Large crowd listens, reacts to town manager’s staff cutting proposal and council-mayor exchange

Having been told at the outset that they would not be allowed to question council or staff about details of Interim Town Manager Matt Tederick’s FY 2021 budget proposal leading to the cutting of four or five high level staff positions the following day, nearly 50 Town citizens remained to listen to a summary of that budget proposal.

Above, a large crowd gathers, including some faces familiar from Interim Town Manager Tederick’s initial public Q&A on his Town departmental reorganization plan on January 30 at the Front Royal Brewery, as council prepares to hear a proposal they seemed familiar with; below, unsuccessful council vacancy applicant and community activist Paul Gabbert lets town officials know what he thinks of the governmental downsizing and outsourcing plan. Royal Examiner Photos/Roger Bianchini

Mayor Gene Tewalt asked for polite decorum from the standing, and sitting on the floor, room only crowd packed into the second-floor caucus room of Town Hall. That decorum lasted for about 47 minutes until the mayor was attacked by two councilmen in response to his statement that he opposed any outsourcing of Town departmental functions because past experience with such a move had been unsuccessful.

First, Jacob Meza chastised the mayor for not expressing his opposition to the departmental cutbacks recommended in Tederick’s budget proposal earlier. Chris Holloway soon joined Meza in accusing Mayor Tewalt of playing to the crowded room on citizens perceived to be hostile to the Town staff cutbacks and proposal to outsource or privatize some Town departmental functions, particularly as they apply to tourism.

Tewalt appeared to respond by saying he had only heard of the immediate termination plan tied to the interim town manager’s plan the previous week.
The crowd reacted angrily to the councilmen’s criticism of the mayor, eventually leading Tederick to remind the mayor of his earlier call for meeting decorum from the unusually large work session crowd.

The Town Police had council’s back, though Chief Magalis and Captain Cline couldn’t protect them from several expressions of verbal and written discontent.

See this council-mayoral exchange and crowd reaction in our lead segment of this Royal Examiner work session and quickly adjourned special meeting video. Then watch the entire work session presentation and explanation that the planned special meeting discussion of contracting an executive search firm to seek a permanent town manager had been removed from the evening’s agenda.