Board Chairman Murray makes political, state financial restitution waves

As County Board Chair, Dan Murray, center, has made a habit of calling for a personal moment of prayer for community healing prior to convening meetings in the wake of reactions to the EDA financial scandal. Royal Examiner Photos/Roger Bianchini. Video by Mark Williams, Royal Examiner.

One political bombshell punctuated the balance of the Tuesday morning, September 3, Warren County Board of Supervisors meeting. That was Board Chairman Dan Murray’s announcement that he was dropping any partisan political allegiance for the balance of his tenure on the local political scene. Murray has announced his retirement from the board for personal and health reasons at the end of his current term when November board election winners are sworn in to begin 2020.

“Looking at the political atmosphere in this county and the disruptions in this county, I have done some soul searching. And it is very hard to be true and transparent and to consider myself a member of any one political party. So I would like to publicly announce that I’m independent,” Murray said during reports of board members, adding, “I do not vote a party line, I vote for what’s best for where I live. So that violates the party’s policies and procedures and being that I’m violating those I’m declaring myself an independent.”

Murray has been a Warren County Republican Committee member his entire term on the county board. He won an unusual three-way race for the North River District seat on the Warren County Board of Supervisors in November 2011.

In that race former county Republican Committee member and Front Royal Town Councilman Chris Holloway declared himself a Democrat and with a contingent of 15 to 20 friends secured the Democratic Committee North River caucus nomination away from incumbent Democrat Glenn White. If memory serves, White was the county’s lone sitting incumbent Democrat at the time. In reaction to that, Democratic Committee member Tory Failmezger jumped into the race as an Independent write-in candidate.

With the opposition vote thus split, Murray won as the Republican Committee nominee. It is a four-year term he has once since been reelected to.

Murray with County Administrator Doug Stanley, at podium, and RSW Jail Deputy Superintendent Steve Weaver at the Aug. 29 McShin Foundation-sponsored Virginia Recovery & Rehabilitation Summit at the Mountain Home Bed & Breakfast on Remount Road on the county’s southside.

Prior to that announcement Murray forwarded the McShin Foundation initiative to see that some state-recovered funding from litigation seeking restitution from major pharmaceutical companies for their pushing of highly-addictive opioid drugs into the prescription marketplace in recent years, be funneled into inmate substance-abuse recovery and rehabilitation programs.

A path forward from drug-fueled criminality – if anyone cares to listen

Murray noted the grassroots and local municipal foundation upon which that effort may need to spring from. The goal is acquiring a portion of state-controlled settlement or court-ordered pharmaceutical assets to assist funding of such proactive programs designed to limit criminal recidivism. The topic was part of a closed session discussion with legal representation for such an effort.

See Murray’s drug rehab funding initiative, political independence announcement and other County business in the linked Royal Examiner video: