Sheriff’s elections, McDonald investigations – what’s the difference?

Removal of one item from a 15-item Consent Agenda of generally routine business at Tuesday (May 7th) morning’s regular meeting of the Warren County Board of Supervisors created an interesting three-way exchange between newly-installed Sheriff Mike Arnold, Shenandoah District Supervisor Tom Sayre and board Chairman Dan Murray.

New County Sheriff Mike Arnold listens as Shenandoah District Supervisor Tom Sayre begins to question him about investigations into Jennifer McDonald at Tuesday morning’s board of supervisors meeting. Royal Examiner Photo by Roger Bianchini. Video by Mark Williams.

The item was adoption of resolution to petition the Circuit Court not to order a special election for the sheriff’s office. As noted in the agenda summary, state code allows that when a constitutional office vacancy occurs within 12 months of the next scheduled election for that office the involved municipality may petition the court not to order a special election prior to that scheduled election.

The sheriff’s office is up for grabs this November.

Sayre asked that the item be withdrawn for discussion and the board voted to do so.

As the next highest-ranking officer in the department, Arnold was sworn in to replace Daniel McEathron who announced his resignation effective May 1, earlier this year. While McEathron was subsequently named a defendant in the EDA civil litigation filed March 26 due to his partnership in two real estate companies headed by former EDA Executive Director Jennifer McDonald, the sheriff cited a previous plan to retire before his final term expired as the reason for his early exit from the office he held for 16 years.

Engaged in dueling civil defamation lawsuits with McDonald, Sayre has a keen interest in all things related to the former EDA executive director, particularly since she was named as the pivotal figure in EDA litigation seeking recovery of a minimum of $17.6 million in EDA assets. Sayre called Arnold to the podium to respond to some questions.

Those questions revolved around the status of the sheriff’s office involvement in investigations related to McDonald. Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to McDonald’s June 15, 2017 report of a vandalism incident at her home property. She was eventually charged with a misdemeanor count of filing a false police report in the incident stemming from the town police investigation into a break-in McDonald reported at the EDA offices in town a month earlier. That case was eventually handed over to the Virginia State Police.

Let’s try to stick to the agenda topics before us, Chairman Dan Murray said of Vice-Chairman Tom Sayre’s attempt to elicit information about sheriff’s office investigations related to Jennifer McDonald.

As the nature of Sayre’s questioning became apparent, board Chairman Dan Murray reminded the Shenandoah District supervisor that the item before him was simply a resolution about when the next sheriff’s election will take place, cutting the questioning off.

See the exchange along with the VDOT Report from Ed Carter, the Virginia Cooperative Extention report by Stacy Swain and reports from other Board Members, County Administrator and County Attorney in the Royal Examiner video: