Town re-releases planners investigative report with verified ‘final’ version

The public review of a Front Royal Planning Commission investigative report prepared by Town Attorney Doug Napier on the approval process of a non-conforming sub-division request submitted by Mayor Chris Holloway’s construction company got an update Monday, November 22. That update addressed confusion expressed at the town planning commission meeting on November 17, just over two hours after the report’s release through the town administrative office.

As reported by Royal Examiner reporter Stephen Sill, the confusion revolved around which of several drafts of the report had been authorized for release that day, as well as whether the planners had the final draft before them that evening for approval. The planners eventually deferred action on the report till its December meeting to assure the final version was being voted on.

The November 17 report released at the authorization of the town council according to Town Manager Steven Hicks was dated October 7, 2021. But that version did contain what appeared to be two red color-coded wording corrections and several code passages highlighted in yellow, the latter would appear for emphasis as opposed to being corrections. At the planning commission meeting of November 17, the town attorney cited a final version dated October 21.

The report released Monday through Town Manager Steven Hicks Office is dated October 7, but with an “updated October 21, 2021” added in parenthesis and a handwritten notation at the top of the front page “FINAL” signed “Douglas W. Napier”. The color-coded corrections and highlights are gone, but the two grammatical corrections on the front page and page 5 are incorporated into the text without the color highlights, as is explained in the accompanying press release.

The 20-page report is accompanied by another one-page press release from new Town Public Information Office Director Joanne Williams of Williams Media LLC based in Richmond. The first three paragraphs focus on the above-referenced confusion over which version of the report had been released, concluding with this reference to Town Attorney Napier’s subsequent communication to council:

“As a result of much confusion on what appears to be various versions of the report circulated, the Town Attorney issued an email to Town Council members on November 19 stating, “I located the October 21 report. The changes are two, extremely minor, one is putting a space between two paragraphs, the other was cleaning up the language in the first report wherein it stated “CORRECTION” so that the corrected language is now simply an integral part of the report. I have marked one copy of the October 21 report to show the changes from the October 7 report and have also sent a clean copy of the October 21 report. The changes are so minor and technical that they were hardly worth making …” Napier observed.

And it does appear the one substantive grammatical change, color-coded in the original release on page 5 simply moves the word “not” from one location in a sentence to another, not changing the substance of that sentence: “CORRECTION: Another meeting on March 30, 2021, with Mr. Wilson was held to discuss what was needed for Mr. Holloway to build a private street on this property he was purchasing from the Town and re-subdividing. Mr. Wilson did not (removed) advise Mr. Holloway or the Town Manager that a “special use permit” was NOT (added) needed.”

And the press release restates the November 17 assertion that while fast-tracking of the application by the town manager, occasionally under the watchful eye of the subdivision applicant Mayor Holloway, was engaged in leading some staff to feel pressured to sign off on immediate approval without checking zoning codes, no wrongdoing occurred.

And as noted in our original introduction to the November 17 release, the town attorney did point out of the staff “fast-tracking” of the application: “It should be clearly and unambiguously stated that there is no current Town Code provision that states this it is impermissible for the Town Manager to do this, or for a Mayor or Town Councilman to have the Town Manager do this for them.”

However, could the fast-tracking and mayoral or council/applicant presence during some of that fast-tracking lead to staff oversights on code regulations under the real or implied pressure they felt they were under, particularly when some were in interim management positions due to staffing cutbacks? Maybe the promised administrative review of “outdated policies and procedures to ensure consistency” promised in the final sentence of both the report-accompanying press releases will address that issue.

Here are the links to the corrected documents and press release.

2 PR Town Clarifies Final Report Release of 11-17

3 FINAL VERSION-Report re-release 11-22 Memo

Town Administration beats Planning Commission to punch – releases report on Holloway LLC’s subdivision approval process Wednesday afternoon