Take our books, audit us now – Please! POSF officials urge supervisors

Seven members of the Property Owners of Shenandoah Farms (POSF), including three newer ones, made their case that they are not crooks, thieves or otherwise scheming and conniving people out to self-enrich or fleece the residents of the sprawling Sanitary District during a lengthy work session of the Warren County Board of Supervisors Tuesday evening, October 27^th.

The two-hour-and-forty-minute explanation and defense of their management and advisory role to the supervisors came in response to a recent escalation in criticism of their role. That escalation has primarily come from Nancy Winn and her husband, Dale Orlowske, most recently at the October 20^th supervisors’ meeting.

Perhaps surprisingly, none of the four primary critics cited, though not by name, by those involved in the POSF’s work, or any other Farms residents were present for Tuesday’s explanation of the POSF side of the story. That was particularly surprising to this reporter whose paper received an inquiry from Winn following her public presentation targeting POSF and the supervisor’s oversight at last week’s board meeting, requesting information on the meetings whereabouts, time, and format for public participation.

Pictured here at Oct. 20 BOS meeting, Nancy Winn may have been thinking ‘I’m not buying a word of it’ as to POSF explanations. While absent Tuesday, the specter of her questioning of POSF officials, even if anonymously referenced, was prevalent throughout. Royal Examiner Photos by Roger Bianchini – Royal Examiner Video by Mark Williams

In response to her query wondering if it was a “secretive meeting” which would not allow Farms “taxpayers to be present”, following a quick call to the County Administration Office to acquire the requested information, this reporter/editor informed her by email of the time, whereabouts and formatting of the meeting, including Board Chairman Mabe’s prerogative to grant observing members of the public input to the meeting.

POSF Co-Chairman Ralph Rinaldi introduced the voluntary property owners association representatives present to the supervisors, excluding the absent Tony Carter, and outlined the areas each would be addressing. Those representatives were in the order of speaking: Joe Longo (History of the Farms including a video presentation of that history), Bruce Boyle (Financial Overview), Jonathan Oaks (Misconceptions, Main Points, Current Allegations), Sara Saber (Excessive Spending due to multiple FOIA requests), Patrick Skelley (BOS involvement, guidance and communications, and Sanitary District size and population variables). POSF Office Manager Lisa Blansett was also present to respond to inquiries on documentation, at least one of which she provided for copying to the supervisors during the work session. Rinaldi and others responded to questions as they arose during and after their presentations.

Noting the complicated nature of the POSF relationship to Sanitary District management and finances – it was pointed out there were multiple accounts some containing public county funds and others POSF-raised money, each spent on different things they said – the group complemented the board’s three new members for their tackling of the issues brought to them.

While masked, POSF officials Ralph Rinaldi, foreground, and Bruce Boyle assured the supervisors it was NOT a hold-up, nor has it been, with the management of Shenandoah Farms Sanitary District funds

“It is confusing, it took me a few years to figure it out … and you’ve only been here 10 months,” Rinaldi told the board’s new majority of Chairman Walt Mabe, Vice-Chair Cheryl Cullers, and North River representative Delores Oates.

Addressing the POSF and Sanitary District finances, Boyle, who noted he was a newer member of the board like Oaks and Saber, said he had been pleased to find out that the financial organization made it difficult for anyone to misappropriate money.

“I don’t want to be confrontational and I don’t want to challenge you, but if you believe the money is not being spent where it’s supposed to be spent, we would as a board wholeheartedly like you to appoint someone to investigate NOW – and not over a course of a couple of years. We have nothing to hide,” Boyle told the supervisors, adding, “The Sanitary District money is money we’ve agreed to tax ourselves to improve our community with your oversight. And we have been doing that.”

Boyle was pointed in his request the supervisors act now, rather than later to resolve any questions about POSF management of the district’s finances – ‘We have nothing to hide’ he assured the supervisors.

Speaking to past County oversight of Sanitary District operations, Boyle noted that when he became involved, “All my questions were answered by Bob Childress at my first meeting before I had a chance to speak … This is one of the best-run counties in Virginia,” he asserted. Childress is the recently retired Deputy County Administrator and Sanitary District manager.

Perhaps ironically, part of the Farms Historical video presentation as part of Joe Longo’s opening overview contained interview excerpts with former County Administrator Doug Stanley, who appointed Childress to oversee the Farms Sanitary District among others, operations. After over 20 years in his position, Stanley reached an involuntary termination agreement with the County under the impetus of the board’s new majority elected in November 2019 under a wave of public and social media criticism of “business as usual” due to the EDA financial scandal. Childress retired shortly after Stanley’s departure and long-time County Emergency Services Director Richard Mabie, also interviewed in the video, soon announced his pending retirement in coming months when he reaches retirement age.

Uh oh, he’s back – former County Administrator Doug Stanley was part of a video presentation giving a historical perspective of the ‘Farms’ from its inception as a remote neighborhood populated in part by sometimes legally questionable characters, to its 1996 move to a County-managed Sanitary District opening more of its area up to residential development following road improvements, something not all residents are happy about it was admitted.

So, as a new board majority orients itself to its job the County is losing a huge amount of staff institutional knowledge of operations on a variety of fronts, including Sanitary Districts.

Cullers, who with Oates and Mabe has been at the point of seeking answers to questions raised by POSF/Sanitary District management critics, noted that the supervisors were obligated to answer questions from all segments of county citizens. She suggested POSF officials sit down with those critics to reach a mutually beneficial line of communication to reach a satisfactory end for all involved.

“But you’re expecting a rational response and we’re not getting that,” Boyle replied of past POSF efforts to respond to certain critics. “Okay, we are potentially explaining what’s going on correctly and legally and trying to inform you all as well. But I think, politely, I don’t think that I’m going to be able to get through to them because I don’t think they want to hear any of the answers that are correct. So, at that point we just thought, we’re hoping you all would mitigate that for us.”

Jonathan Oaks at the podium told the board he recently joined POSF after hearing social media accusations about the board’s operations and had been pleased not to find those allegations to be true.

At another point, following Rinaldi’s comments on negative perceptions being raised by critics on social media over specific matters POSF officials insisted they have tried to respond to, to little impact with those critics, Boyle rose to add a further observation.

“Here’s some of what we deal with on a fictitious (level) – ‘We’d like to see your credit card statement.’ Well, we don’t have any credit cards to give you any statements. Okay, then what goes on social media is ‘They refuse to give us credit card statements’ which is a true statement which can imply that you’re hiding money. But if you have no credit cards, you cannot provide a credit card statement.”

Of the POSF impression of a belligerent unwillingness to communicate in good faith to reach answers being sought by their critics, Boyle said, “Be careful, because what you’re hearing … that where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Sometimes where there’s smoke there is fire. And also sometimes people blow smoke at you … We invite you to go through our finances with a fine-tooth comb.”

Mabe responded that he had been the one to comment at a previous meeting that “Where there’s smoke, there’s potential fire” adding however that from his perspective an inquiry offers the POSF the opportunity “to prove there’s not (fire) – that’s what we’re asking here … There is no witch hunt here – there is an opportunity for questions we have to be answered in a logical manner that we understand so we can, in turn, get some of the people that are the ‘witch hunters’ off of your back and our back.

“If there’s a problem, we’ll probably be able to solve it and we’ll fix it, we’ll move forward; we’ll do the best that we can. But perception is 95% of the room. So, it works both ways,” Mabe told POSF officials of the move toward the board’s inquiry into the Sanitary District operations.

And on the perception front, several POSF officials pointed to a social media co-opting of online domain names similar to the Property Owners of Shenandoah Farms title, making it increasingly difficult to search and find the actual POSF site. One said they believed it to be a “malicious” effort to co-opt online hits and information dissemination from the POSF.

The POSF seven were the only Shenandoah Farms residents or members of the public present for Tuesday’s work session.

Shortly after those observations, Board Clerk Emily Ciarrocchi told those present she had created a direct link to the POSF site <shenandoahfarms.org> from the County website as a means to help solve that access confusion.

POSF Co-Chair Ralph Rinaldi hands some requested documentation provided by POSF Office Manager Lisa Blansett to board Clerk Emily Ciarrocchi for distribution to the supervisors.

See these discussions, questions, and explanations along with a historical look at the “Farms”, including its founding; somewhat suspicious past behaviors of a potentially criminal nature; road inaccessibility and emergency service and law enforcement access issues with what now stands as one of Virginia’s largest Sanitary Districts at 5,000 residents, 2,804 lots, 1,783 of those developed, and 42-plus miles of roads, in this Royal Examiner video: