Two supervisors questioned about ‘back channel’ dealings with Town on EDA issues

On Tuesday, July 21, Happy Creek Supervisor Tony Carter’s call to add board discussion and a vote of “formal approval” of an informally negotiated “Reservation of Rights Agreement” with the Front Royal Town Council led to the evening’s most surprising and most contentious discussion.

During that discussion, Carter asked if informal County “Reservation of Rights” negotiators Delores Oates and Cheryl Cullers should be made an official board committee. When County Administrator Doug Stanley noted that once formed as a formal municipal committee, further meetings would require public notice of, and minutes to be taken at future meetings.

‘I would like to disagree with that,’ Cullers said of Carter’s formalized committee idea, adding, ‘simply because I feel like we’re making some headway – not that I’m trying not to be transparent.’ Royal Examiner Photos/Roger Bianchini – Royal Examiner Video/Mark Williams

“I know, that was my intent,” Carter replied, indicating he thought a formal committee a better path than the undocumented, unsupervised way those unofficial meetings between Cullers and Oates and Lori Cockrell and Chis Holloway on the Town side were being conducted. Carter called the meetings similar to the Town-County Liaison Committee meetings, which are formal and documented. Perhaps oddly or not, the Reservation of Rights Agreement discussion was NOT part of last week’s Liaison Committee meeting agenda.

“I think everybody wants to be transparent. And it seems like that would be the best way to be transparent – notify the media, notify the public about having these discussions,” Carter said of formalizing such an important matter involving the County, Town, and EDA.

However, Cullers and Oates countered that their un-monitored meetings with the Town representatives were being made in good faith to move a stagnated process forward.

“I would like to disagree with that,” Culler said of Carter’s formalized committee idea, adding, “simply because I feel like we’re making some headway – not that I’m trying not to be transparent. But at some point, you have to sit down with people in a room, shut the door and get down to business without too many people in the room. I think the Reservation of Rights that we came to here is a step in that direction. I don’t know if we would have got there if we had more people in the room.”

“I understand what you’re saying, that you prefer to conduct public business without the public,” Carter retorted of Cullers’ rationale for continuing her and Oates meetings as they have thus far been conducted without public and media scrutiny.

As previously reported, the original “Reservation of Rights Agreement” was a late June, Town-drafted quasi-legal document agreeing to a one-time, recoverable $10,528.95 payment covering half the $21,102 interest-only July payment on the new Front Royal Police Headquarters debt service. The agreement was first revealed during a June 30 Town Special Meeting called to approve the initial draft. However, due to excessive conditional language included in that document, first EDA officials who were being asked to sign off on the agreement they had no previous knowledge of, and then apparently County officials as well, rejected moving forward with it.

Last week a revised and severely paired back, one paragraph “Reservation of Rights Agreement” was brought forward by North River District Supervisor Oates and Board Vice-Chair Cullers for reconsideration by the supervisors. While the intent remained the same, a one-month, recoverable half-interest Town payment on the July FRPD debt service that the Town was admitting no obligation to make, virtually all the excessive verbiage that would have had the EDA and County signing a document stating the Town has “no legal or moral obligation” to pay for its EDA-financed police station and preventing any future EDA or County use of the payment and its documentation in court or “any forum” was gone.

It was replaced with the Town’s acknowledgment that the payment was being made “with no admission of obligation and reserving all rights to continue to contest this and other matters in pending litigation between the Town and EDA. The EDA accepts this payment acknowledging this reservation of rights.” See Royal Examiner’s coverage of evolution of the draft proposals in previous stories “Legal questions surround Town offer of one-time, recoverable FRPD payment” and “Pared back FRPD payment ‘Reservation of Rights Agreement’ revealed by County”.

As for the asserted “good faith” aspect of the secretive Reservation of Rights Agreement discussion, Carter said, as EDA Board Chairman Daley would soon agree to during his comments on the matter, “Wouldn’t it be good faith if the Town paid their obligations? Wouldn’t it be good faith if the Town, County, and EDA worked together, instead of against each other in legal procedures?”

Both Cullers and Oates responded that was their ultimate goal, adding that the non-publicly acknowledged meetings allowed the conversation to be undertaken “without the undermining going on”. Contacted later, Cullers said that was not a reference to any media coverage of Town-County issues.

Carter continued his “show of good faith” questions, asking, “Is it a show of good faith that the Town is starting its own EDA, thus duplicating costs to the town taxpayers, instead of working together? After all, most of the EDA projects are located in the town.”

Carter also questioned the advisability of the supervisors as the county’s governing body, signing off on a document that Oates admitted had not been what she and Cullers had hoped to achieve on behalf of the County and EDA, which was the full July payment acknowledging the bank-financed 3% interest rate on the FRPD debt service.

Part of the Town of Front Royal’s $20-million-plus civil litigation against the EDA is the claim it was promised a 1.5%, 30-year debt service interest rate on the FRPD project by former EDA Executive Director Jennifer McDonald.

EDA Board Chairman Daley provides details to the Board of Supervisors regarding the FRPD project.

Called to the podium to comment for the EDA Tuesday night, still EDA Board Chairman Daley told the supervisors the EDA has documentation dating to 2017 and 2018 indicating the Town knew the FRPD project interest rate would be no lower than 3%.

Daley also was fairly pointed in indicating to the supervisors that he believed the Town was not dealing in good faith with the EDA regarding any financial issues. He observed that Town legal attacks or refusals to meet financial obligations with the EDA were also attacks on the County since the County has taken on sole financial responsibility in support of the EDA.

Following the 35-minute far-ranging, sometimes pointed conversation, on a motion by Carter, seconded by Fox, the board voted 4-1 to table action on the Reservation of Rights Agreement. Oates cast the lone negative vote. After a long pause when her name was called for the roll call vote, Cullers voted with the majority to table.

See all the drama of your local government in action, including discussion with County Attorney Jason Ham on the advisability of formal versus informal meetings of this magnitude, Chairman Mabe’s observations in the middle of the debate, and Daley’s full observation from the EDA perspective in this Royal Examiner video segment: