials to discuss the debt service situation, was especially tight-lipped, only nodding “no” in response to a request for a reaction to McDonald’s resignation. However, Board Chairman Gray Blanton did talk with media regarding the day’s developments.

Asked if McDonald’s resignation could have been made in anticipation she would be fired or asked to resign, Blanton replied, “I can’t really say yes or no to that.”

Further questioned on whether the board would have been divided on a vote to remove its executive director, Blanton said, “It was not divided in accepting that letter.”

As for receiving new or even final numbers on the accounting audit, the board chairman said, “We needed to get by this – and Dan has contact with that auditing firm and we will be getting those numbers.”

Asked if he anticipated that the next report from the auditors would be the final one, Blanton commented dryly, “These audit guys have charged a fortune to do what they’ve done. If they can’t come up with the numbers something’s wrong.”

EDA Board Chair Gray Blanton explains auditors are still working to get their arms around a full understanding of where mistakes have been made in EDA debt service and accounting records.

Back to the subject of the EDA executive director’s resignation after over a decade overseeing town and county economic recruitment and development, Blanton said, “In the one year I’ve been here she has been very efficient in her presentations to the board. She’s always answered our calls, she’s always given us all the explanations and we all like that. That was good and we thought that everything she was doing was okay. But we found out through the audit that there might be something that’s not okay.”

Asked if “not okay” indicated that repayment of Town debt service overpayments might not be a simple matter, Blanton replied, “It won’t be as simple as that – but we do have our financing, we have our bank accounts, we have rents that we receive, we have income, we have properties that we own that are for sale. The last time I asked her, she said ‘yes, we have the money.’ ” As to specifics, Blanton who has been on the job as board chairman for less than four months pointed reporters to EDA Attorney Whitten.

“We haven’t gotten any information regarding that as to whether any – we don’t have the evidence now that funds might be missing. We don’t have any hard numbers at this point that we can present to media or to the authorities. So we’re still getting final numbers from both our auditor and the accountant,” Whitten told the two reporters present.

Following adjournment EDA Attorney Dan Whitten and Greg Drescher, back to camera, oversee county staff locking remote access off to the former executive director’s office computer.

Whitten added that no conclusion had yet been reached on the County side of payments on EDA projects or debt service. “We haven’t gotten a final report yet, so we haven’t gotten any findings at this point – I thought we’d have them but we don’t,” the EDA and County attorney said.

Asked if he had a guesstimate on a timeframe for those final audit report figures, Whitten replied, “Hopefully soon.” He then pointed to a scheduled Friday meeting with the new EDA accountant Hottel and Willis. That meeting is scheduled for the afternoon of December 21, after a specially-called 10 a.m. closed meeting of the Warren County Board of Supervisors to discuss debt and accounting services.

Whitten was also asked if he thought McDonald’s resignation could have been pre-emptive, as in seeing board action seeking her resignation as imminent.

“She was in the closed session with us last Friday and she was met with the evidence … or documents that the auditors had found and felt she needed to resign.”

Old times, good times – one EDA office hallway display shows McDonald with late Board Chair Patty Wines above a 1997 article dating to the now-former executive director’s time as a college student EDA intern.