Meza resigns, council denies Lloyd’s ‘civil rights Emergency Ordinance’ proposal despite 49-2 public support

Monday’s regular meeting of the Front Royal Town Council got off to an unexpected start when Valley Health employee Jacob Meza emotionally read a prepared statement resigning his seat, effective immediately, into the meeting record. Meza then exited stage right of the Warren County Government Center main meeting room to an affectionate farewell from his colleagues and rousing applause from a full house this reporter estimated at 150 people, there, for the most part, to comment on Councilman Scott Lloyd’s Emergency civil rights ordinance proposal to prevent Valley Health, and other private-sector employers within the town limits, from mandating employees to receive the COVID-19 Coronavirus vaccination at threat of termination.

Didn’t see that coming – Jacob Meza resigns his seat at meeting’s outset, and bid a fond farewell to his colleagues on his way out the door. Royal Examiner Photos by Roger Bianchini

Things turned ugly at the open meeting’s adjournment approaching 11 p.m. when a number of citizens verbally and loudly expressed their displeasure with the 3-2 vote of denial, Lloyd and Joe McFadden, the latter by remote hookup, dissenting.

Scattered boos and a loud “Evil Triumphs” was heard, along with “We won’t forget this” among other negative comments aimed at the council majority of Letasha Thompson, Gary Gillespie and
Vice-Mayor Lori Cockrell. That majority had prefaced their votes with explanations that legal research by the Town Attorney’s Office had indicated the Town has no legal authority to make such a legislative mandate in response to private-sector vaccine mandates, particularly in a Dillon Rule state like Virginia, where municipal authority cannot exceed what is authorized to it by the state government.

As the open meeting ended somewhat boisterously and the council prepared to enter the closed session, FRPD maintains a presence to assure that public peace and tranquility are restored.

And as Town Attorney Doug Napier had explained during the work session discussion, the state is authorized legally by code and/or its Constitution to mandate vaccines during a public health crisis. That legally hamstrings municipal governments from attempting to counter public health emergency vaccine mandates.

After the two-phased public comments on the Lloyd proposal lasting 3-hours-and-2 minutes – broken into two sections to facilitate council taking care of other business including two public hearings – Mayor Chris Holloway called for a motion. After an extended silence and a second call for a motion, Lloyd made the motion to approve his ordinance proposal. It was seconded by McFadden, whose father Tom was the second of 49 speakers in favor of the ordinance proposal.

Gillespie observed that he felt the Lloyd initiative countered the conservative Republican principle of limited government he, and other Republican conservatives espouse.

Speaking first following Lloyd’s motion to approve his emergency ordinance proposal, reading from a prepared statement Thompson told the audience that, not only did council not have the legal authority to pass such legislation, but that passing it would not protect the Valley Health employees who spoke in favor of Lloyd’s proposal, including doctors, nurses and nurse practitioners, from termination by their employer. While stating she personally believed in choice on medical decisions, as her vote with council in not mandating town employees to be vaccinated indicated, she observed that “Freedom goes in both directions”. She elaborated that in Virginia as a “Right to Work” state limiting union influence, employees anywhere can be fired for virtually any reason an employer might cite.

A council divided – Scott Lloyd did have one crossover vote from what seemed to be initial unanimous opposition to the legality of his anti-vaccine mandate ordinance proposal, but Joe McFadden was connected remotely. Lloyd might have been pondering what might have been different had that sixth council seat not been vacated at the meeting’s outset.

Thompson said that with the facts before them, she did not believe voting to approve the ordinance “to make everyone in the room happy” was “the right thing to do.”

In fact, Thompson cited Lloyd’s insistence in bringing his legislative initiative to a vote despite the lack of legal grounds for it as “political theater” geared toward the councilman’s personal agenda, which she had confronted him about at the July 12 work session perhaps being beyond the boundaries of the Town of Front Royal. As has been previously reported, Lloyd has past national political exposure, serving as the Trump Administration’s Director of Refugee Resettlement during a particularly controversial period at the southern border when refugee/immigrant children were being incarcerated separately from their parents or guardians who had entered the country illegally as administration policies delayed legal entry at prescribed border crossings for weeks.

Lloyd has noted he did not create the child-separation policy and was simply in the administrative position to implement it. He has also publicly noted he is far from a “zero-tolerance” stance on immigration.

A minority of two

However, one of the two people speaking against Lloyd’s anti-vaccine-mandate ordinance, Stevie Hubbard, ended her comments by loudly saying that whatever Lloyd did to protect personal liberties as a councilman, “Won’t make up for what you did to those kids at the border.”

When Hubbard cited COVID-19 case-fatality statistics found at the Virginia Health Department website to counter some of the pro-ordinance statistics presented by the anti-vaccine mandate majority, a number of people laughed derisively at her source.

Many of the pro-ordinance speakers reflected skepticism of, not only government information on the Coronavirus pandemic, but media coverage of it, as well as any legal roadblocks to the approval of Lloyd’s effort to counter the Valley Health COVID-19 vaccine mandate or others.

Councilman Lloyd, far left, and the second speaker against his ordinance proposal, Stevie Hubbard, weren’t seeing eye to eye on a variety of levels.

In addition to Hubbard, speaking against Lloyd’s proposal was Gene Kilby, whose family was at the center of fighting the local “massive resistance” effort to prevent the racial integration of Warren County Public Schools in the late 1950s, early ‘60s. In fact, Kilby observed, “This community has a history of going against the grain. It’s almost reminiscent of back in the day with the massive resistance problem.

“The State mandated that the schools be integrated. But because of groups like this (the county) built massive resistance, which was totally illegal,” he reminded council of the eventual legal outcome, adding that while he agreed people “should have their choice” that a final legislative decision must be grounded “in the rule of law – and you must act in the best interest of the general public,” Kilby concluded to a smattering of applause.

As the 31st speaker, Gene Kilby stated the first public opposition to the anti-Covid vaccine mandate at Monday’s meeting. Kilby urged the council to ‘act in the best interest of the general public’ rather than what he saw as a ‘special interest group’ with its own political agenda.

A majority of 49

John Lundberg opened the public comments on the Lloyd ordinance first citing an oft-revisited assertion that available COVID-19 vaccines were “experimental drugs” not yet approved by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) due to the public health emergency pace at which the vaccines were made available to the public.

John Lundberg was the first Public Concerns speaker and set a tone that COVID-19 vaccines remain ‘experimental drugs’ pending FDA approval despite their release under a state emergency public health order.

Some speakers claimed there were more traditional options “safer than Ibuprofen” available as an alternative to the vaccines. Others said that masking and social distancing were more effective barriers against COVID-19 contagion than the vaccine has proven to be.

A number of speakers raised religious belief as grounds not to accept a vaccine mandate. Others were critical of the religious exemption form Valley Health uses to determine if employees qualify for such exemption. “What’s next,” another asked, “are they going to go after our churches and tell us we can’t worship God?!?”

Manuel Vincente called the approaching vote on Lloyd’s proposal “a choice between liberty and fascism”. As for legal precedents against passage, Vincente said the U.S. Supreme Court had “decided in favor of genocide over and over again” in legalizing abortion.

Manuel Vincente took a tour down memory lane in making an analogy between his native country Cuba’s oppression of dissidents under Communist rule.

One speaker called COVID-19 “the Communist Chinese Virus”, while Matt Morrazzo referred to it as “the Wuhan-Fauci virus”. Gene McGirk later playfully criticized that reference “for giving Wuhan top billing”.

Morrazzo also wondered if the next step beyond vaccine mandates wouldn’t be “vaccine passports” you will need to go anywhere or do anything – “The infantry will be coming for all our rights,” he worried if the Coronavirus mandate trend continued.

Recently appointed Warren County School Board member Melanie Salins cited a COVID-19 vaccine packaging warning not to take it if allergic to any of its ingredients, observing that the vaccine package insert did not list the ingredients – “You can’t give informed consent if you’re not informed,” Salins said to applause. She compared Valley Health’s vaccine mandate to a legal definition of “assault” as “physical contact that happens without your explicit and voluntary consent”, drawing more applause. She concluded by asserting that the vaccine mandate violated “the Nuremberg Code” on medical ethics established after World War II in reaction to Nazi medical experiments conducted on imprisoned Germans or conquered populations.

Many Valley Health employees became emotional pondering the choice they were being given to accept the vaccine or face termination. Many wondered how frontline workers such as themselves had gone from being “heroes” for their efforts against the pandemic to targets for termination for their belief the vaccines are dangerous, not adequately tested, immorally developed, or in violation of their religious beliefs.

This mother, Michelle Scheutzow, worried that eventually she might be mandated to have her 20-month-old child, who has his own medical issues having survived 3 open heart surgeries, COVID-vaccinated without proper information on its potential dangers to him. Below, during a break, Councilman Lloyd speaks with supporters.

In arguing for his proposal, policy attorney Lloyd echoed some public comments in support of the emergency ordinance proposal, saying just because something had been ruled illegal in the courts, didn’t make it right or unchallengeable. While admitting the Town did not yet know whether its Virginia Municipal League municipal liability insurance would cover such a legal challenge of state authority on the matter, he offered to represent the Town in any subsequent legal challenge of his ordinance, if passed Monday night, and VML insurance paid attorneys ended up not being available to the Town.

Following the roll call vote and 3-2 defeat of Lloyd’s ordinance proposal by the now-five member council, as the angry and disappointed crowd disbursed, one man yelled at Councilwoman Letasha Thompson, who yelled back “watch your mouth” telling him not to “disrespect” her from the floor of Government Center meeting room. That only led to an escalating exchange leading to the man’s escort from the building by the Front Royal Police. Involved officers said the man was not arrested as he was compliant and settled down after their arrival.

Mayor Holloway and Councilman Gillespie point to man verbally berating Letasha Thompson for her role in defeating the ordinance proposal. Below, under the watchful eye of town police, the man counters that he’ll call who he wants, what he wants until that law enforcement presence suggested he drop that strategy.

See all the action, explanations, opinions, concerns on this important matter to the community, along with other business including the tabling of action on changes to the Town’s Special Events Code to further work session discussion, in the linked Town video.

Two downtown businessmen, Royal Cinemas Rick Novak and C&C Frozen Treats William Huck addressed the draft Special Events code, urging council to take more care in formulating a final draft regarding issues raised about a rating-approval matrix system seemingly geared toward larger, tourism and revenue-generating events at the perceived expense of smaller, community events.