New Day Dawning
Fear and Loathing in Waynesboro column by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
“We’re going to undo everything you’ve done the past five years. You don’t want to be around for that.”
That’s what they told Doug Walker. Not exactly Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out, but it’s pretty close.
And so begins the New Day Dawning in Waynesboro, four weeks and change early. The new ultraconservative majority has already begun throwing its weight around, and we’re nowhere near July 1.
“It is what it is,” Walker told me after a tumultuous city-council meeting that ended last night with him offering his resignation effective June 30, and city council voting 3-2 to accept his offer to stand down.
In between the offering and the accepting, some things were said that have to make you worry for the future of this city. Vice Mayor Nancy Dowdy, in a prepared statement, said that she, along with Mayor Tom Reynolds and Councilwoman Lorie Smith, had been informed late last week that Councilman Tim Williams and Councilman Frank Lucente had asked Walker soon after the May 6 election to offer his resignation.
“Both informed Mr. Walker that they did not trust his leadership,” Dowdy said. “Mr. Walker was told that if he did not resign, the new majority, with (Councilman-elect Bruce) Allen’s support, would fire him on July 1. Mr. Allen has confirmed his position on this matter.”
Lucente spoke briefly with reporters following the meeting, though he would neither confirm nor deny the account offered by Dowdy.
“I’m not going to talk about personnel issues. I don’t think they should be discussed in the street,” Lucente told the News Leader.
I can confirm that Lucente had spoken in harshly negative terms about Walker in a lunch meeting with me a week after the election, focusing his fire on his feeling that Walker injected himself too much into policy issues. As fate may have it, Lucente and I were meeting to discuss among other things a column that I had just written in which I was critical of Lucente for insisting that Walker come up with budget cuts to bring city spending in line with balanced-budget requirements in a way that I thought was asking the administrator to do what was supposed to be the job of the elected city council.
Lucente said during that May 13 meeting with me that he had addressed his concerns regarding Walker’s job performance in a one-on-one meeting with the city manager that morning, though he did not tell me that day that he had asked the city manager to step down.
It’s interesting what Mr. Lucente is willing to say in one-on-one meetings and what he isn’t willing to say publicly. This makes it twice in two weeks that Lucente has sidestepped public discussion of matters involving leadership positions in City Hall. Last week it was the issue of who will succeed Reynolds as mayor, with Lucente pushing behind the scenes for Williams while saying publicly that he will not make any comment about who he wants to see installed in the position “because I don’t think that should be a public discussion.”
My guess is that he didn’t want his promise to “undo everything” that Walker and city council had accomplished in the past five years to be a public discussion, either.
That is what has me worried for the future of Waynesboro, in case you were wondering. Because the craprain is only beginning to fall. And it’s going to be a long nuclear winter before we can get the hazmat teams in.
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[...] city council that followed one of the more tumultuous springs in recent local political memory. The firing of Doug Walker that was engineered before the election and was brought to fruition just after was the first in a [...]
Wow, not having heard a whisper of this up to now, I’m in shock and disappointment after reading the News Leader this morning.
The prospect of an uphill fight against the new “regime” isn’t appealing.
I appreciate Nancy Dowdy and Lorie Smith’s defense of Doug Walker.
When we moved here from Wilmington, DE almost 44 years ago, we explored both Staunton and Waynesboro to live. Waynesboro won hands down; it was cosmopolitan, energetic, had good shopping, etc., while Staunton seemed to be dying. Over the years, we saw the towns reverse–Staunton got busy, while Waynesboro got worse, until the past few years, when new life and hope arrived. Now I understand that’s going to be undone. What a sad thing for a town that once was, and promised to be again, a jewel.
Four years of this. Four years and an extra month, actually.
I missed those good years. I’m 35 years old, and I don’t remember much of what it was like here until about 1982 or so. That was the year, if I have my timelines right, that General Electric started downsizing. It took us from then until the past two or three years to see us rebound. Almost a quarter century. And now we’re back to 1982 again. I’m wistful, too, and I’m wistful for something that I was never cognizant of.
I’d like to hear specifically what it is that’s going to be undone.
I agree with everyone that Doug Walker is a good man and was a fine City Manager, but the new majority doesn’t believe that his beliefs and philosophy align with theirs, and by extension with the majority of the voters.
I did some research, and the average City Manager tenure is just over 5 years, and the most common reason for them leaving their jobs is disagreement with the City Council. It’s exactly as Doug said in the News Virginian today … “This is part of the City Manager business.” So this isn’t exactly some out-of-this-world move by the new Council.
Again I ask, what is it that Doug Walker specifically represented that’s going to be undone?
Alex, ask Frank and Tim. The quote comes from them. Ask them what is going to be undone.
Chris -
I wasn’t asking about the quote itself, I was asking in the context that people (including you) seem to be upset about it. Therefore I am wondering which things that might fall under it’s aegis you are upset about.
That said, I’d be willing to bet that particular quote is also being taken out of context. It’s no stretch to say that what will be torn down is Walker’s philosophy of growing the City government and machinations to further his personal agenda.
I’m losing respect for you, Alex. And I’m the only person on this blog who has any.
“Walker’s philosophy of growing the city government and machinations to further his personal agenda.” I’m sorry, but I’m calling BS here. In case you’d somehow forgotten, this isn’t the backroom at Reo’s, and the people on this blog aren’t the good old boys. Give us some facts, or take your ball and go home.
Well, I appreciate the little respect that’s left.
Here are some facts -
Frank and Tim have been vocal proponents of the City staying within its financial means for the last several years. Frank in particular has challenged the necessity of a number of elements that were in each of the past several years’ budgets, such as increased headcount. Over that same period, the City’s budget has seen double digit increases, as have actual taxes paid by citizens.
Though, as I said, Frank and Tim raised concerns over and over, every budget that the Walker-led staff proposed contained further increases, including this year’s.
Now, I think that the outgoing majority was okay with this philosophy of budgeting, so I don’t blame Walker for following it. However, I also think one unintended outcome was convincing Frank and Tim that Walker either had no interest or ability to do it the way they wanted.
I also think, and I believe that her comments last night reflect, that Walker was very influential with creating Lorie Smith’s theory of how the City should be run, which unsurprisingly matched his. Add to that his personal relationship with the Dowdys, and lack of relationship with Tim or Frank (just as much their fault, of course), and you have a City Manager who, at the very least, seems to be tightly aligned with a faction of the Council.
Follow this with a number of incidents widely reported, including the legal opinion of the televised debates, where Frank and Tim felt that the staff was not being fully open with them, and you end up with a loss of faith in the City Manager.
Again I will say that the City Manager has to have the faith of the Council for the city government to work. If he doesn’t, you have to move on, and that time had come.
I don’t know Doug well but I have spoken with him 20 of 30 times and a few times on a more personal level. I find Doug Walker to be a bright and focused man. Doug and I have had reasonably strong disagreements over issues about Waynesboro, the Downtown area and issues of selling Waynesboro lock stock and barrel to corporate “big box” America I am not a huge fan of Mr. Walker, we disagree on a lot of things BUT he is more than capable for this position and I am grateful for the talent he brings to us.
What I would like to see NOW is a published list of reasons the city council has asked for Mr. Walker’s resignation. What are the issues here??? State them clearly!!! Have the balls to say them in public — not in some back room where everyone agrees!
Chris, your job is to ask for these specific points and publish them! We want to know the reasons!
Frank, Tim, Tom & Bruce…Give some very clear and straight reasons for asking Doug to step down. If this is some political BS agenda you have US the voters to answer to.
I request that these facts be presented to US the people of Waynesboro. If there is a good reason than we will back you completely BUT if not…
As a citizen of Waynesboro and as a voter and tax payer I am not willing to accept Mr. Walkers resignation without full disclosure…OR DO I HAVE A VOICE IN MY TOWN??
Is this a budget thing?? I call foul if that is the case. The job of the City Manager is not to write the budget it is the job of the City Council to make this happen.
If this was about Doug trying to grow city government beyond any means that we could accept here in Waynesboro, why was it that a conservative city council hired him in the first place? Why not get rid of him at any point during the three and a half years that the conservative bloc controlled city council?
I’m picking on you, Alex, because you’re the only self-styled conservative joining us here today. But I have to ask – are you trying to suggest that city government only grew in size in the past two years? The funny thing there is, the current (through June 30) majority on city council only had the chance to pass two budgets. One of them featured an eight-cent tax-rate decrease; the other that is on the table right now is providing city services, public education and beginning work on stormwater improvements with a flat tax rate.
So this isn’t about growth of government or increased pressure on taxes. You know that. You knew that before you joined us here in this discussion. It’s about the other item that you mentioned. Frank and Tim just don’t like Doug personally. I can’t say why – I won’t dare speak for why certain people seem to not get along as well with certain other people. The question that we are asking ourselves is – is this any way to run our government?
You asked in another thread why this issue is so heated right now. I think people rightly fear that we’re going to have a hard time getting a competent person to come in and serve in the city-manager job knowing that our city manager is grossly underpaid relative to peers in the Shenandoah Valley, one, and two because the incoming majority on city council fired the previous guy because he didn’t slap them on the back hard enough or pretend that he thought their dated jokes were funny.
Now, if you please, give up the act of defending the indefensible. This is what it is. A big, steamin’ pile of BS. And a serious misstep on the part of the new majority that is going to cost this city dearly when it comes to trying to find a new city manager and replacements for some of the other key people on the staff that we can assume are going to roll next because they haven’t sufficiently slapped and chuckled when expected to.
How can you consider the City Council’s right to choose the City Manager indefensible? You may disagree with the choice, but its hardly indefensible.
It’s easy for you to throw stones and talk about slapping and chuckling, but that ain’t it. Doug Walker just did not have the same budget and management philosophy as the new majority – do you really disagree with that?
Let’s talk about the two budgets you mention. Both raised the overall size of the budget. The 8-cent tax decrease still resulted in an overall increase in the amount paid (an average of 23% more in property tax), because it did not offset the increased assessments in real estate value. This year’s budget was again presented with an increase, and it took some wrangling to get it to neutral.
As to whether or not Frank and Tim like or dislike Doug, I can only say this. I know quite a number of people that Frank dislikes but respects, and works with quite well, even if he doesn’t socialize with them. So I don’t think that’s the key issue.
I have to disagree with your assessment of getting another Manager. According to the ICMA (International City/County Management Association) the average tenure of a City Manager is 5.5 years, and most of them change jobs because of a change in the Council that leads to disagreements. So it’s normal business to have this kind of change, and professional City Managers know that. That won’t scare them off. As far as salary goes, we shall see what the Council has to pay to attract a good candidate.
Time will tell on your misstep prediction – would you care to put forth some metric on how we’d look back and judge that?
I get it now. Any increase in spending is bad. Costs go up related to higher gas prices, people pay them, businesses pay them, but if government has to eat those costs, in the world of Frank Lucente, it’s Doug Walker’s fault. Totally understood.
The federal government passes down mandates under No Child Left Behind, under new guidelines requiring us to upgrade our emergency-services communications, to the tune of millions of dollars, the state government tells us we have to upgrade our wastewater-treatment plant, millions more there, all Doug’s fault.
Police cars, computers, dump trucks, heavy equipment, fill in name of your favorite item here, it needs replaced, it’s Doug’s fault. Invista decides to move things around with its machinery and tools affecting its contribution to the city coffers – Doug’s fault.
Thanks for explaining that to me. I was so foolish to assume that we have city leaders cutting our tax rate eight cents one year and then working hard to assume hundreds of thousands of dollars of spending on long-needed infrastructure needs without having to raise taxes the next and that that was a good thing. But I have seen the light. The only tax cuts and spending cuts that are worth anything now are the ones that Frank says are okie-dokie with him. I mean, hell, we all know that the only reason the two girls went along with the tax and spending cuts the last couple of years was because Frank shared the script that he writes for Tim with them.
I feel enlightened now. The truth has set me free. Hire me. I could be city manager now.
Hey Chris,
You left out unmerited pay raises, lighted ball field complex, downtown mall, WAYNE THEATER, west end fire station, library expansion. I’m sure the federal government mandated those too.
The argument of the lowered tax rate is rubbish and just a play on numbers. The bottom line is we are paying more in real estates taxes, period.
I think I smell sour grapes………..
Can’t we all just get along??????
Hey Rick,
I smell something else here, and I’m not the only one.
You want a city on the cheap, well, you’re getting it. You want a city run in a smoky backroom, you’re getting that, too.
Say goodbye to whatever voice we had in how our city is run. The good ol’ boys are going to do their damndest to shut that down for good before the next four years are up.
You keep fiddling while Rome burns. The rest of us are going to fight for Waynesboro.
Keep spreadin’ the BS. Maybe they can help fertilize my grapes into a mighty fine Bordeaux in ’12.
Chris-
I will take a bottle of that fine wine, in fact, make it a case
I don’t put myself on either “side” of the council but having to make a choice between out of control spending and penny pinching I guess I’ll take penny pinching given the current state of the economy.
Depending on what side of the fence you’ve been on determines whether your getting/losing your voice.
This city has always been run from a back room it’s just changing to a different one.
By the way I came here to visit your site thinking it would have better local news than the New Virginian. I was surprised to find it more of an opionionated rant than news reporting.
Your arrogance is refreshing.
“Out of control spending” or “penny pinching” … the very way you phrase the debate is an indication of where you stood on the issues before you came here.
We speak truth to power here. And we will not apologize for doing so. Somebody has to keep the brokers honest, and with all due respect to our friends in the local media, they’re not getting the job done on that count.
We’re not going to please everybody in taking this approach, obviously, but our representative democracy form of government only works when the people have a voice. We are the voice for Moving Waynesboro Forward.