City attorney resigns as Staunton City Council gang of four drops 'the wall' lawsuit
Leanna Smith
Staunton News Leader
STAUNTON — There were major fireworks before and during Thursday night's Staunton City Council meeting that have set social media talking.
The biggest one is that City Attorney Doug Guynn resigned. He had copies of his letter ready for councilors, which he passed out after a work session. Guynn also simultaneously emailed two members who attended via video.
He sent his resignation letter to Carolyn Dull and Brenda Mead at 6:36 p.m., after a work session but before the general City Council meeting.
Guynn resigned on principle because Staunton's new conservative majority didn't want to continue a years-long pursuit of a homeowner for what Staunton said was flouting of municipal law about constructing private walls, according to one elected official, Mead.
At the meeting, Council voted 4-3 to drop legal pursuit of the homeowner, ending the lengthy and very public litigation effort.
A "gang of four," the new conservative majority on the seven-member council, also Thursday night continued a coordinated push that is upending norms in the usually staid governmental body.
The News Leader has attempted to contact the city attorney, all members of Council and the city manager. No one has replied except Mead.
Guynn's letter did not mention the wall.
More:Disagreements between city officials continues costly wall debate
"(Guynn) is the ultimate professional," Mead said. "I don't want to disclose conversations that we had in private, but I do believe that he was frustrated with a series of actions since the City Council was newly composed on July 1. I think he saw the action taken on the wall litigation as a no-confidence in his performance."
The majority voted to significantly alter the published agenda for the meeting, without apparently consulting the other three elected councilors.
At different points throughout the long evening session, arguments broke out between elected officials. One of the most heated exchanges concerned the apparent unilateral moves by the majority. City Council member Terry Holmes was upset about the surprise remodeling of the agenda.
"I'm frustrated things have been added and dropped," Holmes said. "How do you expect us to work together when you are doing these things without telling us?"
The original work session meeting agenda included a discussion about the participation of police and fire-rescue departments in a Fourth of July Parade. The more progressive council members, including Holmes, said they were not made aware that a parade was being organized until 8 a.m. on the day of the event.
When Councilman Steve Claffey made a motion to alter the evening's agenda he nixed the discussion about the mysterious parade.
In addition to removing the parade from the agenda, Claffey's motion added an item concerning zoom meetings to the work session, added an item reconsidering a previous parking lot purchase to the regular meeting and moved the discussion about wall litigation from the work session to the regular meeting.
Councilwomen Dull and Mead voted against approving the altered agenda.
Dull, who originally requested the discussion about the parade, read a letter about the issue during the matters from council section of the meeting. The anonymous letter was included in the meeting's original agenda packet on the city website.
In the letter, the author claims to be a city employee who is concerned and disappointed by the parade. The author requested that Oakes, Darby, Claffey and Robertson — who all participated in the event — answer several questions about how the parade was organized, how much taxpayer money was used, how citizens were informed and how the parade route was determined.
"Is this how the newly elected Council members are going to conduct events and happenings for the City of Staunton?" the letter said. "Secretively and for their benefit only?"
Former mayor Dull voiced significant concerns that Amy Darby wanted to revisit the issue of the "wall" lawsuit against a homeowner who put a wall on their property in Staunton years ago.
Share questions, comments or story ideas with Leanna Smith at lsmith@newsleader.com. Follow her on Twitter @LeannaCSmith.