THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, April 1, 1996 TAG: 9604010064
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KAREN JOLLY DAVIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CAPE CHARLES LENGTH: Long : 104 lines
Peel away one layer of confusion, and under it is another. That's what the Cape Charles Town Council discovered as a series of controversies surfaced recently.
At an emotional council meeting last week, the council was told that Dick Barton - while town manager - directed the dumping of nearly 38 tons of sludge from the town's sewage plant on land slated to become an eco-industrial park. Such dumping violates state law and could result in fines of thousands of dollars.
And the council questioned why Barton, who was asked to retire in December, signed over the titles for three town-owned vehicles to Bill Lewis, who was police chief at the time.
The council directed Ella Stratton, town treasurer, to write a letter documenting her involvement with the titles, and with Lewis, who was fired in November. But she refused, saying a lawyer had advised her not to write the letter.
Councilman Chris Bannon asked Stratton to describe for the record what she knew of the title transfers. She refused, and refused to write a letter saying that she had refused.
``I've got rights,'' she repeated several times.
Bannon entered a memo into the public record, stating that on March 18, Stratton told him that she wouldn't write the letter because she had been ``threatened.'' There was no explanation of who made the threat.
It seems like a lot of underhanded gestures and things are going on, and that's not good,'' Mayor Alice Brown said at the meeting. Several members of the council called for a state police investigation. No vote was taken.
``The town is in total chaos, and it's not getting any better,'' Bannon said.
Cape Charles, an old railroad town with 1,300 residents, has been struggling for years to resurrect itself. The town has been running without a manager since Barton left in December.
The collapse of confidence in the town's management started in August, when town leaders learned that they didn't have enough money in the bank to pay bills. Council members started looking more closely at the municipal financial records, and found some unexplained holes. The police department alone ran up a $203,035 deficit in the past five years, audits showed.
The town's troubles were brought out into the open again at the March 24 meeting, when Councilman Frank Wendell asked Jay Bell, who heads the public works department, about sewage sludge disposal.
Bell told the council that he had been dumping sludge in an old town landfill under Barton's direction. Wendell asked why Bell and Barton did it when they knew it violates state Health Department regulations.
``Taking an order is an order, whether it's sludge, peanuts or what,'' Bell said. ``I ain't going to jail for nobody over no sludge.''
Barton, who is running for a seat on the Town Council in the May elections, explained his order during an interview:
``We were using it for compost,'' he said. ``Most places will allow you to mix sludge with (wood) chips for compost. I'm sure they'll find a lot of things in that old landfill more detrimental than sludge.''
Roy Furches, who runs the town's water and sewer plants, blew the whistle when he discovered the sludge dumping on Feb. 14. He told state Health Department inspectors of the violation, and they ordered the sludge taken to the county landfill.
``I'm not concerned about losing my job,'' Furches said after the meeting. ``I'm concerned about going to jail or a $10,000 fine.''
After the discussion about the sludge-dumping, Mayor Brown, who is also the police commissioner, said she questioned Lewis as early as last June about the status of a Yamaha motorcycle, a Jeep and a Ford Thunderbird. Lewis and Barton had bought them at a government surplus auction at which only municipalities could bid, town officials said, on condition that they be anonymous.
Cape Charles insured the vehicles. But there is confusion as to who owned them and paid for their maintenance. In a letter to Lewis, Brown said that the town provided parts and labor, and the vehicles were registered to Cape Charles.
Lewis insisted that he bought the vehicles with his own money, and let the town use them.
``Richard Barton signed the titles back over to me because they were my personal property,'' Lewis said. ``Because of insurance, it has to be in the town's name.''
Lewis said Cape Charles ``never had enough monies'' to afford vehicles for employee use, so he paid $400 for the motorcycle and $1,000 for the Jeep, and paid about $3,000 to get them running.
The former police chief, who still lives near Cape Charles, but is working as a public safety consultant for a Denver firm, said he has contacted a lawyer.
``It's just gotten out of hand, in my opinion,'' Lewis said.
Mayor Brown was visibly distressed during the meeting, and insisted that the town look toward the future, rather than focusing on the past.
``We've been victimized, but there's no point dwelling on it,'' she said.
Not all of the council members agreed. They want explanations.
``We need to know what's going on,'' Councilman Wendell said. ``I'm a firm believer that there can be no progress without accountability.''
The meeting ended without any of the controversies being resolved. ILLUSTRATION: PAUL BATES
The Virginian-Pilot
Cape Charles, an old railroad town with 1,300 residents, has
struggled for years to resurrect itself. It's had no manager since
December.
by CNB