Supervisors get a holiday serenade, a report on state redistricting problems – and an unsubstantiated personal attack on member

At its meeting Tuesday morning, December 14, the Warren County Board of Supervisors got an array of outside agency and county departmental reports – the most interesting perhaps on the confusing state of statewide electoral redistricting from acting County Attorney Jason Ham – was holiday serenaded by the E. Wilson Morrison 5^th Grade Chorus, dealt with just two action items and a 21-point Consent Agenda before adjourning to Closed Session to discuss its three-pronged EDA civil litigation involving asset recovery from former EDA executive director Jennifer McDonald and countersuits with the Town of Front Royal over what is owed to who by whom.

Soothing sounds: The E. Wilson Morrison 5th Grade Chorus sings a holiday song to the supervisors. Below, grating sounds: Apparently bored since the Dec. 8 end of his two-year, largely interim and highly-paid term overseeing personnel overhauling in FR Town Hall, ‘Mad Matt’ Tederick reads from the story he has on multiple occasions qualified as not knowing if it was true or not, and calls for the resignation of Supervisor Walt Mabe over the unproven allegations in that story, among other accusations. Royal Examiner Photos by Roger Bianchini

But that’s not all folks – the board also got an encore performance of Matt Tederick’s cabal conspiracy theory speech (beginning at 33:15 of LINKED County video), with the addition of a call for the removal of Shenandoah District Supervisor Walt Mabe. That call was made due to a thus-far unsubstantiated allegation that Mabe received an early leaked copy of the Front Royal Planning Commission Investigative Report on the approval process involving Tederick’s fellow county Republican Committee member, Mayor Chris Holloway’s construction company’s application for a non-conforming subdivision permit.

As noted in our lead story on Tederick’s Public Comments first delivered the previous evening to the Front Royal Town Council, in a story written for the Warren-Frederick County Report by Tom Sayre, the man Mabe unseated as Shenandoah District supervisor two years ago, it is alleged that Mabe received that leaked report copy from town planning commission member Darryl Merchant. However, as also previously reported the lead of two women making that allegation, Stevi Hubbard, told this reporter at the time she was shopping the story, that she never saw the alleged leaked copy, which was never publicly circulated prior to the Front Royal Town Council’s official release of it on November 17. To this reporter’s knowledge, the WC-FC Report is the only one of five local papers that published a story about Hubbard’s somewhat vague allegations about the leak that included its being left for Mabe under a newspaper in The Daily Grind by someone, allegedly Merchant, who had left the area prior to Mabe’s arrival.

But not to belabor Tederick’s “cabal” leak conspiracy theory – which this reporter, Royal Examiner, and Publisher Mike McCool also continue to be at the center of – any further, we’ll move on to action items and discussion at the county supervisors December 14 meeting. (writer’s note: See The Examiner’s Stephen Sill’s linked story “Town Planning Commission Meeting Explodes Into Third-Hand Allegations of Skullduggery” on Wednesday’s Front Royal Planning Commission meeting where “Mad Matt” made it a Trifecta of public allegations of a nefarious alliance targeting Front Royal Mayor Chris Holloway, and apparently all things good in the universe.)

Back to the agenda

As to the state of state-mandated electoral redistricting based on changing population trends ascertained from a decade of census numbers, the supervisors were briefed by Acting County Attorney Jason Ham on hang-ups at the state, and apparently national, level. County Planning Director Joe Petty then briefed the board on two proposed options for Warren County redistricting based on available census information.

Interim County Attorney Jason Ham reviews the status of election redistricting controversy at the state and federal level and how it might impact the County’s redistricting proposals.

Of delays in finalizing a county plan with an initial State deadline of December 31^st, Ham told the supervisors, “We are still needing to monitor whatever the state does because if we do ours and theirs results in us having a split precinct we’ll have to re-do ours. So, it’s kind of a mess, a statewide mess. It’s not a mess of our creation – it’s COVID and delays caused by the census and more delays compounded by the delays down the line at the state and federal levels.”

In introducing County Planning Director Petty’s summary of two redistricting options under consideration and responding to North River Supervisor Delores Oates question of whether it was “futile” to proceed at this point, Ham observed, “I don’t know if I’d go that far. I think it’s worth your all-seeing what he’s come up with – it might end up being okay. We were working on this because it is supposed to be done by the end of the year … but the Virginia Redistricting Commission failed to do their job and now it’s at the desk of the Virginia Supreme Court.

“And that seems very strange to me, but that’s what’s happening. And the Virginia Supreme Court is busy with lots of other things to do, and this is not normally what they do, but it’s important. So, I hope it will be done quickly and that it will be compatible with one of these plans,” Ham said in handing off to County Planning Director Petty.

Planning Director Joe Petty presents PowerPoint on two election redistricting options developed for Warren County. Below, one PowerPoint frame explains election district and precinct requirements.

In the full County video, the redistricting discussion begins at the 57:20 mark, with Petty handing off to legal counsel 15 seconds later, and legal counsel and the board handing the discussion back to the planning director for his PowerPoint presentation on redistricting options at 1:02:57. The discussion wraps up at 1:19:15.

Board reports followed the 1:32:07 video mark, with the County Administrator’s and County Attorney’s reports following at 1:32:05 and 1:36:20, respectively. A comment highlight was Happy Creek Supervisor Tony Carter’s observation at the 1:36:00 mark that the December 20^th swearing-in of new members Vicky Cook and Jay Butler at the county courthouse would be the beginning of their continued “swearing” in their new electoral roles replacing Archie Fox and Carter respectively, neither of whom ran for re-election.

During his report, Ham noted six contracts being approved as part of the aforementioned 21-item Consent Agenda. He explained minor wording changes that would allow the county administrator “to execute all the referenced agreements” with any changes necessary to the drafts. After Supervisor Delores Oates noted the board’s authority to authorize any expenditures over a certain amount and added discussion about communications between Daley and Ham on contractual adjustments, on a motion by Oates, seconded by Mabe, the board approved the Consent Agenda with two items removed for discussion.

Mabe removed item 7, a request by Warren County Public Schools to transfer $63,650 from Contingency Reserves to the Instructional Budget for Fiscal Year-2021-22; and Oates removed item 5, approval of the purchase of UKG (Ultimate Kronos Group) as a “Total Human Resources Information System (HRIS)”. Due to the absence of Schools Superintendent Chris Ballenger or anyone else from the school board administrative office to address the need for the transfer, at the county administrator’s suggestion item 7 was moved to the January 4 meeting for consideration. And following staff explanation that the UKG-HRIS Human Resources system was a stand-alone system that wouldn’t interface with financial or other systems, item 5 was approved on a motion by Oates, seconded by Mabe.

Moving to its action items, on a motion by Oates, seconded by Fox, the board approved first, an Incentive Grant Agreement with Nature’s Touch Frozen Foods for its location to the Inland Port area announced by the governor on site recently. As explained by County Administrator Daley, the agreement is typical of those offered to businesses over the years for major investments in locating operations in the county.

After some discussion on the necessity to coordinate with the “Discover Front Royal” tourism initiative to jointly apply for a $170,000 made available by the state governor’s office for tourism promotion through the  American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) to aid in re-establishing the community’s tourism potential post-COVID-19 pandemic restrictions on travel and related activities, the board, again unanimously as all votes of approval were, approved authorization to move forward on the ARPA money application.

Following the closed session related to EDA litigations, there were no announcements or actions taken and the open meeting was adjourned with a round of “Merry Christmases” and holiday wishes.

Watch the meeting video here.