Town Manager announcement steals thunder from tap fee reduction debate

The lone vote against Tederick’s appointment to be interim town manager came from Gene Tewalt, Photos by Mark Williams, Royal Examiner.

Prior to the end-of-meeting announcement of Interim Mayor Matt Tederick’s pending appointment to fill the position of town manager on an interim basis during the search for a permanent replacement for departing Joe Waltz, public and council attention had been focused on the public hearing and scheduled first vote on some dramatic reductions to water and sewer tap fees.

In fact the lone vote against Tederick’s appointment to be interim town manager came from Gene Tewalt, who had butted heads with Tederick earlier Tuesday night over the tap fee reduction initiative the mayor has propelled forward.

And while Tewalt declined comment on his vote in opposition to the interim town manager appointment, the two long-time local political figures have often butted heads over Town-County issues.

And that was again apparent in the discussion of the proposed water-sewer tap fee reductions that was the central focus of council and public discussion at the Tuesday, October 15, Town Council meeting at the Villa Avenue Community Center.

Tederick had put approval on a fast track to be completed before his interim mayor’s tenure is up in early November in the hope of being positioned to cast a potential tiebreaking vote in favor of the cuts if necessary.

Tewalt led opposition to that fast track and a final council decision pending receipt of more information related to coming water-sewer utility costs that he said could quickly melt a significant portion, if not all, of a $12 million Enterprise Fund reserve.

Criticism from former Front Royal Mayor and Councilman Stan Brooks during public comments Tuesday for referring to Town reserves as a “slush fund”.

In fact as recounted in our related story, Tederick caught some friendly, if pointed criticism from former Front Royal Mayor and Councilman Stan Brooks during public comments Tuesday for referring to Town reserves as a “slush fund”. Brooks noted the term implied hidden money used for illegal purposes.

An impeachment ‘sidebar’
Another citizen urging caution on the tap fee issue, Fern Vasquez, noted that having lived through the Nixon “plumbers” and impeachment era of the early 1970’s she was well versed in the illegal ramifications Brooks referred to regarding “slush funds”.

And while she didn’t elaborate, having those same first-hand memories of another impeachment era, one might add that the “CREEP” (Committee to Re-Elect the President) Nixon “slush fund” at issue was used to finance such 1972 campaign dirty tricks as slipping LSD into the drink of a leading Democratic candidate, Ed Muskie while he was in the midst of a railroad whistle-stop campaign stump; and of course the Watergate break in of the National Democratic Headquarters, the cover up of which proved fatal to the Nixon presidency among Democrats and Republicans alike.

And as also reported in our related story, contacted about Tederick’s pending appointment as interim town manager, Brooks quipped, “I guess now Matt will be managing the Town’s ‘slush fund’.”

Tap fee cuts on hold
Be that political history as it may – ancient and national or local and developing – in the face of a majority of public comment and public hearing criticism regarding the importance of maintaining a healthy reserve fund balance and not making a tap fee rush to judgment, the scheduled first council vote on the tap fee proposal was tabled. That tabling was so that council could seek additional information on costs versus reserves as related to the redundant corridor water line system expansion on the table after eight years of discussion; as well as the perhaps soon to be state or federally mandated Intake and Inflow (I&I) improvements to the sewer system that are under consultant’s study at this time.