Supervisors celebrate the Christmas season, get ‘State of the County’ report as trouble looms on Farms Sanitary District front

The Christmas spirit was abundant Tuesday morning, December 13, in the Warren County Government Center – unless perhaps you live in the Shenandoah Farms Sanitary District where the holiday news was that some of your common recreational and facilities properties would not be funded by the County to cover insurance and other maintenance costs in the coming year – more on that later.

But for the rest of us at or tuned into the Warren County Board of Supervisors meeting, it was Christmas carols by the Ressie Jeffries Chorus opening the meeting prior to fond board-member recollections of a well-attended community Christmas Parade the previous week. After the seasonal entertainment and those board reports hailing the holiday season, the supervisors faced a light end-of-the-calendar-year agenda before adjourning into a three-item closed session.

The WC Board of Supervisors takes to public seating to hear the season to be sung in by the Ressie Jeffries Chorus, below.

However, during the open session there was one Public Comments speaker on non-agenda matters who was not in a merry mood. Dale Carpenter railed at the county government for “a glaring lack of common sense” in increased personal property tax rates, particularly based on increases in assessed used car values, an issue not specific to Warren County.

Two other Public Comments speakers, Mike Adair and Bill Talbot, members of the River Oak Home Owners Association, urged the board to approve the Short-Term Tourist Rental Conditional Use Permit application of Jaden and Tori Walter for a property at 80 River Oak Drive. Other than a 14-item Consent Agenda approved as presented, reconsideration of the Walters’ CUP application was the lone meeting action item under “Unfinished Business”. The agenda summary noted that after being forwarded by the planning commission with a recommendation of approval on a 4-0 vote, the application had come before the supervisors at a Special Meeting on October 25, 2022. However, a short-handed board voted 2-2 on the application, resulting in its denial. Having been assured of neighborhood and River Oak HOA support of the Walters application, on reconsideration the supervisors approved the Walter’s application by a 4-1 vote, Jay Butler dissenting.

In addition to a written monthly report submitted by VDOT, the board got in-person reports from County Department of Social Services Director Jon Martz and County Administrator Ed Daley. Martz noted a “Clothing Closet” added at his department that is free to the public. He urged citizens to stop by the 15th Street Health & Human Services complex at the old middle school to have a look. In the wake of some other departmental-assisted clothing drives, Martz noted, “We have a lot of coats, a lot of jackets, a lot of clothing, all free to the public. You can just come on in and get what you need. And we’re really proud of our staff for coming up with this idea and the design, and we encourage everybody to stop by and take a look.”

County Social Services Director Jon Martz urges citizens to come check out his department’s new ‘Clothing Closet’ – take your pick, and it’s free.

County Administrator Ed Daley presented a detailed, 35-minute end of the calendar year “State of the County” summary of county affairs and projects, including an acknowledgement of “outstanding issues” in the Shenandoah Farms Sanitary District involving County-POSF relations. “The common properties, such as rights of way, the beach area, the dam – we will take responsibility, we will maintain those as long as all residents of Shenandoah Farms Sanitary District are permitted to use those facilities. The community center is a private facility and it is operated by fees. So, the Sanitary District will not be involved in paying for the operation of the community center or the office staff or the accounting or the legal. Those will be POSF responsibilities unless they provide different documentation than what I’ve received to date,” Daley noted of common properties under the ownership of POSF.

This decision not to continue to help POSF maintain its Farms common properties has occurred in the wake of the POSF’s attempt to regain management authority of the Sanitary District earlier this year through the dissolution of the two-party management agreement between original (1995-2011) Sanitary District Manager POSF (Property Owners of Shenandoah Farms) and the County, handing direct management over to the county government. But rather than re-establish POSF management, the board of supervisors and staff simply dissolved POSF’s involvement in Sanitary District operations and appointed its own Advisory Committee of Farms residents.

However, that Advisory Committee recommended that the County continue to fund the POSF this year at a rate of about $54,000 to continue to cover insurance and other operational costs to allow POSF to keep their properties open to the public. In the wake of the supervisors’ decision not to follow that recommendation, among others on the expenditure of Sanitary District revenue for road improvement and maintenance, the appointed Advisory Committee’s first chairman, Bruce Boyle, resigned and cited a decision to move out of the Farms and the county. Former Vice-Chair and Acting Chair Sarah Saber also appeared at a recent supervisors meeting with a scathing public critique of the board and its liaison to the committee Walt Mabe’s unwillingness to provide basic financial information on Sanitary District revenues and uses to aid in the committee’s function as advisors to the board on Sanitary District matters.

POSF officers have indicated they do not have independent financial resources to cover those common properties expenses, leading to their closing in the coming year according to a recent mail-out to Farms residents. POSF has also contacted the county’s state representatives to seek a state-assisted investigation into the County’s handling of and use of Sanitary District property fees and tax revenues in recent years when POSF could not get financial reports during a period of turnover in the county finance department. There will be more on this evolving situation as it develops.

County Administrator Ed Daley, left, gave a detailed ‘State of the County’ end of the year report.

On a brighter note, Daley also acknowledged progress on the County-overseen EDA in the reduction of its post-financial scandal outstanding debt by about $10-million over the past several years, and a rebound from COVID peak restrictions impacting county operations.

Closed Session topics included the “disposition of publicly held real property, such real property being located in the South River Magisterial District within the limits of the Town of Front Royal”; a “prospective business or industry where no previous announcement has been made of the business’ or industry’s interest in locating its facilities in the community, such prospective business to be located in the Happy Creek Magisterial District both inside and outside the limits of the Town of Front Royal”; and finally “for consultation with legal counsel for the provision of legal advice, such matters being permissible provisions in conditional use permits”.

Following that hour-and-22-minute closed session, with no further open session business the board adjourned at 12:03 p.m. for a half-hour lunch break before heading into a work session highlighted by staff presentations on suggested departmental reorganizations.

One of the graphics accompanying a presentation of staff suggested departmental reorganizations aimed at increased efficiency.

See the full open meeting and work session in the linked County video, the first 1-hour-39-minutes in open session, with the balance of the 3-and-a-half hour video devoted to the work session and staff presentations.