Despite worries over political ‘ping pong’ town council returns draft Agreement on Building Department to County – with one more change …

At times it seemed like a 3-way “Cage Match” of the professional wrestling variety, though with only one side having access to the ringside microphone – for the most part – and one having been banished from the venue prior to the start of the match. “The match” was Front Royal Town Council consideration of Memorandums of Agreement (MOA’s) with Warren County on, first, work session discussion of joint tourism efforts involving a third party, initially the Joint Tourism Committee and ultimately a 501 c6 Destination Marketing Organization (DMO) known as “Discover Front Royal”; and second, Special Meeting discussion of – to make another sports analogy – the passing of the baton of departmental responsibility for in-town-limits building inspections and permitting back to the County from whence the Town took it on January 3 of this year.

But issues with fees soaring high above County levels quickly drew the ire of county builders, who indicated they might stop taking jobs in town due to what they considered exorbitant fees, sending council back to the drawing board.

George Cline, standing to right during March 3 liaison committee meeting, criticizes town council’s process in creating a building inspections department. Royal Examiner Photos by Roger Bianchini

Those fee levels were a result of council’s decision to make the department self-supporting through its fees, as opposed to what Warren County, apparently like a majority of municipalities across the Commonwealth of Virginia do. What Warren and others have elected to do is subsidize that departmental budget partially through general taxpayer revenues due to the positive community-wide economic impact of new construction on expanding a community’s residential-and-commercial-tax revenue base.

Seven local builders were patiently present through the 7 p.m. work session and an hour-and-three-quarter closed meeting convened at the 8:30 p.m. conclusion of the work session.

So, if the builders might have been spoiling for some action when the one-topic Special Meeting convened at 10:15 p.m. they might have been forgiven as the “cage match” resumed in an open meeting setting.

Builders kill time during 1-3/4 hour closed session between Monday night’s work session and the one-topic Special Meeting they were there for.

But they were quietly polite as they listened to council members criticize county officials, particularly County Administrator Ed Daley and Interim County Attorney Jason Ham, for the late, post-5 p.m. afternoon delivery of an adjusted MOA from the one council apparently believed had been agreed upon at the Town-County Liaison Meeting of March 3rd.

That late delivery of a post-liaison committee meeting MOA led to some speculation of nefarious motives, perhaps even sabotaging of a joint municipal solution to the council’s self-created building permitting plight. Primarily of issue for council was the inclusion of a 5-year minimum on the length of time the County Building Department would maintain the in-town permitting and inspection function. Council believed a bypassing of what was initially a 10-year-minimum timeframe offered in the County’s draft MOA, then adjusted down to five years, and finally to a 60-day notice with no minimum amount of time before that 60-day notice could be enacted, had been achieved at the four-hour liaison committee meeting of March 3.

However, the 5-year minimum was part of the draft MOA language presented to council Monday evening. Consequently much subsequent discussion revolved around the Town maintaining its own department, while subsidizing 50% of the existing fees through general taxpayer revenues to soften the financial burden on builders and their clients.

Despite misgivings and lengthy discussion of maintaining its own building inspection department subsidized 50% through general tax revenue, eventually they ‘ping-ponged’ another adjusted draft MOA back to the County’s side of the net. The mayor and vice mayor were present virtually due to illness.

But eventually council unanimously approved a motion returning the draft MOA on the County’s re-assuming of the permitting function without any minimum timeframe other than the 60-day notice by the Town that it was withdrawing from the MOA to re-establish its own building department. That decision didn’t come before much debate over whether council should continue to play “political ping pong” with the County over MOA conditions. Some on council even wondered if the county’s elected officials were aware of the draft forwarded to them by the county administrator Monday.

Builder questions raised

As the discussion moved toward a motion to return a signed MOA to the County with the five-year minimum time frame removed, two builders were acknowledged for comment. First, Chris Ramsey rose to wonder at the agenda of the aforementioned 1-3/4-hour closed session. After acknowledging the presence of an attorney, Mr. Lloyd, on council, Ramsey wondered at the legality of discussion that took place behind doors closed to the public and media. “There’s an awful lot of discussion here that should never have been taking place in that closed session,” Ramsey theorized of apparently overlapping closed and open session topics related to the building department situation.

Town Manager Hicks, at left head of table, responded to questions about the closed meeting content by citing personnel aspects of the building inspections discussion behind closed doors.

Town Manager Steven Hicks responded that the closed session discussion revolved around personnel matters related to the building department in flux among others, and that would become apparent as the open session discussion progressed. However, as one builder observed after the meeting, it didn’t seem that clarity ever became apparent during the subsequent discussion leading to the unanimous approval of the MOA being returned to the County without the minimum five-year timeframe reference.

The motion into closed session in question forwarded to Royal Examiner by town staff the following day – it was not in the packet copied from the town website earlier that day – cited personnel matters “specific to the Town Manager’s performance in his role as Interim Building Code Official” among other current departmental or commission vacancies.

Following Ramsey’s observation on the seeming overlap of closed/open session agenda topics, Warren County Builders Association President George Cline was acknowledged at Councilman Lloyd’s suggestion. Cline has been very critical of the Town process in creating its own department without any communication with the building community or its county association. Monday he questioned council criticism of the return of an adjusted MOA by county staff. Noting council’s critical discussion of the County drawing the Town into a “ping-ponging” of the MOA back and forth, Cline said, “Quite frankly, the County’s doing the exact same thing you all have done – if you really want to look at the ping ponging.

Builders row Monday evening during opening work session discussion. They would have a 3-1/4-hour wait till convening of the Special Meeting discussion of building inspection issues. Hang in there, guys.

“I say that because on Friday, somebody from here sent another agreement over to the County. Who did that?” Cline inquired. As Lloyd began to respond with a palms up gesture, Hicks responded: “I did. It was part of the package I sent out to council to show them what’s in the package.”

“That agreement that you sent Friday had one year in it. It’s not this agreement,” Cline replied, apparently waving the MOA with the five-year minimum timeframe found in the agenda packet, presumably the one received by Hicks after 5 p.m. that afternoon that had raised such ire among some on council, including Amber Morris.

“Well, I don’t know what you have there. I know what we forwarded over to the County, the same agenda package that went out,” Hicks asserted. When Morris noted that she had not seen a draft MOA with a one-year minimum timeframe, Cline told council, “I can probably produce that for you tomorrow.”

An attempt to verify production of that version of a draft MOA received by the County was still pending at publication.
Both Mayor Holloway and Vice-Mayor Cockrell attended the meeting remotely, giving council a full complement of members for the special meeting and work session. Comments indicated the absences were due to illness.

Drug Court funding debate

In addition to the back and forth with the builders on issues surrounding the in-town permitting process and resolution of those issues, and general discontent with development of the Joint Tourism MOA, there was some in-house sparring – verbal of course – over funding a $40,000 share of a three-way $120,000 funding split (Town-County-Valley Health) to support establishment of a local Drug Court focused on rehabilitation helping opioid addicts, in particular, exit the drug recidivism lifestyle.

This in-house “Battle Royal” featured Scott Lloyd on the “not another well-intentioned governmental social safety network program draining hard-earned dollars from taxpayers” on one side; and Letasha Thompson, Gary Gillespie, among others on the “we have a serious and too-often fatal drug problem in this community that needs a unified intervention with a higher success rate than traditional court prosecution, conviction, jail and prison (12% to 15%). Nearby Winchester/Frederick County’s Drug Court success rate of 37% removed from the downward spiral of drug addiction was cited as the model for a local Drug Court a joint Town-County Committee has been researching for some time.

Scott Lloyd, left foreground, makes point against Town funding a third ($40,000) of an initial Drug Court budget. FRPD Chief Magalis, standing far end of table, told council the money would be well spent to address a serious drug problem inside the town limits. Eventually Lloyd softened his opposition.

In the end even Lloyd seemed to come around somewhat, calling his colleagues’ advocacy “well researched” and the drug court program perhaps an exception to the type of governmental-overseen social safety net programs he began by vilifying.

See these discussions and others, including some proposed upward adjustments to Town sewer service rates, and the future of Town water utility extension into the County’s North Corridor, in the Town video.

Special Meeting – March 14, 2022

Town Council Meeting – March 14, 2022

On that latter note, it seemed resurrection of discussion of a Town annexation of some county land in the Route 340/522 North Corridor might be on the horizon.

A Drug Treatment Court in Warren County may soon be a reality