Bloc’s first hire the right move

By The News Virginian Staff

Published: September 8, 2008

Breaking the enduring quiet of Waynesboro’s City Hall, at last, are rumblings. The council on Monday hired Todd Patrick to replace Robert C. Lunger as city attorney. In the backdrop, interim City Manager Michael Hamp might have drawn the inside track on the position left vacant by the forced departure of Douglas Walker. Both hiring decisions should offer a more precise look at the city government’s new face under the direction of the conservative bloc that swept into power in the spring. That face since June largely has been veiled by public inactivity.
When last we witnessed Lunger and Walker in action of note – putting aside, of course, the furor over Walker’s exit – they were muddling through the controversy generated by last fall’s botched referendum election. The tandem, at the council’s behest, pushed the referendum vote while apparently unclear on whether the voice of the people would be binding or not. The answer turned out to be the latter, but the definition – like the meaning of ‘is’ for a former president – was lost on Lunger. He declared it binding, but the council has the discretion to ignore the voters, which makes it non-binding. But never mind.
Wading into municipal law can be like venturing waist-deep into a Florida swamp, a pleasurable experience if one savors the prospect of serving as entrée to ravenous reptiles. Lunger’s experience before becoming Waynesboro’s city attorney centered on such areas as family law and real estate land use. By all accounts an amiable fellow and competent attorney, Lunger appeared particularly out of his element on the subject of the referendum in no small part, we suspect, because of a want of significant experience in municipal law.
That does not appear to be the case with Patrick. The Orange County attorney formerly served as assistant city attorney in Chesapeake. In Orange, he has tackled such topics as an aviation easement – “a weird beast,” he appropriately opined in the Orange County Review – and the rudimentary nuances of closed-meetings law. Some attorneys refer to municipal law as the rocket science of the legal profession. Experience then in the specialty should be a prerequisite, and Patrick has this.
In addition to the ordinary and extraordinary challenges of the law, city attorneys such as Patrick must navigate the politics that accompany jobs in the upper echelons of government here and everywhere. Although at this writing we have much to learn about Patrick’s record in this and other areas, he, at least, is not unfamiliar with the political nature of the game, and that is a plus.
Hiring people for any position is a science excruciatingly inexact. Sometimes, the best candidates on paper do not match credentials with performance. But the necessity remains for the council to set aside politics and select people whose greatest strengths, so far as they can be understood in the interview phase, revolve around professional acumen rather than skills in appeasement.
How well Hamp fits that description is unknown, at least to those of us whose view of him is from afar. But if initial appearances regarding Patrick are a barometer, the council is advancing in the correct direction, one that we hope and trust will produce a strong replacement for Walker.
We urge and expect the council’s factions to engage in spirited debate as situations warrant and provided the aim of both is to pursue the city’s greatest good. The administrators they hire should be known by the quality of their work and their strict avoidance of political taint. This and prudent spending compose much of the essence of good government. Patrick’s hiring appears to provide cause for encouragement.