EDA moves to improve financial accountability, communications & legality

The new-look EDA includes from left, Dan Whitten’s tie, Greg Harold, Tom Patteson, Doug Parsons, Gray Blanton, Bruce Drummond, Ed Daley, Jeff Browne and Gretchen Henderson’s hand. Royal Examiner Photos/Roger Bianchini. Video by Mark Williams.

On the job for under two months himself, Executive Director Doug Parsons greeted Greg Harold and Jeff Browne to their first meeting as members of the Front Royal-Warren County Economic Development Authority Board of Directors shortly after 8 a.m., Friday morning, June 28.

And it didn’t take long for the new members to get their feet wet as the newly-tooled EDA – Executive Director Parsons (on the job since May 8; his Administrative Assistant Gretchen Henderson (May 6); Harold and Browne (appointments announced June 18) – attempts to right itself in the wake of a $21 million financial scandal that has seen criminal charges brought against both former Executive Director Jennifer McDonald and her Administrative Assistant Missy Henry, both of whom remain jailed without bond.

In fact legal consultation regarding the EDA’s nine-defendant civil litigation and Front Royal’s recently-filed lawsuit seeking recovery of an estimated $3 million in Town assets from the EDA, as well as ongoing accounting, loan and debt service issues were two of four topics of a closed session that lasted just short of four hours.

And while there were no announcements about EDA litigation following the closed session’s re-adjournment to open session at 12:42 p.m. there were a series of Resolutions and motions approved designed to increase financial accountability and oversight and to begin marketing some EDA properties seen as financial Albatrosses. Those properties include the vacant warehouse at 426 Baugh Drive, a property at 404 Fairgrounds Road and the former Stokes Mart property now housing the Main Street Market at 506 East Main Street and a currently damaged and un-occupiable three-unit residential apartment building.

In fact the legal tightrope the EDA is walking regarding State Codes that prohibit EDA’s from running businesses or acting as residential landlords was a topic of discussion during the initial open session that began at 8 a.m. Following Parsons’ Executive Report reference to the EDA’s payment of temporary motel housing for the three displaced tenants of the residential apartments in the wake of a tenant vehicle accident resulting in a crash into the building, board member Ed Daley noted the State Code prohibition on certain activities that would place EDA’s in direct competition with the private sector.

Daley worried that the EDA’s initial funding of those three tenants temporary housing gave the appearance the EDA was the residential landlord of the Main Street Market apartment building. However EDA Attorney Dan Whitten explained that the Main Street Market owners, Jeff and Ginny Lesser, were actually the residential building landlords. The EDA leases the entire property to the Lessers with an option to buy, and the Lessers’ lease includes their control of the residential building at the corner of the property. However it was also noted that the Lessers pay the EDA that collected rent, further muddying an already murky business arrangement.

Parsons also said the insurance company of the tenant whose brakes failed causing the crash into the building had agreed to reimburse the EDA for the temporary housing costs at the nearby Quality Inn. Those costs are $1100 dollars per month.

Doug Parsons, left, addresses questions during his executive director’s report Friday morning, June 28.

Responding to a board question, Parsons said that while he did not have a signed agreement to that effect, he did have an email from Progressive expressing its intention to cover those temporary housing costs. It was suggested a signed agreement might firm up that commitment legally.

Also during the afternoon portion of the open meeting the EDA board minus absent Mark Baker, by a 6-0 vote approved Daley’s motion to schedule a special EDA board meeting to prepare for a joint meeting with the Warren County Board of Supervisors and Front Royal Town Council. A date for the three-way joint meeting has yet to be set.

See the above-cited discussions and your new-look EDA at work on a variety of fronts in the linked Royal Examiner video: