Court dismisses Frazier’s appeal to have county cover his legal fees

The Rappahannock County Circuit Court has dismissed the case of Ron Frazier v. Board of Supervisors of Rappahannock County “because no petition for appeal has been filed and the time allowed by law in which to do so has expired.”

In August 2019, Jackson District Supervisor Ron Frazier asked the circuit court to reverse a decision by the Board of Supervisors refusing to pay the $19,365 in legal fees that Frazier incurred during the case of Marian Bragg v. Board of Supervisors of Rappahannock County.

Bragg sued the board in 2016 for violating Virginia’s Freedom of Information

Act (FOIA), alleging that the supervisors discussed items pertaining to the hiring of a county attorney in a closed meeting that were not exempt from FOIA laws. (The Bragg case was settled earlier this year, with no admission of guilt from the Board of Supervisors.)

Frazier initially certified that the items discussed in the closed meeting were indeed exempt from FOIA, but he later reversed course and wrote a legal acknowledgement to the contrary. Frazier’s acknowledgement expressed his belief that the matters discussed behind closed doors were “not lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements under FOIA with respect to filling the County Attorney position.”

The Rappahannock News reported in 2019: “County Attorney Art Goff maintains that because Frazier removed himself from the suit and was an unnamed party, the county — or taxpayers, in this case — was not responsible for Frazier’s legal bills nor for appointing outside counsel to represent him. In November 2018 and February 2019, Goff issued subpoenas to Frazier demanding information relating to Bragg I. Frazier retained Tysons Corner law firm Offit Kurman ‘to evaluate the subpoena and how he should respond,’ according to the appeal filing.

By the end of May 2019, Frazier had “accrued approximately 46 hours of the law firm’s time.”

Frazier’s colleague on the board, Stonewall-Hawthorne Supervisor Chris Parrish, reached out to the News to comment. “It’s ironic that Ron Frazier is the only Board of Supervisors member that admitted guilt [in the Bragg case] and incurred personal legal fees. … by signing the acknowledgement admitting guilt, [Frazier was] automatically a witness for the plaintiff and would be subject to depositions, the avoidance of which prompted him to seek legal advice,” Parrish said.

Both Supervisor Frazier and County Attorney Art Goff responded to the News with no comment on the subject.