EDA Confidentiality Agreement sends 2 councilmen out of closed session

Closed to you – and you and you – Photos/Roger Bianchini

FRONT ROYAL – As Royal Examiner reported in its introduction to a video of the annual auditor’s report to the Town Council Finance Committee on November 19, following that report and a scheduled work session council adjourned to a closed session with officials of the Front Royal-Warren County Economic Development Authority. 

Informed of no anticipated announcement from that work session that included continuation of a several month long discussion of “debt service related to prior and current budget years regarding the Economic Development Authority” that requires “the provision of legal advice” and a late addition: discussion of “a prospective business or industry … where no previous announcement has been made of the business’ or industry’s interest … in the community” the media present evacuated town hall – apparently a tad too quickly. 

For if those two intrepid reporters had stuck around just a bit longer they would have seen two councilmen – John Connolly and Jacob Meza banished from the closed session. At issue for the two was a request from EDA officials present – Executive Director Jennifer McDonald, recently-installed EDA Board of Directors Chairman Gray Blanton and board member Ron Llewellyn – for the signing of a confidentiality agreement. 

A more relaxed John Connolly, foreground, during a past council work session.

According to Connolly that agreement related to the late addition topic of a prospective business or industry’s interest in expanding into the community. And Connolly said the EDA officials were clear in explaining they were simply forwarding the requirement a confidentiality agreement be required to sit in on the discussion. 

Connolly, who did not run for reelection this year, said he felt the signing of a confidentiality agreement by council adjourning to its own closed meeting that by its own rules details must remain confidential didn’t seem appropriate to him. 

“I don’t think it says much about our relationship with our EDA that they feel they need to require or pass along a request for an extra layer of confidentiality,” Connolly said. He elaborated that he felt it was not a violation of the closed meeting rules that he discuss the confidentiality agreement because that was not a stated purpose of the closed meeting. 

Jacob Meza joined Connolly in refusing to sign a confidentiality agreement in an already confidential closed meeting.

Meza agreed. 

“What I can say is that in closed session I’ve always felt protected by the fact that anything you discuss will always remain confidential. And so not having advance notice of something prior to that; not getting a chance to talk to our attorney just made me feel uncomfortable,” Meza told Royal Examiner. 

Connolly said he found it odd that the agreement presented to council on November 19 was dated April with only EDA Executive Director McDonald’s name printed on it and the council’s names handwritten in. 

“I just thought the April dating was weird,” Connolly said, adding his impression was there had been no advance notice to the Town that such a request would be made to participate in the closed session. 

“It is still unclear to me if it was communicated to the mayor or others – but it was not communicated to me,” Connolly said. “I have been on council four years and this is the first time multiple members have been excluded from a closed meeting due to an outside request.” 

Meza was also put off by the sudden procedural change being sprung on council. “Number one I don’t sign anything I don’t have a chance to review. Since I’ve been on council I’ve never experienced something like that,” he said of the unanticipated addition of a confidentiality agreement requirement being added to a closed meeting. 

Connolly said he and Meza were in the Town Hall hallway for about half an hour before they were allowed back in to participate in the discussion about EDA-Town loan payment discrepancies uncovered by the Town’s Finance Director B. J. Wilson. 

Upon his return to the closed meeting after the EDA officials’ departure, Connolly said he did notice one more oddity – the signed confidentiality agreements had been left behind by the departed EDA trio. 

From left, EDA Board Chair Gray Blanton, board member Ron Llewellyn and Executive Director Jennifer McDonald prior to adjournment to closed session.

“How important were they really, anyway?” Connolly wondered. He said he believed Town Attorney Doug Napier had collected the agreements signed by the remaining councilmen present – Chris Morrison was absent – and two councilmen elect, Letasha Thompson and Chris Holloway; and had called to see if the EDA wanted to pick up the signed agreements. 

Asked about the status of the signed confidentiality agreements after council’s November 26 meeting, Napier declined comment. 

Connolly made one other observation, noting Morrison’s absence. “If three councilmen had refused to sign they couldn’t have discussed that topic in closed session,” he observed of the lack of a quorum were three councilmen expelled from the meeting.