“What is the point of order?” CM Williams retorts as Mayor Milan puts an end to her filibuster 

By Valerie Cury

Purcellville’s Town Council Special Meeting on Jan. 10, showcased hurdles the majority of the Town’s elected representatives faced in carrying out promises citizens elected it to achieve. These hurdles included disorderly outbursts and attempts to filibuster from within the Town Council’s ranks; misinformation from Loudoun County officials to pressure the Town to override its policy processes; and resistance from senior Town staff against explicit direction from the Town’s mayor and majority councilmembers. Despite one council member’s vulgar language and attempted distractions from the issues at hand, the meeting ended on time.

Working through these impediments, members of the Town Council, including newly confirmed member Ron Rise, Jr., initiated an effort to earmark nutrient credit monies of $926,000 to help draw down the Town’s sewer and water debt.  

The meeting’s first and biggest hurdles involved what appeared to have been an attempt at a filibuster during citizen and business comments, by Town Council Member Mary Jane Williams.  

Williams demanded to personally read some 40 emails into the record, after proposing a motion at a previous meeting to end Town Council meetings by 9:30 p.m.  

As Town Council candidates who advocate for transparency and citizen feedback continue to win a majority of the seats in Purcellville, members are also seeking to work efficiently to accomplish all tasks before them.  

Williams’ insistence to read all of the emails, regarding the County’s Rt. 7/690 Interchange proposal, seemed to contradict her earlier effort to achieve shortened meetings.  

The common protocol for reading citizen emails at Town Council meetings is to provide them to the clerk, who adds them to the minutes of the meeting. In this way the messages become part of the public record, available to anyone to read and review.  

After Williams read the eleventh email, Mayor Stan Milan said, “In the interest of time, we can add those …”, but was then interrupted by Williams who interjected, “Well technically each citizen has three minutes to speak …”  

Vice Mayor Chris Bertaut noted that many of the emails read by Williams were from County residents, and not Purcellville town residents. Bertaut added that the Town Council also received many emails urging them to do their due diligence in representing Purcellville citizens’ interests regarding the Rt.7/690 Interchange. To this Williams snapped, “Well, maybe you can find those, and you could read those into the record then.”  

Mayor Milan ventured to find out more about the remaining emails Williams planned to present, asking, “Are all those…”, but was again interrupted by Williams who declared, “This is not a pissing contest.”   

Milan responded that he never said it was, and was then again interrupted by Williams. Milan at this point used the gavel, calling a “Point of Order.”  Williams responded belligerently, “What is the point of order?”  Milan, now able to complete his question, stated “I am asking, are all those comments from citizens who live inside Purcellville?”  

Williams responded that all the messages were from citizens or business owners in Purcellville, and proceeded to read one from a citizen residing on Snickersville Turnpike – outside of the Town of Purcellville’s boundaries – while claiming the citizen to be a town resident.  

Milan confirmed that each of the emails would be included in the meeting record. Williams persisted, however, and added that she wanted to make sure that “everyone knows you will not allow me to read citizen comments into the record.” 

Loudoun County’s Blue Ridge District Supervisor Tony R. Buffington (R-Blue Ridge) had sent a Dec. 22, 2022, email to his constituents which said that the Purcellville Town Council was delaying County projects. He said the delays included the Rt.7/690 Interchange.  

The Town Council is unable to approve the project because the County altered the agreed-upon design without following the Town’s due process for notification and public review. Nevertheless, Buffington urged his constituents to email Purcellville’s Town Council, in opposition to the delay. 

Vice Mayor Bertaut said that one of these emails erroneously claimed that the traffic on Hirst Road and Main Street without the Rt.7/690 Interchange would be crippled. “The County’s own data shows that is not the case. The no-build scenario and the Rt.7/690 Interchange scenario show virtually the same levels of service along both corridors. So, I think there is a bit of misinformation that has been floating around.”  

Milan recognized that the Rt.7/690 Interchange has become a public debate, as it has been the focus of much anticipation “because the approval for the Alternative 1 project was done in 2014. The new project that we see now, is an Alternate Barbell Design, and was not approved by the Town Council.”  

He said the new engineering design was not presented to the Council or to the Planning Commission. He said the Alternate Barbell Design “encroaches on our trees and streams and into the community that is adjacent to it. The review of this new engineering design should have gone through the process where the Planning Commission should have been involved and then presented to the Town Council. That was not done.”

Another major hurdle the Town’s elected officials confronted during their Jan. 10 meeting involved disagreement with and resistance from the Town’s senior staff. 

Town Manager David Mekarski announced that he wanted to hire Martha Mason Semmes to fill the position of Director of Planning and Economic Development on a temporary basis, since Don Dooley, who previously held the position, recently handed in his resignation. Semmes was the Director of Planning under former Mayor Bob Lazaro.  

Mekarski said Semmes would assist the Planning Commission with its zoning rewrite and act as interim Zoning Administrator, a position that serves at the pleasure of the Town Council, according to the Town’s laws. 

Mekarski said Semmes would start her position on Jan. 18. Mayor Milan pointed out that he had asked the Town Manager in the preceding week to provide a transition plan and a job description for the position vacated by Dooley, and that to date “I have not received it.  

“Now I am hearing that it has been an ongoing conversation with someone to fill this position.” Milan noted that the position to appoint the Zoning Administrator is the function of the Town Council. “Strike 1,” he told Mekarski.  

He added that the “Town Council asked the Town Manager to generate a termination letter for the contract on the Tabernacle. A week later at the midnight hour, we get the letter … hours before,” the contract, with the current lessee, would have automatically renewed. “Strike 2,” he said.  

Milan went on to say the Town has many employees who are nearly eligible for retirement and that they were told over two months ago they needed a transition plan. “We need to look at a transition plan … to cover events like the one that just happened,” referring to the resignation of the Planning Director.

Milan requested a job description for the Interim Planning Director position. “There should be something out there right now,” noting they had filled the position only a few years ago.  

Senior management demurred, asking Milan what would he do with it and why he wanted to see the job description, and also saying they are working on tweaking it and making it better. They said they did not have a current job description yet. 

Vice Mayor Bertaut said, “The key thing for this Town Council is we don’t have the current job description in front of us.” After 20 minutes of discussion about not having a completed job description, the Director of Human Resources said she had it, and with the Town Manager’s permission, would send it over to Council momentarily.

Despite these hurdles, the Town Council managed to initiate discussion related to campaign promises to constituents, including how to spend the nutrient credit monies of $926,000. 

Council Member Boo Bennett said, “I want it to go to the wastewater debt; and I want to make it very clear because I have had to watch over the years negative comments made about this innovation and now there’s a pile of money and everybody is interested.”  

She continued, “One of my favorite stories from childhood was the Little Red Hen. She couldn’t get anybody to help her bake the cake, but everybody wanted to eat it.” 

Bennett said she wanted to make the reduction of “your water bill in this Town the drum you can plan to hear me beat … I will look high and low, line by line, through the Town’s budget to find the monies necessary to begin funding the $1.2 million debt payment that begins next year …”  

Bennett said she would not support hiring a consultant to suggest raising taxes. 

Bertaut said he would like the nutrient credit revenue of $926,000 “to go to pay off the waste water debt,” rather than the possibility of it going in either the General Fund or the Parks and Recreation Fund. 

Bertaut continued, “I wanted the impact to be felt by every citizen of this Town and one way to ensure that is to more narrowly restrict the uses to which this money may be used. I want to fulfill promises to the people of Purcellville.”  

Milan agreed saying, “It should go towards the debt for the water and wastewater.” He had not finished speaking when he was interrupted by the Town Manager.

Then the Director of Finance Elizabeth Krens said the money could go in the Sewer Fund for a certain number of years, with the direction of Council.

Meanwhile Ron Rise Jr. thanked citizens during Council comments, “for the honor to serve them, and I look forward to serving. I look forward to acting in a way that the citizens of this Town demand.”