COUNTY ATTORNEY PETER LUKE: ‘WE NEED THAT SECOND POSITION’
After John McCarthy addressed the supervisors, chairman Roger Welch asked County Attorney Peter Luke what the supervisors should do:
“Well, I can’t tell you what to do, but I can tell you what my opinion is,” said Luke. “You do need a separate zoning administrator. I’ve been here since before John was hired. And I’ve seen this job, his job, mushroom. You all know how many hats he wears. I mean I’m looking here at his contract. Of the jobs you’ve given him, legally under his contract, not counting what he’s picked up with all the night meetings he goes to and different committees he serves on, and going down to Richmond to the General Assembly to represent you.
“We live kind of in a dream world in Rappahannock. Because we’re so small, we sort of get by sometimes with things that other counties can’t get by with. There’s no other county in Virginia where the county administrator and the zoning administrator are the same person. And the reason for that goes with what John said: The zoning administrator has gotten so, since David [Konick] was the zoning administrator before John came in, it’s gotten exponentially more complicated. It’s complicated. There’s a federal level to it. I have sitting on my desk now the new sign ordinance that we have to adopt because the U.S. Supreme Court in a case essentially declared ours and everybody else’s in Virginia unconstitutional.
“So you’ve got to deal with the federal level. You’ve got to deal with the state level. And then of course you have the local level. So it’s more and more complicated, and it’s your highest-risk area of being sued. I don’t have to tell you gentlemen, right now we have this Harmony Hollow case that’s been in the breast of the court now for over a year. I don’t know what’s going on with it, but that was an appeal. You have a direct route now, from the decision of the zoning administrator, to the BZA and then directly to the court. And a lot of people have chosen to take advantage of that. So when I look back at how the county gets itself in court, zoning is the main way.
“I think that it’s time. I gave you some figures, in terms of the cost of John’s salary and what we might be compensating Debbie. And you have that money in the budget now, as far as I can see, to hire a zoning administrator and it won’t affect anything in terms of your taxes. It’s money that was already appropriated this past year, you wouldn’t have to appropriate another cent. You could hire a second person and still have some money left over.
“The last point I’ll touch on, which John I believe alluded to: As an attorney, I’ve never liked the idea of having all your eggs in one basket — being John. If something were to happen to John, your county’s function — you guys meet once or twice a month but I’ll tell you, if you were to come in every day there’s a lot that goes on to keep this county running. And I don’t know how that would continue. It makes sense to have a fallback, to have a backup person. I think I sent you a memo, that if you choose to have a zoning administrator, you could make the zoning administrator the deputy county administrator or make the county administrator the deputy zoning administrator. So whether it’s one or the other, you’ve got an automatic person that legally can step in and do what needs to be done.
“That’s my two centsworth on it. Once again, I have to say, in my favor, I kind of feel like I’ve seen this probably more than anybody else. I deal with these people every week. I deal with John, I deal with Debbie, I deal with these zoning issues -- and the zoning issues have gotten to be a lot more complicated and a lot higher risk if you make the wrong decision. I think it would be good to get somebody in there, let them specialize as the zoning administrator. I just think it’s time.
“As John said, you aren’t going to be able to put it off very long anyway, I believe. You don’t have to wait for somebody to drop dead, or even Debbie surely will plan to go on vacation. She accrues vacation leave. So she takes her two-week vacation, so what’s going to happen then? I know what happens, because usually I’m the one around when everyone else is gone, but I don’t want to be in that position.
“So that’s my recommendation, Mr. Chairman, since you asked me. I know other people may feel otherwise, but once again I’ve had to deal with this every day. And I think, as John says, the job has worn him down, and I can understand why. We don’t need to go down that path again. Treat your employees appropriately. Give them a reasonable amount of work. Don’t put them in a harness and ride them until they drop.”