With Less Than 100 Votes Estimated Yet to be Counted, Samuels Library Appears to be the BIG Winner in County Elections

Royal Examiner reached out to several Samuels Library officials and supporters on Wednesday, November 5th, the day after the election, for a reaction to what appears to be a clean winning sweep of pro-Samuels candidates in the Warren County Board of Supervisors and School Board elections.

As previously reported by Royal Examiner, Samuels Library supporters Tony Carter (Happy Creek Supervisor’s race), Hugh Henry (Fork District Supervisor’s race), as well as School Board candidates Sara Jones (Happy Creek) and George Cline Jr. (Fork) appear to be clear winners despite election results not yet being certified as official.

According to Warren County Director of Elections and General Registrar Matthew Reisinger, while the numbers initially posted are not certified as final due to two categories, Provisional and Post-Election Ballots, not yet reported because of upcoming submission deadlines, the thus-far received and anticipated uncounted ballots are expected to be less than 200 in total. Even if that number of yet-to-be-counted votes all went to the trailing candidates, it would not be enough to overturn any of the thus-far reported vote totals. In the only really competitive board race, Scott Turnmeyer initially trailed Tony Carter by 342 votes: Carter 1,868 to Turnmeyer 1,526.

We will note that a check of election results on Friday, November 7, saw a post-election ballot count of 15 votes added to the above Carter-Turnmeyer result. That changed the totals to Carter 1,874, Turnmeyer 1,535, altering Carter’s lead to 339 votes, or a 3-vote gain by the trailing candidate Turnmeyer.

At this point, only the Provisional Ballots remain to be counted. Provisional Ballots are defined as “a way for people to vote whose voter registration or qualifications to vote are in question.” It allows the Voter Registrar’s staff time to research the voting issue, as opposed to just turning such a potential voter away from the polls.

Henry (94.95% of the vote) and Cline (94.81% of the vote) ran unopposed, other than a sprinkling of write-in votes. The only other competitive county race was Sara Jones’ School Board lead at 2,020 votes thus far over Joseph Stahl’s 1,519 votes, a 501 vote lead for Jones.

According to the State Election website, the initially published vote totals were based on completed counts of Early Voting, Election Day ballots cast, and Mailed Absentee ballots, which account for the great bulk of total ballots cast.

Election Day polling places reflected a large portion of the community united in support of its historic and award-winning Samuels Library, as results showed. Is that local videographer Parson Brown examining the pro-Samuels PAC booth in 2nd photo? Royal Examiner File Photos Roger Bianchini

All four local winners have declared their support for the continuation of the Public/Private Partnership between Samuels Library and the county government that currently rests in a self-supporting public library limbo due to the actions of the recent 4-1 Supervisors majority. The majority of “Jay” Butler (Happy Creek), Vicky Cook (Fork), John Stanmeyer (Shenandoah), and Richard Jamieson (North River) have focused on an alleged lack of financial transparency by the 501 (c) (3) Samuels non-profit private entity.

However, the bulk, and perhaps all of those alleged financial inproprieties appear to have been successfully countered as inaccurate or simply not true by Samuels Library officials, its Board of Trustees, and supporting citizens. Included among those citizens is the temporarily retired Happy Creek Supervisor Tony Carter, who chose not to run for re-election four years ago. During his campaign to regain the supervisors seat he held for 20 years after a 7-1/2 year stint on the Front Royal Town Council, Carter said Samuels Library’s financial transparency “has always been there.” We note that Carter’s 20-year tenure on the WC Board of Supervisors spanned from January 1, 2002, to December 31, 2021.

Twenty years on the WC Board of Supervisors before a first retirement in 2021, and Tony Carter disputed any lack of financial transparency by Samuels Library during his five terms and beyond. Below, it was generally a full house of Samuels’ supporters at specially called meetings to respond to the Supervisor Jamieson-led board majority’s allegations regarding the financial transparency of the Samuels Library.

Reactions

We first reached the current Samuels Library Board of Trustees President, Melody Hotek, in search of a reaction to the existing election result, which appears to be final in terms of winners and losers. “On behalf of the Trustees, we extend our congratulations to all the candidates. We are looking forward to working with the County to restore our public/private partnership in the coming year,” Hotek told us.

Samuels Library Director Erin Rooney added, “We are so grateful to this wonderful community! Your words of support, encouragement, and donations mean so much to our staff. You keep us smiling and exemplify the ‘community’ in our mission to bring people, information, and ideas together to enrich lives and build community.”

From left, Samuels Library officials Eileen Grady, Erin Rooney, and Melody Hotek, during Samuels Trustees meeting, said, “You want numbers, here are the numbers – and they’re available annually and upon request.”

We also contacted Friends of Samuels Library (FOSL) President Sydney Patton, who said, “The election results appear to be a testament to the importance of Samuels Library to the community. This was no secret to those of us who regularly visit the library, but it is wonderful to see the ‘loud vocal’ support from even those who don’t frequent the doors. As I’ve always said, this support is the love letter to the library and the staff. Tuesday proved how much love that is.”

We encountered two more Samuels’ supporters at the November 5th Warren County Board of Supervisors meeting. Those were Save Samuels President Samantha Good (53:09 County video mark) and Bethany O’Neill (57:50 County video mark). Both spoke during the final Public Comments on non-agenda items, near the meeting’s end.

“I just want to stand here for a moment to just take this in. The constituents spoke and voted the book banners off the island,” O’Neill began referencing the previous day’s election results, adding, “Let me say it again, the book banners were voted off the island.”

She left the podium with this closing remark, “What a great day it is to read a book.”

Library supporter Bethany O’Neill left the BOS Public Comments podium the day after the 2025 election with this observation: “What a great day it is to read a book.”

Preceding O’Neill to the podium for non-agenda item Public Comments was Save Samuels’ President, Samantha Good. She began by congratulating the quartet of pro-library election winners, Hugh Henry, Tony Carter, Sara Jones, and George Cline Jr.

She then launched into a scathing appraisal of the soon-to-be former board majority, believed by most Samuels Library supporters to be a clandestine continuation of the 2023 censorship effort by an apparent distinct minority of citizens, some self-identified as religiously motivated, to remove all references to the LGBTQ community from library shelves.

“What a fantastic Election Day we had, especially for our county that has been so divided lately,” Good observed, adding, “I really think that this election proves that Samuels has accomplished its mission to bring our community together and enrich lives. And I can tell from our election because we elected people who are honest, hard-working, community-oriented, when we’ve been dealing with a board that sews division with blatant lies, only works for themselves and their friends, and doesn’t listen to their constituents (majority).”

Speaking to the anti-library majority of Jamieson, Stanmeyer, Butler, and perhaps Cook, who, while recently resigned, was present to address the board on financial issues, Good continued, “I think you all had a chance today to show a shred of integrity, that you still have a shred left, and apologize for your behaviour over the past two years. And none of you did. And I’m really disappointed that even though we proved yet again that our library is what we wanted, you still refuse to apologize to this community (for) the harm you have done to it.”

The Save Samuels president then referenced current and past election numbers to illustrate her point about the recent board majority’s disregard for what appeared to be a clear majority of involved community citizens on Samuels Library issues.

Samantha Good spoke at an earlier BOS meeting when a standing-room-only crowd united to fight for the history of Samuel’s Library’s contributions to this community’s adults and youth, who showed up in force, spilling into the WCGC hallway.

“Let’s see, Mr. Henry got double what Mr. Stanmeyer got in elections, and almost double of what you got,” Good said with a gesture Supervisor Jamieson’s way, adding, “And Tony (Carter) got more than both of you as well and he was running opposed, you both were unopposed,” Good said of Supervisors Jamieson and Stanmeyer’s election runs.

Good then acknowledged all others who have worked to restore a working Public/Private Partnership between Samuels and the County on the community’s public library operations:

“So, thank you to all the volunteers, all the people who have commented (publicly at board meetings), all the people who wrote postcards, donated, volunteered, rallied. And thank you to the people who were willing to run in a county with people like you, people they are going to have to sit on the board with who have no integrity at all,” Good finished with a not-so-good closing

No longer behind bars — a community’s majority has voted to unchain Samuels Library from questionable accusations of a lack of financial transparency in its operations. OK, we realize those aren’t jailhouse bars in front of the first library shot, but use your imagination.

As previously reported, we would like to note here that the entity that evolved into the Samuels Library dates back to 1799, when it became the second state-authorized public library operation in Virginia. And it became Samuels Library in the 1950s when it took on the name of a past library administrator who donated his Chester Street property, now the Warren Heritage Society building, to become an expanded public library facility.