Egger, Connolly butt heads over workforce housing project changes

Not quite 15 minutes into Monday night’s Front Royal Town Council meeting a somewhat testy exchange developed between Councilmen John Connolly and Bébhinn Egger.  Responding to Egger’s May 8 request for information related to recent major changes announced to the Economic Development Authority’s Workforce Housing project, Connolly was critical.

At odds – Bébhinn Egger, to left of Vice-Mayor Gene Tewalt and Mayor Hollis Tharpe wants answers about new revelations about the EDA’s workforce housing project. Photos/Roger Bianchini

“We are here tonight to handle town business … it should NOT be a forum for every personal grievance of members … I am not interested in using our time on grandstanding,” Connolly said.

Egger replied pointedly that council had been given misinformation by the EDA’s executive director publicly at a previous council meeting – “That is why I did it publicly; I was NOT grandstanding, nor is it a personal grievance – and it is my right as a councilman to ask these questions.”

John Connolly, to Mayor Tharpe’s left, was critical of Egger’s attempt to seek answers from the EDA about previously incorrect information and the recent revelation of confidential agreements and unmentioned deadlines.

And while Mayor Hollis Tharpe agreed with Egger on that point, he also downplayed the town’s involvement.  He asked her not to submit her questions to the EDA through Acting Town Manager Joe Waltz, but rather submit them directly to the EDA.  Egger replied that she had wanted the answers circulated to all councilmen and the mayor, which is why she sought the town manager’s assistance in submitting them and receiving the replies.

Egger’s questions revolved around the April 28 revelation there was a confidential agreement between the EDA and Mr. and Mrs. Walter L. Campbell containing a previously un-mentioned March 1 deadline for the Campbells’ gift of the 3-1/2 acre parcel to remain a gift.  That deadline having now passed, the EDA is in the position of having to purchase the property for the $445,000 price attached to the deed of transfer.  As Egger pointed out in a November 14, 2016 council meeting discussion with EDA Executive Director Jennifer McDonald, that price was $140,000 above the 2015 assessed value of the property.

A shot down Royal Lane toward its dead end at the boundary of the EDA’s workforce housing project. Photo/Roger Bianchini

Egger was particularly disturbed that that price was NOT based on an appraisal, as McDonald told her it was in response to a direct question at that November 14 meeting.  However, the EDA will NOW seek an appraisal that could impact the initial decision to proceed with a purchase.

On Monday night Egger requested answers from the EDA to the following questions by May 19, three days before council’s next meeting:

• Who put the $445,000 price on the now-voided gifted deed of transfer;
• A timeline on all permitting for the project, particularly now that fingers have apparently been pointed the town’s way for the failure to meet the March 1, 2017 deadline;
• Why there was a confidential agreement between the EDA and the Campbells on the land transfer;
• An itemization of how the EDA has already spent $500,000 on the project, leading to the decision to proceed with a purchase of the property;
• Public disclosure of all familial relationships between anyone involved in the transaction;
• And finally, appraisal prices on the Afton Inn and old Stokes Mart/B&G Goods building the EDA is also involved in managing or marketing.

However, her colleagues seemed less interested in the misinformation and previously undisclosed confidential agreement that gave the EDA less than nine months to accomplish – WHAT isn’t exactly clear.  The conditions attached to the June 6, 2016 “gifted” land transfer remain part of that apparently still-confidential agreement between the EDA and the Campbells.

McDonald revealed the existence of that agreement after the EDA’s closed meeting and subsequent April 28 unanimous vote to pursue a purchase of the property that had previously been presented as a gift from the Campbells.  Following Egger’s request for information on family ties of parties involved in the transaction, Mayor Hollis Tharpe later confirmed that he has distant family ties “by marriage” to the Campbells.  McDonald disclosed that the couple are her aunt and uncle when the project and land transaction were first discussed by the EDA in September 2014.  The Campbells were to receive a federal tax credit in exchange for their gift of the property to the EDA.  Our research indicates such tax credits are based on a third of the value of the transferred property.

What’s the Town got to do with it?

Connolly’s assertion, supported to some extent by Mayor Tharpe, that the project doesn’t really involve council since there is no town tax money going directly to finance it seems to ignore three things:

1. the originally-planned 36 apartment units, designed as young professional workforce retention is IN town;
2. council approved a conditional use permit so residential units could be placed on the 3-1/2 acres in a commercially-zoned area to facilitate the project;**
3. and despite neighborhood safety concerns, by a 5-1 vote (Egger dissenting) council approved town code exceptions for dead-end Royal Lane. Royal Lane’s lone entry-exit point is where Route 55 East (John Marshall Highway) turns from two to five lanes entering town.  There are currently 99 existing residences (nine single-family homes and 90 apartments) and three commercial buildings along 800-foot, dead end Royal Lane.  Council’s November 14 vote allows the road to be extended beyond the 800-foot town code maximum for dead end streets.

We asked Egger about her colleagues’ reaction to her proposed inquiry to the EDA.

“I am disappointed by my mayor and fellow councilman.  The time for requests and inquiries of Councilmen is just that – a time for requests and inquiries of Councilmen.  For John Connolly, the resident parliamentarian himself, to try to dictate who is allowed to say what is actually pretty funny – if it weren’t so terribly disrespectful.

“For the Mayor to suggest that the council does not deserve answers to my questions because we are not directly footing the bill for this project is also laughable.  We voted on rezoning and special road exceptions directly after being given false information at a public meeting by the EDA.

“My only goal is to now get accurate information, at a public meeting, from the EDA.  The past two-and-a-half years have shown me that this is probably a hopeless cause.  But for the next 46 days* I will keep trying, because I believe that government should be open, honest, and transparent, and not conducted behind closed doors or through email threads.  I am sick of the Town being (mislead) and taken advantage of.  It seems that some on Council are okay with that.”

* Egger has announced her resignation from council effective July 1.  She will be moving out of the area following her pending marriage.

** we initially reported a rezoning of the parcel, but town staff explained that rather, it was approval of a Special Use Permit to allow residential development on the Commercially-zoned property.