Front Royal Town Council goes behind closed doors on councilman’s right-of-way request

FRONT ROYAL — Front Royal Town Council members on July 15 held a roughly 15-minute work session before heading into a closed meeting regarding the Town’s disposition of publicly held real property.

Specifically, Town Council members needed to discuss an application by Front Royal Town Councilman Chris Holloway, who owns the privately held Chris Holloway Construction LLC in Front Royal, Va., to purchase or have a portion of an unimproved right-of-way on Carter Street vacated by the Town.

While further details were scant on Monday night, the right-of-way request went behind closed doors because “discussion in an open meeting would adversely affect the bargaining position or negotiating strategy of Town Council,” according to the work session agenda. All council members present unanimously agreed to the motion to go into a closed meeting on the item.

Near the start of the work session, Councilwoman Letasha Thompson broached the Crooked Run 2 development company request, which seeks Town water-sewer service for primarily residential development outside the town limits.

“I’d like to get a public hearing or whatever it is we need to do” regarding the Crooked Run West project, Thompson said during the council/mayor related items segment of the work session.

Crooked Run West LLC wants to rezone from commercial to a mixed-use but primarily residential project if the Town of Front Royal will supply the necessary water and sewer for it. Currently, agreements between the Town and Warren County on supplying water-sewer services to this area only allow commercial development so the request requires a change in the comprehensive plan.

Town Manager Joe Walsh said Monday that he interprets Town Code to mean that once the County has made such a request, it’s the Town’s turn to determine how it wants to proceed.

“The way I read the code, the ball’s in our court to make a decision at this point,” Walsh told the council members, noting that the county must apply for the water prior to any rezoning.

Walsh added that the county’s letter of request was received in April, the council looked at it in April, “but we didn’t do anything about it,” he said.

Councilmen Jacob Meza and Holloway were keen on pushing the decision off until the council’s next work session until they receive more details and data from Walsh.

“We need to understand everything that goes into that, not just whether we’re going to supply water or not,” Meza said.

“That’s why I thought they were coming back to us,” said Vice Mayor William Sealock, referring to the Warren County Board of Supervisors. “The decision basically is we supply or do not supply.”

Walsh said the item could be placed on the calendar for the council’s August 15 work session. He said he’ll provide more information to better inform council members at that time.

In other work session business, Town Council members heard from Town Finance Director B.J. Wilson that no bids have been received to date for the non-exclusive cable system franchise bid opening.

“We will move forward with the franchise agreement in some fashion and come back to the council in the future,” Wilson said.

Jeremy Camp, Town director of Planning & Zoning, had pretty much the same report for Town Council members regarding bids for the Facade Improvement Program. He said only one bid had been received and “it was not competitive” and was “way out of the ballpark.”

Based on input from contractors, Camp said the program’s management team has decided to rebid it.

“We’ll get back to you once we go through that rerun of the bidding process,” Camp said.

The Royal Examiner’s camera was there: