After grilling Schools officials over budget variables, supervisors maintain distance from Farms Sanitary District management critics

Two items dominated the June 14 work session agenda of the Warren County Board of Supervisors: 1/ the Public School budget transfer and funding requests at the end of current Fiscal Year-2022, and approval of an FY-2023 budget prior to the end of this fiscal year in two weeks; and 2/ staff reports on financing and decision-making processes on projects in the Shenandoah Farms Sanitary District.

Trust me, this greeting is going to be the easiest part of tonite for you, County Administrator Ed Daley may have been thinking as he welcomed WC Public Schools Superintendent Chris Ballenger and Finance Director Rob Ballentine to the WCGC meeting room, as Board Chairman Cheryl Cullers chats with School Board Chairman Kristin Pence and member Melanie Salins. Below, Pence at the podium, outlined variables in the School Board’s transfer requests at the end of FY-22, and the newest numbers in its FY-23 Budget request with State numbers now added in.

A third matter, related to the latter Farms Sanitary District agenda item – questions about the county’s elected official’s decision-making processes regarding the present and future of Farms Sanitary District management from disgruntled Property Owners of Shenandoah Farms (POSF) LLC membership and its elected board of directors went largely unanswered. That was the verdict of several POSF members both inside and out of the Warren County Government Center (WCGC) following the final hour-and-twenty minutes of the 6 p.m. work session devoted to Farms issues.
County Administrator Ed Daley did answer some of the pre-submitted questions printed out as part of the agenda packet. However, pressing ones to the mind of Farms property owners engaged enough to participate in the voluntary membership POSF, were left unaddressed. And due to a unique perspective on the conduct of work sessions, at least from this reporter’s 30 years covering the local municipal governmental beats, by board Chair Cheryl Cullers, the opportunity to seek answers to all those pre-submitted questions was not offered to those citizens present.

Reviewing a code of conduct, Cullers made it clear at the outset that there would be no direct input by or Q&A between citizens present and the board during the work session. In fact, when POSF Board Chairman Ralph Rinaldi attempted to inject some clarifications to what he asserted were misperceptions on past POSF involvement in Sanitary District management, or advisory service to the County between 2011 and 2022, Cullers initially tried to cut him off before allowing him to inject two, brief factual clarifications. As this reporter told Cullers following the meeting, historically at both Town and County work sessions public input during work sessions has been at the discretion of the board chairman. And our experience dating back to the last century is that work sessions are often called to allow that additional degree of back and forth between citizens and their elected representatives on specific issues not generally offered by the meeting Public Comments format in which the board responds to citizen comments on non-agenda items are generally not made on the spot.

County Public Works Director Mike Berry during PowerPoint on one matter of disagreement between the supervisors and POSF. That matter is continued pursuit of the Old Oak Lane 4 & 5 projects as costs on the approximate one-mile stretch of road continue to skyrocket. The supervisors have decided to continue the project with added drainage variables. The POSF recommended abandonment in favor of more cost effective road maintenance over longer stretches of road. Should costs continue to rise in the current inflationary environment without additional state funding help, the board may want to reconsider its decision, County Administrator Daley, left at staff table below, observed.

“I guess it’s a matter of interpretation,” Cullers replied, noting the work session agenda item had been “advertised as a presentation” by staff on aspects of Farms Sanitary District management.

But the current board chairman’s “interpretation” of work session dynamics left a bad taste in the mouth of several POSF members present, including one, Tracie Lane, who noted she had submitted one of what is now seven applications the supervisors have received for what is to be a five-person Shenandoah Farms Advisory Board. That supervisors-appointed board will replace the advisory function the member-elected Board of Directors of the Property Owners of Shenandoah Farms has performed for the last 11 years.

“What do you think the chances are I’ll be appointed,” Lane asked this reporter with a “slim to none” look on her face following the meeting. “We are whistleblowers,” she added of her perception of the POSF’s input as the County’s past advisory role partner since 2011 when POSF relinquished its role as the Sanitary District’s first management entity from the 1995 creation of the Farms Sanitary District into 2011.

And it is the current county supervisors and their appointed Sanitary District management staff that many in the POSF believe are poised to blow the whistle on flawed choices on cost-effective expenditures of Sanitary District tax revenue on road maintenance and repair; and as some like Joe Longo have alluded, perhaps even unauthorized and potentially legally questionable movement of Farms Sanitary District tax revenue to uses outside the district.

So, while County Administrator Daley did answer pre-submitted questions on the appointment process and meeting logistics of the Advisory Board being put in place to replace the POSF’s role, more telling questions went unaddressed. Those included why the board or its administrative staff have not even responded to seven POSF requests for a joint meeting in the wake of its effort to regain district project management control with its notice of termination of the 2011 Agreement by which POSF, as then and again Chairman Rinaldi has pointed out, voluntarily handed management of a Sanitary District annual budget approaching a million dollars over to the County. Also submitted but unanswered were questions on where large sums of Sanitary District tax revenue have been moved, why the district’s financial reports are not being made available to POSF, as well as what qualification criteria would be applied to Advisory Board appointments.
And County silence on those most pointed questions submitted as requested did not sit well with Lane and other Farms residents gathered in the WCGC parking lot following the meeting to discuss what they had just seen and heard. Did the fact that questions revolving around the supervisors’ decision to cut POSF out of the Sanitary District management equation it has been directly involved in one way or the other for 27 years indicate county officials are circling their legal wagons in anticipation of a potential civil court challenge of the path it is on?

As Royal Examiner has previously observed, stay tuned “sports fans” to the July 1 turn of the Fiscal Year when the new management system absent the POSF for the first time in 27 years, is poised to take effect.

However, everybody may not be spoiling for a legal fight. POSF Chairman Rinaldi and County Administrator Daley did appear to continue a civil discourse begun in the WCGC meeting room following the 8:51 pm adjournment, in the parking lot indicating at least some level of ongoing communications and efforts at informational exchanges.

POSF Chair Rinaldi chats with County Administrator Daley after work session adjournment – could meaningful communications between the two boards be in the offing? Thus far the county’s elected officials have met a cited 7 POSF requests for a joint meeting on the Farms Sanitary District’s management future with silence.

It was a long evening for Rinaldi, who pulled double duty Tuesday night as a School Board member present in support of Schools Superintendent Chris Ballenger and School Board Chair Kristin Pence during that hour-and-twenty-minute – 6:10 pm to 7:30 pm – portion of the work session (see a coming Royal Examiner story on the School Board budget discussion). The first two agenda items, presentations by Assistant Finance Director Alisa Scott on first, Health Insurance Consulting Services; and second, on a switch to the Virginia Risk Sharing Association (VRSA) for a wide range of insurance, including liability, coverages, took a total of 10 minutes at the meeting’s outset.

See the entire county board-school board discussion of requested budget transfers to enable bonuses for staff who pulled additional duties last year during ongoing consequences and staffing shortages related to COVID, among other budget variables beginning at the 9:23 mark of the linked County meeting video thru the 1:30:00 mark, at which point the meeting adjourned for a short break. The above-referenced Farms portion of the meeting, featuring presentations on finances and maintenance and road improvement projects by Finance Director Matt Robertson, Public Works Director Mike Berry, and Sanitary District Manager Michael Coffelt, begins at the 1:30:20 mark and continues near the meeting’s end where a date and time – 6:00 pm Thursday, June 23 – for interviews with Farms Sanitary District Advisory Board applicants, as well as some to fill FR-WC EDA Board vacancies, is discussed.

Does Robertson answer POSF questions on the Farms Sanitary District’s tax revenue uses and movement? – You be the judge, though perhaps an easier resolution could be ascertained if Robertson had been asked to respond directly to the Sanitary District financing questions submitted by citizens in introducing his presentation.