Judge rules Town Charter Section 47 does not prohibit council appointments for one year

It appears that Jacob Meza will be allowed to retain his appointed seat on the Front Royal Town Council following a Wednesday morning, April 7, ruling by Warren County Circuit Court Judge William Sharp. Following 40 minutes of oral arguments in support of and opposition to the defense filing Sharp granted defendant Meza and the Town’s Demurrer motion for dismissal of plaintiff Paul Aldrich’s Complaint for Declaratory Judgement against Meza’s appointment.

That complaint was based on the contention that Town Charter Section 47 prohibits “appointment” or “election” of members of council for one year after their term in office expires. However, the court ruled Section 47 applied only to paid staff appointments, not council member appointments.

The plaintiff was given five days to file a motion for reconsideration of the court’s ruling, the defense seven days to respond to that filing.

Following Wednesday morning motions ruling it appears that both Jacob Meza, center and Chris Holloway, right, will remain on the Town dais, though with Holloway repositioned to the mayor’s central seat. Royal Examiner File Photos by Roger Bianchini

During oral arguments by plaintiff counsel David Downes and defense attorney Heather Bardot, Judge Sharpe raised the issue of Section 47 wording that would seem to raise the issue of council members not being able to run for reelection for a year after their four-year term expired. Sharpe said it seemed clear that the Town Charter’s intent, dating to its 1937 adoption, was not to prevent council members from running for re-election for a year. So, the court sided with Bardot’s stance for the defense that Sections 6 and 9 of the Charter were the applicable sections on council appointments, rather than Section 47.

“No member of the council of the Town of Front Royal shall be appointed or elected to any office under the jurisdiction of the council while he is a member of the council, or for one year thereafter,” the relevant Section 47 passage reads, continuing to note for an unexplained reason an exception for the position of Town Treasurer.

In her Demurrer filing for dismissal, Bardot pointed to Section 6D and related wording on filling council vacancies, such as the one created by Councilman Chris Holloway’s November 2020 election to mayor. “The council may fill any vacancy that occurs within the membership of council for the unexpired term, provided that such vacancy is taken within 45 days of the office becoming vacant,” Section 6D states. No reference to a one-year hiatus per appointment is made here, Bardot noted.

Only the court’s authority to make the appointment were council to deadlock and be unable to fill the seat within the prescribed 45 days, is acknowledged. Meza’s appointment was made January 4, four days after Holloway relinquished his council seat to become mayor and four days after Meza, who did not run for re-election after a controversial final year in office related to his Valley Health employment, vacated his seat.

During the 40-minutes of oral arguments in support of their written filings on the defense Demurrer, Bardot had also argued for dismissal on jurisdictional and constitutional grounds. Jurisdictionally, she cited undue court influence on legislative matters already accomplished.

“In the context of a declaratory judgment, that means there must be specific adverse claims, based on present rather than future or speculative facts … When there is no actual controversy courts do not have jurisdiction to issue declaratory judgments because ‘the rendering of advisory opinions is not part of the function of the judiciary’,” Bardot wrote in her Demurrer filing. She asserted the plaintiff’s claims of potential damages as a town citizen from an allegedly illegally appointed Meza’s votes on budgetary or other matters, as well as his application among five others for Holloway’s vacant seat did not reach the necessary specificity to involve the court.

“What other remedy is available if not the court to rule that the Town has not upheld its own rules,” Downes asked the court of the jurisdictional issue. While the defense took the day, as explained below it appeared Downes won on this one.

On the Constitutionality issue, Bardot asserted that the above-referenced exception to a council member’s appointment as Treasurer in Charter Section 47 has been illustrated by other case histories to violate the Virginia Constitution. So, she reasoned as a legally challengeable Charter Section it should not be the one to hold sway in this case.

The Warren County Circuit Court 9 a.m. docket of April 7, saw a crucial ruling for the defense in a citizen challenge of the town council’s appointment of Meza to fill now Mayor Holloway’s vacated council seat.

Following a 20-minute adjournment to consider the arguments in support of the plaintiff and defense filings on the defense Demurrer motion for dismissal, Judge Sharpe reentered the court at 10 a.m. to make his ruling. He began by noting that while court authority regarding the legislative branch should be viewed in the “narrowest possible grounds” that he believed in this case he could “provide some guidance on actions and the legitimacy of those actions” by the town’s elected officials.

That said, he sustained the defense motion on the grounds that Town Charter Sections 6 and 9 controlled the appointment issue “without resort to Section 47” as noted above. Of the 1937 Town Charter and Section 47 specifically, Judge Sharp observed, “It predates all of us, it’s been there a long time … it has never been understood to interpret that councilmen can’t run again for re-election” which he observed were it to be applied to council member appointments, it “could be interpreted that way”.

One successive term limit – now there’s an interesting municipal concept had Section 47’s somewhat jangled wording been taken literally over the past 84 years.