He’s back – Joe Waltz joins George Sonnett as permanent fills, respectively, to the Town Manager and Town Attorney spots

After nearly an hour-and-a-half in a Special Meeting Executive/Closed Session called for Wednesday evening, November 9, to interview candidates for and discuss the Town Manager’s position, the Front Royal Town Council, on a motion by Gary Gillispie, authorized the appointment effective November 21st, of former Town Manager Joe Waltz to his old position by a 5-0 vote (Letasha Thompson absent). Waltz left the town manager’s job about three years ago to take the director’s position of a regional energy cooperative in Ohio. The town manager’s position here was vacated in the wake of the August 8 split council vote to terminate Steven Hicks from that job.

It might be noted that current Interim Town Manager Kathleen Leidich, hired as Assistant Town Manager during Hicks relatively brief town manager’s tenure, confirmed to Royal Examiner earlier in the day that she had given notice of her pending departure to a job with VDOT in Northern Virginia.

Prior to convening the closed session about 10 minutes into the 6 p.m. meeting, council, also on a motion by Gillispie, seconded by Zach Jackson, announced the appointment of long-time Assistant Town Attorney George Sonnett, currently serving as Interim Town Attorney, to that job on a permanent basis effective immediately. If not the town manager’s appointment, that of a town attorney had been cited in the special meeting agenda.

Wait a second, this guy looks familiar – Joe Waltz waits in Town Hall meeting room prior to most of council’s arrival to convene Wednesday evening’s Special Meeting to consider the future of the town manager’s position. Below, George Sonnett expresses gratitude to council and the mayor for his elevation to the top town attorney’s position after a 15-year apprenticeship.

Upon his appointment, Sonnett said this to council and Mayor Chris Holloway: “First of all, thank you mayor, vice-mayor, council members for this vote of confidence. I greatly appreciate it and look forward to assisting this council and future councils in moving the town forward for the benefit of the citizens of the town. And I do want to acknowledge the two predecessors in this office, Tom Robinett and Doug Napier who mentored me in local government law, which is a great area of law practice, which I was new to when I came to the town in 2007. So, I’m very appreciative of what they did for me,” Sonnett concluded, with a recommendation of municipal law to any young attorneys looking to their futures.

Royal Examiner spoke with Waltz in the Town Hall second-floor lobby prior to his being called into the closed session. Waltz was the only person present at Town Hall to be interviewed Monday night. We asked Waltz about his departure from the job, circa 2019. He explained that he had been offered a director’s job for a regional electric cooperative in Ohio, what he at the time considered a “dream job” with his background in energy management. However, he said now with a similar regional job based out of Northern Virginia he and his wife had been looking to relocate to the Front Royal/Warren County area where they have roots, when he saw his old job was on the market. So, he threw his hat into the ring.

After announcing Sonnett’s appointment, council gets ready to go behind closed doors to discuss a permanent fix to the town manager’s position. After those doors were initially closed, former Town Manager Joe Waltz waits to be summoned to discuss his potential return to his old job.

We asked Mayor Holloway and Vice-Mayor Lori Cockrell about Waltz’s selection. And following a “Ladies first” format, especially with the vice-mayor also being the mayor-in-waiting in the wake of Tuesday’s election, and following the mayor’s decision not to run for re-election, Cockrell responded first. “I will say in the wake of the motion that Mr. Gillispie just made, that the Town has had some instability recently. And I believe that Mr. Waltz will be welcomed by the employees, welcomed by the citizens, and I think it will bring some stability, some normalcy,” the vice-mayor said of a known quantity with no negative track record’s return to town administrative management.

Of council’s perspective of a Waltz return after three years, Mayor Holloway added, “We spoke with employees and everybody that we spoke with thought a lot of Joe, have a lot of respect for him. And the reason Joe left when he did, he had a chance to run a co-op, like a dream job for him. So, that was the only reason he left.”

Imagine that – stability, normalcy, and across-the-board staff respect in the Front Royal Town Manager’s office after three years of whatever happened after Waltz’s departure. Welcome home, Joe.

See the open portions of the Special Meeting and motions and votes to appoint in the Town video.