By Ben Orcutt -- Daily Staff Writer

FRONT ROYAL — The Town Council voted 5-1 on Monday not to resume liaison meetings with the Warren County Board of Supervisors following an 18-month layoff.

The vote was somewhat of a reversal from a consensus during an Aug. 18 work session to reconvene the liaison meetings. Councilman Carson C. Lauder Jr. made Monday's motion to resume the meetings.

Under Lauder's motion, the meetings would have included the mayor, two town councilmen, the town manager and the town attorney. On the supervisors' side, in addition to the chairman and two supervisors, the meetings would have included the county administrator and the county attorney.

"We need to let the public know where we stand," Lauder said. "I think it's important that we conduct meetings in the open."

However, Vice Mayor Bret W. Hrbek reiterated the position he stated at the Aug. 18 work session, that formal liaison meetings might result in conflicts if council members disliked the meetings' results.

Hrbek instead favors informal meetings between the mayor and the supervisors chairman.

"I think a lot more's going to get done that way," Hrbek said.

Councilman Thomas H. Sayre agreed with Hrbek, stating that liaison meetings could create an opportunity for attendees to grandstand rather than focus on productive dialogue.

Councilman Thomas E. Conkey also agreed that more can be accomplished during informal meetings, but added that he is open to revisiting the issue to determine if the informal meetings are effective.

Lauder countered that if he wanted to grandstand, he could do so at a regular council meeting. Lauder said it important the liaison meetings be held "for the people to see what's going on. I just think you need both [formal and informal] to get the job done."

Mayor Eugene R. Tewalt, who said during the Aug. 18 work session that he favors resuming the liaison meetings, said Monday that Lauder's proposal included a lot more people than he envisioned attending the meetings.

Tewalt said that if many members from each panel are to attend, there might as well be a joint meeting.

Happy Creek Supervisor Tony F. Carter attended Monday's council meeting and told the panel when asked that the supervisors had not voted on the exact structure of the proposed resumption of liaison meetings, but had sent the council a letter in February to learn whether the town desired to resume the meetings and under what structure they should occur.

"I think the way the motion was put forward, it was probably going to be too unwieldy," Carter said following Monday's meeting. "Hopefully the town and county will continue with some form of dialogue. I still think there's maybe some need for some formal structure of dialogue. We'll just see what happens."

* Contact Ben Orcutt at borcutt@nvdaily.com