Toxic personnel purged

Get out the mops and disinfectant

On the evening of May 19, after about 100 minutes of closed door deliberation, the Goochland board of supervisors unanimously voted to accept the resignation of Andrew R. McRoberts as county attorney, effective immediately.

In remarks made by interim county administrator Lane Ramsey in open session, it was disclosed that the supervisors “requested and received” the resignation “in the best interest of everyone.”

In accordance with his employment contract, which McRoberts is believed to have written himself, he will receive $49,000 plus $9,440.45 for unused annual leave and $5,000 for accumulated sick time.

McRoberts is the alleged author of the press release announcing his resignation, which attempted to portray his abrupt exit from Goochland government as his decision alone. Some media outlets ran this almost verbatim. McRoberts is also credited with leaking the identity of the new county administrator to the media in advance of the board announcement, perhaps in return for favorable spin.

During the closed session, Darvin Satterwhite, a local lawyer who served as part-time county before McRoberts was hired in 2001, acted as county attorney until the board could appoint Barbara Rose as interim county attorney.

Rose, a superbly well-qualified lawyer with extensive government experience in Hanover county as well as the office of the Virginia Attorney General, will handle Goochland’s legal matters while the supervisors search for a permanent replacement for McRoberts. Her appointment was effective as of May 20.

She will be paid $140 per hour for 20 hours per week and the supervisors approved not more than $10,000 to retain outside counsel as Rose deems appropriate.

They also voted to retain the Springstead search firm, to help them fill the vacant position.

Ramsey said that the county has already received several resumes for the county attorney position, which will be passed on to Springstead for vetting.

The supervisors set a good precedent in hiring a well qualified outsider for county administrator, let’s hope they continues the trend when hiring a new county attorney.

Given the sensitivity of many rezoning and other matters that come before the board on a regular basis, it is crucial that this important staff member have no local allegiances or connections of any kind. Perception is very important matters of government. Smarting from the consequences of good old boyism that descended into gross incompetence at best, corruption at worst, the board should continue to eagerly embrace hiring fresh faces with new eyes to address the challenges and opportunities ahead.

Now the clean up begins.

The situation in county administration is much like the day after the end of one of those movies where giant monsters or hoards of space aliens are vanquished by the good guys.

We never get to see the clean up. They never showed, for example, what they human race did with the remains of the bazillion defunct spaceship beings that littered earth at the end of H. G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds” or the giant mother ships that crashed down at the end of “Independence Day.”

What did the world do with all that stuff? Was it recyclable, compostable or hazardous waster? We’ll never know, but someone had to clean it up, probably the women.

And so it begins in Goochland.

Rose’s initial task may well be sorting and organizing the legal matters of the county to ensure a smooth transition to the new person.

However, during his tenure, McRoberts seemed to involve himself in a wide range of county business, perhaps far beyond the normal purview of the county attorney.

Who knows what sorts of time bombs may lurk in complicated agreements or policies already in place. Hopefully, they will be identified and defused before they explode in the county’s face.

The supervisors, with good justification, seemed very anxious to put this chapter behind them. Goochland doesn’t need any more scandals.

Voters however, must remember that three board members did nothing to address or stop the machinations of toxic personnel when elections roll around in 2011. The clean up has just begun, there is still much to do.