Member down, Front Royal council flounders to make decisions

Maybe operating a member down for just over three weeks is hampering the Front Royal Town Council’s ability to make decisions.  Unfortunately, one of those decisions it had scheduled but failed to make on July 24, was appointment of the person to fill that vacant council seat.

Hot on the heels of a failure to approve or disapprove a request to add Fridays to the weekend days (Saturday-Sunday) that flea markets are allowed to operate in town, council hit the wall again on filling the vacancy created when Bébhinn Egger resigned effective July 1.  Egger married in late June and moved to her husband’s home in Maryland. Work session discussion with the vacancy looming indicated council wanted to expedite naming her replacement.

The council appointment was slated for the July 24 meeting, exactly one week after completion of two weeks of interviews of the eight applicants for the seat (see Norma Jean Shaw’s stories on that process and the applicant pool).  Four applicants each were interviewed in closed session on July 10 and 17.

see related story

However when the agenda item was reached, John Connolly made a motion to postpone the appointment “indefinitely”.  That motion was approved by a 5-0 vote.  Connolly cited indecision due to a number of qualified candidates, as well as the absence of some members from the interviewing process due to vacation schedules.

However, the Town’s own records indicate that only Chris Morrison was physically absent from the July 17 interviews, but participated by conference call hook up.  All council members were present for the first four interviews on July 10.  Council also discussed the pending appointment in a closed session a half hour prior to the 7 p.m. start of the July 24 meeting at which the appointment was the final open session agenda item.

Uh, vote on what … Photos/Roger Bianchini

But not to panic – unless you have a time-sensitive item on the agenda of council’s next meeting – council has 45 days from July 1^st to fill the vacancy, making the deadline to reach a majority consensus (3 of 5) August 14.

AND in late, breaking news a special meeting of council has been announced for 7 p.m., Monday, August 7, at town hall concerning the council appointment.  Notice of that meeting was sent out late Wednesday, July 26.  The meeting will precede a scheduled work session.

Flea Market

Perhaps a long silence prior to a second to John Connolly’s motion to “affirm” the ordinance amendment that would allow flea markets to operate on Fridays was the first sign of decision-making trouble.  Jacob Meza finally offered that second.  The motion made added Fridays to weekend flea market operations “with a Special Use permit, subject to standards and review, as presented.”

Then the real trouble started.

Vice-Mayor Eugene Tewalt asked what had been decided regarding how to charge flea market fees – the old, mysteriously abandoned dollar-a-table per day or a flat annual fee for vendors, a fee Tewalt cited at $500.  Town Manager Joe Waltz replied that per the consensus at the previous week’s work session discussion, an annual $250 fee had been decided upon.  However, Waltz added that the fee schedule had yet to be advertised for public hearing.

Tewalt worried that with a required two-week advertising period for public hearing, the fee scale would not be included in the second and final reading vote on the additional day of operations.  The town manager noted that Monday’s vote was solely on the addition of Fridays to the weekend flea market schedule allowed in town, not on the fee schedule.

However, the vice mayor further worried over a potential vote of denial of the additional day of operation despite no indication of opposition to the Friday extension expressed during council discussion.

Vice Mayor Tewalt may have known something his colleagues were keeping secret from the rest of us – that at least 3 of them are against adding Fridays to flea market operations in town.

“Mr. Mayor, I think we need to make some type of decision here tonight by not voting on this motion due to the fact that if we vote on this motion in the negative then we can’t bring it back.  If we vote in the positive then what we have on our iPad is what is going to be approved this evening.  So, I think we ought to go back and make a motion to postpone any vote on this until we get the proper coordinates in front of us, so we can approve it.”

Despite the rather convoluted “coordinates” behind that logic, it appeared the maker of the original motion to approve, replied, “I’ll agree with that.”

After some legal wrangling over the best way to proceed, Tewalt went for the amended motion – “Mr. Mayor, I move that we amend the motion to table action on this flea market until its advertised properly and then brought back at our next meeting …”

Told by legal counsel the word “postpone” was a better legal fit, Tewalt amended the wording of his amended motion to state, “I amend my motion to postpone till the next regular council meeting that would meet the advertisement schedule in the local newspapers.”

Connolly seconded Tewalt’s motion, which led to a 5-0 vote to approve the delay.  On the bright side, I guess they decided something – even if it was NOT to risk making a decision due to the risk of unspoken, clandestine opposition to the proposed change.

Questions raised

During the public hearing preceding council discussion, one speaker addressed the flea market change.  Ann Orndorff, co-owner with her husband of the Springtime Garden Center  in town.  She said her questions weren’t about competition, but rather about business rules as they apply to under-roof retail businesses versus flea markets.  Noting that her business pays $8,000 in town taxes; $26,000 in state sales taxes, as well as $3,000 in payroll taxes annually, she wondered if flea markets and their vendors were at least monitored as to sales tax payments.

She also asked precisely how a flea market is defined. Orndorff said her perception was that flea markets were sites for used and bargain items.  But she observed that seven current vendors at Andrick’s Flea Market sold new items as well.  Andrick’s, operators of the town’s major flea market on Commerce Avenue, was the driving force behind the code amendment request to allow Fridays.

Orndorff asked whether codes and fees might be too heavily weighted in favor of such operations.  Following her questions, Mayor Tharpe instructed Town Manager Waltz to call Orndorff for a follow-up on her questions.

But it did not appear to be Orndorff’s questions that drove the delay in the council vote, but rather Tewalt’s concerns that the decided-upon fee structure be tied to the vote approving the addition of Fridays to weekend flea market operations.

Light in Afton Inn tunnel?

If there was no meaningful resolution on the two, non-routine agenda items, there was a closed session topic with implications of a potential BIG redevelopment announcement.  On the late-meeting closed session agenda was discussion of “The Afton Inn Property” related to “the disposition of publicly held real property … where no previous announcement has been made of the business’ interest in locating or expanding its facilities in the community …”

But alas, as EDA Executive Director Jennifer McDonald left the closed session with two men believed to be part of that group interested in the Afton Inn, she reported no announcements would be forthcoming that night.  Okay, that’s understandable – to our knowledge this was the first broaching of the subject with the town government.

However, it WAS a disappointing pronouncement for reporters wondering what to write about after council’s inability to act meaningfully on either the council appointment or the weekend flea market expansion.

Well, in addition to the “decisions” not to appoint and not to approve or deny an additional day of weekend flea market operations, council DID APPROVE the “Consent Agenda” of five routine business items.  Those included a budget adjustment to cover insurance claim reimbursements ($69,564.95); a proclamation of support of the County Fair; approval of $34,150 for payment of work on crosswalk markings as part of its STOPS (Smart Towns Observe Pedestrian Safety) initiative; and bids of $11,600 for a Street Department trailer and $27,866.30 for seven fire Hydrants.

No offense to those departments, programs and the county fair, BUT none of those are quite as stimulating as finding out who will replace Councilwoman Egger and what their local-socio-political background is; or even if bargain hunters will now have an extra weekend day of flea market shopping in Front Royal.