Stanley will continue as County Administrator through end of fiscal year

Surrounded by Interim Town Attorney Jason Ham, Tony Carter on the move behind him, and Archie Fox sill seated to his left, Doug Stanley prepares to enter the board’s closed session discussion of his future with the county government. Royal Examiner Photos/Roger Bianchini – Royal Examiner Video/Mark Williams

The guessing game is over – following a 45-minute closed session Tuesday night, March 17, the Warren County Board of Supervisors approved a motion not to renew County Administrator Doug Stanley’s contract into the coming fiscal year that begins July 1. The board faced an April deadline to notify Stanley whether his five-year contract, set to expire June 30, would be renewed.

Until his contract’s end, Stanley will continue in his job at his $152,926 salary. Interim County Attorney Jason Ham told media present that after the expiration of Stanley’s contract on June 30, he will remain an uncontracted County employee until he is either terminated by the board or he resigns.

Perhaps surprisingly, Delores Oates motion, seconded by Cheryl Cullers, passed unanimously. However, after casting the fifth and final vote to approve the apparent end of Stanley’s 20-year term as Warren County Administrator, long time Fork District Supervisor Archie Fox, added, “But I’d like to see his contract renewed.” Fox’s fellow long-time supervisor also perceived as a Stanley supporter, Happy Creek’s Tony Carter, also voted with the majority without comment.

As Archie Fox and Cheryl Cullers listen, Stanley briefs the board on the addition of a ‘Local Emergency’ declaration regarding the COVID-19 Coronavirus’s presence in Virginia to Tuesday’s meeting agenda. The declaration was approved – more on that in a coming story.

Queried about his unusually long tenure as a municipal manager prior to the convening of Tuesday’s board meeting, Stanley noted he started as the County’s zoning administrator in December 1994; became planning director on April 1, 1996; and was initially appointed interim county administrator, again on April 1, in 2000. For eight years he served as both planning director and county administrator prior to his 2008 hiring of Taryn Logan to fill the planning director’s position. Research done by this reporter surrounding Michael Graham’s termination as Front Royal’s Town Manager about a decade ago, indicated municipal managers’ average lifespan was less than five years.

But it may have been Stanley’s lengthy tenure that was the writing on the wall that the new supervisor’s majority swept into office last November on a wave of public discontent fueled by the Front Royal-Warren County Economic Development Authority financial scandal, might spell “goodbye” for this county administrator.

New Board Chairman Walter Mabe, Vice-Chair Cheryl Cullers, and Delores Oates all campaigned in 2019 on a “change from business as usual” platforms in the wake of the $21.3 million EDA financial scandal, perhaps ironically discovered in the wake of a 2018 forensic audit funded by the County for the EDA while the previous board was in place.

The county board will not renew the county administrator, at far left’s, 5-year, $152,000-plus contract. But he will serve at least through the June 30th end of this fiscal year.

Former North River Supervisor Dan Murray and South River Supervisor Linda Glavis did not seek re-election amidst the public firestorm surrounding the allegations of embezzlements and misdirected EDA assets during the tenure of former EDA Executive Director Jennifer McDonald and a now nearly-totally replaced EDA Board of Directors. Mabe defeated the only incumbent to seek re-election, the Shenandoah District’s Tom Sayre, last November.

Asked what he thought his chances of surviving the closed session adjourned to for personnel matters, primarily discussion of the “… performance, demotion, salaries, and the resignation of a specific public officer of the public body … limited to … the County Administrator”, Stanley told this reporter, “Let’s see what happens.”

What happened was that while the new board majority followed through on one anticipated step in its promise of “change” to the way things are done politically in Warren County, they will also continue to benefit from Stanley’s institutional knowledge and experience in directing the County’s $110-million-plus the Fiscal Year 2021 budget process. It has been a process that at times has seemed to overwhelm the trio of new supervisors (as it always does your humble financial reporter), all in elected municipal office for the first time.

Stanley reaction

Stanley declined to comment following the meeting’s adjournment after the vote on non-renewal of his contract. However, he said he would have a written statement ready the following day. That statement was released shortly after noon, Wednesday.

“Without a doubt, the past year has been the most difficult and challenging in my career. That said I believe we are making significant strides in bringing those responsible for the EDA embezzlement to justice and to recover what has been stolen as well as supporting the current EDA Board and staff to clean up the mess.

“I hope that the Board recognizes my value to them and the community throughout this process and sees my abilities as County Administrator. I look forward to being part of the positive changes being implemented by the new Board,” Stanley said at the conclusion of his seven-paragraph statement.

Stanley began by recounting some of the County’s achievements during his tenure stretching into the last decade of the 20^th century.

“I have spent the past 25 years, or half of my life, serving the Front Royal-Warren County community, the last 20 as County Administrator. I work at the pleasure of the Warren County Board of Supervisors and appreciate the Board’s trust and support over the years.

“Over this period I have had the fortune and honor to be part of significant improvements to this community in replacing the lost jobs and tax base of the former Avtex facility with over $500 million in industrial development and the creation of over 2,000 jobs in the Route 340/522 corridor. This does not include the $1 billion invested by Dominion in the new power plant. The County has been able to attract significant retail development to the corridor which provides our residents with shopping and dining opportunities while generating revenue to reduce the County’s reliance on real estate taxes.

“We have also made tremendous strides in addressing the capital facility needs of our community thanks to the vision and support of the Board of Supervisors through the construction of numerous school, community, parks and recreation, and public safety facilities.

I am proud that we have been able to make all of these improvements and additions to our community while still maintaining one of the lowest real estate tax rates in the region,” Stanley observed, adding, “I have been fortunate and blessed to work with an outstanding and professional staff of talented individuals who work hard to improve the quality of life of our citizens on a daily basis.”

Following the Tuesday meeting’s 10:30 p.m. adjournment, Stanley chats with County staffers Shelley Hayes, back to camera, and Jodi Saffelle.

Public Perspective

However, at both of its “Public Comments” periods, early and late in the open meeting, the supervisors heard from the “Doug Stanley Fan Club” as we like to refer to the county administrator’s harshest critics – though “club president” James Harper was absent. At the meeting’s outset, five of six speakers urged the supervisors not to renew Stanley’s contract.

Only former Shenandoah District Planning Commission member, current County School Board member, and long-time Shenandoah Farms POA officer Ralph Rinaldi spoke positively of Stanley, urging the board to consider a middle ground. Rinaldi was the one speaker who pointed out they were speaking from personal experience and professional interaction with Stanley over a number of years on a number of fronts.

He called Stanley “always fair”, particularly in dealing with Farms Sanitary District issues. Pointing to the county administrator’s breadth of institutional knowledge, Rinaldi suggested a one-year contract extension to allow Stanley to continue “to coach you guys up – I know he’s been doing that – give him more time,” Rinaldi asked the board’s freshman trio.

After years of dealing with the county administrator on Shenandoah Farms Sanitary District and county planning issues, Ralph Rinaldi suggested the board consider a middle ground in cutting ties with the only county administrator the county has known in this millennium.

However, Rinaldi’s was the minority opinion as Dennis Willingham, Melanie Salins, Gary Kushner, Harold Baggarly and Linda McDonough urged the board to end Stanley’s perceived “good ole boy” insider perspective from the conduct of county business.

And despite Chairman Mabe’s request that public comments remain respectfully non-personal – “let’s leave the name calling out” he urged – some assertions against the county administrator were personal in nature, and unlike Rinaldi, seemed based on observations made at a distance.

“Obliterate this,” Willingham said of Stanley’s contract, adding, “He’s done nothing but cost us money from day one … I feel he is not qualified to do the job.”

Kushner continued the theme, telling the board Stanley had “an arrogant disconnect” from public opinion and was at the point of “every tax rate increase” the supervisors had approved over the years. However, Kushner did not elaborate on how the myriad public schools and other capital improvements achieved with the bulk of those tax increases might have been achieved without them.

“I think the County is turning a corner; unfortunately, the damage has already been done,” Salins added of the county history around that recently turned corner marked by Mabe, Cullers, and Oates election.

McDonough questioned Rinaldi’s suggestion that Stanley was the right person to “coach” the new supervisors into a comfort zone in their elected offices.

However, Farms resident Linda McDonough, sporting apparel acknowledgment of St. Patrick’s Day, weighed in with a majority of public speakers opposed to continuing the County’s relationship with its 20-year administrator.

Baggarly continued the financial criticism, criticism somewhat countered by the later approved FY 2019 County Audit Report of the Robinson, Farmer, Cox Associates firm. Archie Fox asked the auditors how the County “compared to its peers” financially in the wake of submission of its audit report, “Is the County fiscally sound?” Fox queried RFC representative Matthew McLearen.

“There are no significant deficiencies or material weaknesses,” McLearen replied. However, McLearen did note that the incompleted EDA audit remains an unknown variable impacting the County as a “component” governmental sub-group.

As the clock approached 9:30 p.m. and adjournment to the closed session neared, only Baggarly revisited the Stanley must go theme; though speakers on other topics took those comments beyond the 15-minute time limit allotted to them.

Watch that revisiting, as well as the earlier comments about Stanley, and the board’s vote on his contract following the closed session, as well as the County’s declaration of a “Local Emergency” as the State and regional response to the COVID-19 Coronavirus outbreak, accelerates (more on that in a coming Royal Examiner story), and other business conducted in this Royal Examiner video:

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