Fractious faction

For much of their first year in power, the Waynesboro City Council’s majority trio formed a rock-hard bloc, voting in predictable unanimity. But when an unanticipated divide formed, it ran deep.

On taxes and the budget, the bedrock conservative issues on which the faction campaigned, Mayor Tim Williams splintered from the so-called Three Amigos, composed of him, Vice Mayor Frank Lucente and rookie Councilman Bruce Allen.

Williams voted with the minority, Councilwomen Lorie Smith and Nancy Dowdy, to keep the property tax rate level at 70 cents per $100 of assessed value. Lucente and Allen opposed that move, seeking instead to lower the rate by 3 cents to offset a reassessment increase.

That 3-2 vote represented the most noticeable split in the majority since that faction took control of the council July 1, 2008, a year ago today. The vote on the city’s $39.4 million budget fell along the same lines.

“There was some tough decisions that had to be made financially,” Williams said. “The toughest thing for me is that I’ve disappointed people. ... None of us want to feel like we’ve disappointed them.”

It would have been easy, Williams said, for him to go along with Lucente and Allen to adopt the lower rate and make more cuts, but declining revenues, a weak economy and a “rich person’s tax cut” in the increased reassessment led him to the 70-cent tax rate.

“I tried to look at the whole picture,” Williams said. “But I am limited government, lower taxes. That’s my philosophy. I’m not anti-government, but I am pro-citizen, and I don’t feel I’ve strayed from that at all. I know some people feel I’ve strayed from that, but I haven’t strayed from that at all.”

Williams’ vote stirred a minor outcry from some taxpayers, and kindled talk of a growing rift in the majority.

“I was hoping, expecting, to get a revenue-neutral rate,” Lucente said. “It was a surprise, but not a shock.”

Allen, the most reserved of the council’s five members, took Williams’ drift from the majority stance in stride.

“I think everybody made their own decisions, and they based it on what they believed,” he said. “And I guess that’s where the differences come in.”

The differences, Smith said, showed Williams’ unexpected and refreshing willingness to think and act outside factional lines.

“There was an underlying thought that there would be some bloc voting on some issues such as the tax rate,” Smith said. “I was pleasantly surprised that we were all working to come to our own conclusions and bringing our own voices to the table. I’m not so sure that a year ago I would have predicted that.”

The tax and budget votes, Dowdy said, showed that Williams looked at the budget closely and weighed the ramifications of his decisions.

“It was a decision based on fact,” Dowdy said. “It wasn’t a decision based on loyalty.”

The factional boundaries appeared far more distinct after the majority swept in last year, when Williams teamed with Lucente and Allen to force the resignation of City Manager Doug Walker.

That move was followed by a steady easing of tensions on the council amid a string of top-level hirings to replace Walker; Assistant City Manager Mike Hamp, who took Walker’s place; and City Attorney Robert Lunger, who resigned to take a job at a private firm.

Williams chased the peace last fall when he proposed a pay raise for himself and the council, an idea from which all four of his colleagues fled.

That proved a precursor to the tax and budget divides. Still, Lucente insisted he gets along with Williams and the rest of the council, even the minority with whom he has sparred for years.

“I will fight for my philosophy and thinking,” Lucente said. “I will make my case. ... I don’t have anything personal against anybody.”

Williams “has his beliefs and he has to stand on what he says,” Lucente said.

But Lucente offered that with the previous minority of him and Williams, and now with Allen in the mix, the council’s conservatives have been effective in enacting spending cuts.

“This majority now, and the previous minority, has held the spending down,” Lucente said.

Smith and Dowdy, too, have proposed various cuts – Dowdy touted the nearly $3 million in reductions made through the budget process – but both have said the council will have to look at restoring some of the cuts when the city’s economy improves.

Though disappointed by the lack of progress on the referendum projects – the library renovation, the West End fire station and stormwater improvements – and the failure to hire a new economic development director, Smith and Dowdy said they were especially pleased by what they considered to be constructive discussions on the budget and tax rate.

“I have been pleasantly surprised with that,” Smith said. “I think that Tim – he really tried to set the tone to healthy debate and I think he was successful at doing that.”

Dowdy agreed: “In my opinion, I feel that Mr. Williams has grown a lot in this position as mayor.”

Williams said he is particularly gratified by what he views as improved relationships among members of a council that long has been rife with discord.

“I think we get along better than at any time in my five years on council,” Williams said. “I think all four of the other council members are brilliant in their own way.”