Town Council Discusses a Potential Joint Town-County Tourism MOU in Advance of Liaison Meeting

Looking back on 2025, Front Royal-Warren County sees 98.2 million dollars in visitor- and tourism-related spending. This reflects in no small part the excellent job of promotion, event coordination, and other aspects of tourism that Lizi Lewis and her team in the Town’s tourism department continue to do every day. The October 13 work session of the Town Council was characterized by pride in the work the Town has done to keep Front Royal-Warren County an appealing destination for a wide variety of adventures. As Mayor Lori Cockrell pointed out, the Town has been exercising this leadership, at least in terms of promotion and operating the Visitor’s Center, since 1993.

But the line between “destination marketing” and “destination development” became the center of discussion as the council reviewed both a proposed MOU from the County for a joint tourism program as well as a more recent revision of that document, coming from the Town, possibly to be presented to the County at the liaison meeting on Thursday October 15.

The Town Council met for a work session on October 13. Royal Examiner Photo Credits: Brenden McHugh

The revision essentially excises the distinction that was in the original, which would limit the Town to a leading role in marketing while reserving the County a leading role in development. The revision keeps the Town involved in the stewardship aspect inherent to development with its interest in capital improvements and infrastructure planning, while at the same time, the revision preserves the Town’s role in marketing and reserves the County the responsibility of coordinating with its economic development director on projects with long-term capital or economic development implications.

Naturally, given its prior success, the Town resists the division of responsibilities in the original. “Micromanaging” is one of the words that floated that evening, referring not only to the division but the “shall” and “shall not” nature of the original, attaching as it did a series of conditions to the $212,000 that the County is prepared to allocate to Front Royal for tourism under the first year of the joint agreement. As both Councilman Glenn Wood and Vice-Mayor Amber Veitenthal said, with Cockrell in agreement, appointing someone on the County side to administer tourism would be comparable to the Town saying: “We’ll work with your economic director but also appoint someone on our side to partially do the job.”

Other points were touched, such as the vital role that the tourism committee plays as an advisory body with a word from Councilwoman Melissa DeDomenico-Payne about the importance of the committee taking part in meaningful action in addition to their recommendations. Overall, the mayor expressed her wish that things could have worked out differently, but she gathered the consensus to go forward with the plan to present the revision to the County at the liaison meeting on the 15. The consensus favored consent to a county tourism employee while removing the distinction between marketing and development.

Other items addressed that evening included a cancellation of the November 2 work session due to lack of quorum in preparation for election day; a report on possible federal funding for key infrastructure projects; two easements; a release of restrictive covenants pertaining to property owned by the Industrial Development Authority; a possible relocation within the Town Hall building of where the council holds some of its meetings; and a realistic timeframe for expediting the ordinance on the Advisory Commission for Environmental Sustainability (ACES) with a Town Council vote on November 23.

Watch the Front Royal Town Council Work Session of October 13, 2026