Citizen critics of indicted county officials get personal – and impatient

Board Chairman Murray and County Administrator Stanley flank County Planning Director Taryn Logan after presenting her with a Certificate of Recognition for the County’s work in partnership with the Virginia Farmland Preservation Fund signed by Governor Northam. ‘As one of 16 Virginia localities that invested the time and resources to develop their own Purchase of Development Rights program, we would not have been able to reach this milestone without your help,’ State officials told the County. Royal Examiner Photos/Roger Bianchini. Video by Mark Williams, Royal Examiner.

It was a nearly full house of around 60 citizens, mostly angry and accusatory, that greeted the Warren County Board of Supervisors and staff at the first monthly meeting of October. Despite the 9 a.m. meeting time historically done to accommodate monthly reports including some from out of town officials, citizens upset about the EDA financial scandal were out in force Tuesday, October 1.

They appeared drawn by a late-added agenda item word of which quickly spread through the community. That item was consideration of the hiring of legal counsel at taxpayer expense for the defense of the five supervisors, county administrator and former county/EDA attorney each charged a week earlier, September 24, on three misdemeanor indictments of misfeasance or nonfeasance in the conduct of their public positions.

Those charges allege a lack of due diligent oversight of former EDA Executive Director Jennifer McDonald while the EDA financial fraud investigation was underway the final four months of last year, beginning in mid-September.

With public calls for a mass resignation of the board – though apparently not until they first fire County Administrator Doug Stanley – the thought of the board members, not only staying in office, but also using taxpayer generated County funds for their defense against charges they have already been deemed guilty as charged of in the court of social media and public opinion, is not a happy thought for many.

The consensus among those gathered for Tuesday morning’s meeting was no taxpayer-generated attorneys fees for you, unless maybe if you are acquitted. There was also an unusually large contingent of WCSO deputies, uniformed and plain clothes on the scene.

Seventeen speakers rose in the first round of public comments near the meeting’s beginning to address their various levels of unhappiness at the evolution of what has now been cited in civil litigation discussion as a $21 million embezzlement or misdirection of EDA assets over the past five-plus years. Then in the second, less time-restricted public comments section near the meetings end another 12 people rose, for the most part to continue the criticism of the lapse of oversight for which the supervisors and two staffers are now being criminally prosecuted for.

And about Valley Health
However one speaker, Melanie Salins, returned to her “Birth Local” roots fighting reduced services including the loss of a maternity ward in the new Valley Health hospital under construction off Leach Run Parkway. Sighting past potential conflicts of interest stretching across the Town, County and EDA boards that all approved the EDA issuance of a $60 million construction loan to Valley Health, Salins suggested the supervisors initiate a call among all three municipal and quasi-municipal organizations for Valley Health to volunteer to pay all fees associated with the bond issue to ease the financial pain on the community.

“The deal was created by people who had perceived conflicts of interest with an entity now alleged and charged in criminal and illegal activities. It gives the appearance that Valley Health is benefitting from certain ill-gotten gains. I can’t imagine Valley Health would want to benefit from criminal activity in any way, shape or form … Their agreement to donate these bond fees to you would be an excellent gesture of good will toward our community in the difficult spot we find ourselves in,” Salins suggested.

And Emily?

A final speaker, Steve Cullers, rose to criticize an earlier speaker’s drawing of Board Clerk Emily Mounce into the discussion of reemployment following what is already a volatile November Election campaign.

Steve Cullers rose to board clerk Emily Mounce’s defense after she was included in one speaker’s somewhat personalized negative critique of county governmental operations.

“This is a new low” in the public discourse, Cullers said of refocusing the personally-natured attacks that speaker James Harper had begun on County Administrator Stanley and Shenandoah District Supervisor Tom Sayre, before shifting to criticism of Mounce for her demeanor in the handling of his FOIA requests regarding County and EDA matters.

Yada, yada, yada
And between those volatile public comments sections as the meeting worked through other agenda items, including the Fiscal Year 2018 outside auditor’s report – positive for the County – and authorization for financial consultants to move on a Virginia Resources Authority (VRA) bond refinancing issuance that could save the County $7 million or more in interest payments if current interest rates hold through October 30, the crowd present for other business grew restless.

“How can that be?!?” Jim Bond yelled of the positive audit report being presented by Matthew McLearen of the Robinson, Farmer, Cox Associates firm contracted as the County auditor.
Then as County bond consultant Ted Cole of Davenport & Associates plowed through a rather laborious explanation of the financial variables and parameters involved in moving on the bond reissues several spectators, Paul Gabbert in particular, became frustrated with the time being devoted to multi-million decisions in the public interest, because after all, that was not Mr. Gabbert and many of those present’s interest of the moment.

Paul Gabbert interrupts meeting.

What Gabbert and others appeared not to grasp amidst the numerous bond reissuance variables was that the resolution of support Cole was setting the groundwork for included minimum savings totals and interest rates in effect on October 30 when the VRA refinancing goes out.

However the public complaining about, not only the length time the first of two bond reissue presentations took, but the seemingly dizzying variables on each past construction bond reissue led the board to delay a vote on authorization to proceed with the bond reissue until the October 15 meeting. Cole told the board that “mid-October” was the stated deadline VRS has put on municipal decisions to participate.

So hopefully VRS officials weren’t referring to “almost mid-October”, say October 14 to jump in if the now near historical low interest rates hold for the next month. Be ashamed to lose that equivalent of a penny of county real estate tax revenue annually that might be saved if the refinancing opportunity were lost at the current estimated total saving of over $7 million. As Board Chairman Dan Murray pointed out, each penny of real estate tax revenue generates around $400,000, which is about what projected annual savings are now at, Cole explained.

As a further accommodation to the large crowd present for the attorney fees discussion, the board also moved Cole’s second presentation on refinancing of the RSW Jail construction bond to after the attorney’s fee discussion. Action on approval of the jail bond refinancing was also postponed to October 15.

However additional groans and yelling from the crowd were heard when Carter noted that the board had no supporting documentation on the attorney payment situation and suggested delaying the matter to the December meeting. He noted that most of the defense attorney motions to quash the indictments against their clients would be heard on October 28, so the status of the charges would be clearer at that time.

Carter’s motion to postpone the discussion and a vote for two months was seconded by Linda Glavis. The motion passed by a 3-2 margin, with Sayre and Murray dissenting.
Some speakers suggested paying the requested legal fees only if the defendants are acquitted or the charges were dropped on he motions to quash. Sayre had prefaced discussion by noting he planned to pay his own attorney’s fees.

Carla Sayre, foreground doorway, and James Harper, not a past president of the Doug Stanley Fan Club, following a brief hallway dust up that attracted WCSO deputy attention following Harper’s late meeting jabs at her husband, Shenandoah District Supervisor Tom Sayre.

Some speakers suggested paying the requested legal fees with taxpayer money only if the defendants are acquitted or the charges were dropped on the motions to quash.

EDA charges background
As Royal Examiner has previously reported the misdemeanor indictments handed out to a mix of past and present County and EDA officials on September 24, cites a failure of oversight between September and December of 2018 as allowing a minimum of $309,000 in additional EDA resources to be misdirected or embezzled by the former EDA executive director. McDonald had first come under scrutiny for possible financially fraudulent activities regarding the Town of Front Royal in August 2018.

It was August 23 of last year when McDonald, then EDA/County Attorney Dan Whitten, and then EDA Board Chairman Greg Drescher were confronted by Town staff and auditors over the discovery of over eight years of debt service payments to the EDA which the Town should not have been responsible for. Town summaries of that meeting indicate it may have been the first time the word “fraud” was broached concerning EDA financial affairs.

Drescher resigned as EDA board chairman the following day and Whitten left County employment on September 13 of this year to take the county attorney’s job in Prince George County. Both were among the 14 County and EDA officials charged with a lack of due diligent oversight last week.

The Town has also filed a civil suit against the EDA seeking recovery of as much as $15 million of Town assets it believes were impacted in the EDA financial fraud situation.

Above the supervisors and below a portion of the crowd standing in the moment of silent prayer for community healing that County Board Chair Dan Murray has made a tradition of opening meetings with. Murray let board and staff criticism go other than several occasions when it took on an aggressively personal tone.

And in a late-breaking development that occurred during Tuesday morning’s county board meeting, the Town of Front Royal issued a press release through the Mayor and Council’s Office stating it was withdrawing from joint Town-County-EDA meetings, as well as participation in the joint Reform Committee formed to recommend changes to processes to prevent a recurrence of the EDA financial scandal. They are processes the EDA and County have already begun implementation of.

Watch the public comments and attorney fees discussion in the exclusive Royal Examiner video: