In the past thirty days, Middleburg's new Police Chief announced that he was retiring after half a year's service, Town Council voted to replace veteran Town Attorney Liz Whiting after more than 20 years of service, and a host of new rules and regulations governing the day-to-day behavior of both the Middleburg Police Department and town staff were adopted.

Those events, individually and in combination, set off a torrent of speculation, rumor and innuendo that, at press time, continues to swirl around the streets of Middleburg, in print and in the blogosphere.

Chief Klugh Re-Retires

On January 26 Middleburg's new Police Chief, Bill Klugh, announced to a closed session of Town Council that he was retiring, again, effective May 1, 2012. He had retired from the Fairfax City Police Force, after 27 years of service, just last year.

Klugh's announcement apparently came as a surprise to both Council and Staff. Town Administrator Martha Semmes, told the Loudoun Times that she had "officially received word" on the 26th. Just prior the announcement, Klugh had granted an interview to the Middleburg Eccentric, and publicly briefed Council on draft revisions to his department's rules, regulations and standing orders, without so much as a hint of his plans.

Afterward, Klugh expressed regret at leaving his new post, saying that he had seriously miscalculated the financial provisions of his retirement package. Upon review, he said, remaining on salary in Middleburg was clearly both impractical and fiscally irresponsible.

To date both Town Council and Staff have praised the Chief, his work to date and expressed genuine regret at his early departure.

"Bill has done a great job and will be missed," Vice Mayor Kirk told the Eccentric, "and if I were in his shoes, I'd have done the same thing." The Town has already begun advertising for a successor. The job pays up to $75,000, depending on qualifications and experience.

Plowman Succeeds Whiting

The Town Attorney in Middleburg serves at the pleasure of the Town Council as an independent contractor. This year, for the first time in more than twenty years, the town sought bids prior to the renewal of that contract.

Two people applied.

On January 26, at the same work session at which Chief Klugh resigned, Town Council interviewed the applicants: attorneys Elizabeth Whiting and Angela Plowman.

Following those interviews Council decided to postpone its hiring decision until February, in part to give Vice Mayor Darlene Kirk and Council Member Kathy Jo Shea a chance to participate.

On February 9, after another closed session, Council approved a motion by Mark Snyder to "...appoint Angela Plowman as the Town Attorney contingent upon the Town Administrator negotiating a legal services agreement that was acceptable to the Council." Town Administrator Semmes was also instructed "...to explore a transitional and supporting legal services agreement with Liz Whiting on a consulting basis."

According to Martha Semmes the decision to bid out the Town Attorney's contract for the first time in two decades reflected a new administrative commitment to "regularize" Middleburg's contracting process and require a bids on all Town contracts of financial significance.

Asked what, if anything, she could say about the hiring decision, Semmes replied, "The Council was just ready for a change," noting that "...we all are incredibly appreciative of Liz's long service to the Town."

Semmes hopes to have an agreement with Plowman ready for submission to Council at their February 23 meeting.

Whiting, while admitting to her surprise at the Council's decision, had nothing but praise for her successor's reputation and record.

Plowman will succeed one of Loudoun County's most distinguished attorneys. In 2002 the Local Government Attorneys of Virginia recognized Elizabeth Whiting with their highest honor, the Edward James Finnegan Distinguished Service Award. She currently serves on the distinguished Boyd Graves Conference, the Virginia Institute of Government Advisory Committee and has been a Fellow of the Virginia Law Foundation since 2006, where she now serves on the Fellows Committee.

In addition to serving as Town Attorney for Middleburg, Lovettsville, and Hillsboro, Whiting has long done highly specialized contract work for Fairfax County and the Town of Leesburg's Board of Zoning Appeals.

She is President of the Loudoun Museum.

Blowback in the Blogosphere

Chief Klugh's sudden retirement and Town Council's subsequent decision to hire Ms. Plowman did not meet with universal understanding or approval, particularly in the blogosphere.

There, for example, on February 16, a contributor to the well-read blog "Too Conservative: A Northern Virginia Republican Viewpoint" attempted to link the Plowman appointment to: Ms. Plowman's relationship to Commonwealth's Attorney Jim Plowman (they are married); to Middleburg Mayor Betsy Davis's alleged relationships with the Commonwealth's Attorney's "political handlers"; to the ill-fated campaign of Mayor Davis's husband, Mark, for County Sheriff; to newly elected Blue Ridge District Supervisor Janet Clarke; and to opponents of newly elected Sheriff Mike Chapman in general.

"I'll be fascinated to see who gets the nod [for the post of Middleburg Chief of Police] next," the blog's "Loudoun Insider" quipped at one point, "and how Mrs. Plowman may advise the council there."

Speculating that "...we'll see someone intent on lining up a challenge to Mike Chapman settling in as Middleburg Police Chief," the "Insider" continued, "I can see the headline now – "Middleburg Police Chief to Challenge Sheriff Chapman, Backed By Janet Clarke and Jim Plowman"."

A torrent of commentary, for and against, followed. By press time the word count was approaching 4,000.

Mayor Davis told the Eccentric she was "shocked and appalled" anyone would ask her to comment on "such garbage."

After characterizing the blog's assertions as "over the top lies and assumptions," the Mayor concluded, "How sad that these type of blogs are written."

Angela Plowman described remarks published "...disappointing to say the least."

She characterized the allegations as "entirely false" and evidence of the author's "intent to discredit my reputation as a private citizen and attorney." "I am not my husband," she wrote. "The author apparently believes that there is some underlying deal. I can assure you that there has been no such thing by me or my husband with the Town of Middleburg or any other private sector clients for whom I have provided legal counsel and representation."

New Rules

On January 26, Middleburg Police Chief Bill Klugh also briefed Council for the first time on a long-awaited draft of his new rules, regulations and standing orders for the Middleburg PD. His presentation followed a preliminary interview with the Eccentric conducted while Council met in closed session with candidates for Town Attorney, and just before he officially announced his re-retirement.

Klugh had drafted those changes, in part, in response to negative reaction to police conduct during the highly publicized November 30, 2010 arrest of the co-founder and editor of the Middleburg Eccentric. Klugh had been hired as the successor to Chief Steven L. Webber, who had announced his own retirement just over three months after those events.

On the 26th, Klugh told Council he had based his revisions on "national standards" while doing his best to make sure they complied with the Virginia state and local law and court decisions.

Rules must be written, he said, "broadly enough to cover a wide variety of situations, while still being clear enough so the officers would know what was expected of them."

Notably absent from the draft was any language remotely resembling guidelines currently in effect in Warrenton and Woodstock and pointedly brought to both Council and the Chief's attention by Town Administrator Martha Semmes on April 28 of last year, shortly after Chief Webber had announced his retirement:

"When it becomes necessary to take a person into custody, a police officer shall do so in as easy and quiet a manner as possible, using only sufficient force to secure the prisoner...."

Asked by the Eccentric why he had not included such a passage, Klugh replied that he was not inclined to adopt language containing "superlatives" which, in his view, were unenforceable in practical terms.

When reminded of the Warrenton and Woodstock regulations, he noted that such language, in his view, put an officer at risk of being accused of using unnecessary force whenever he or she made an arrest. The phrase, "as easy and quiet a manner as possible," he observed can't be quantified and is thus, essentially unenforceable.

The Chief did not equivocate, however, about whether or not police officers should give the press, or anyone else outside the appropriate chains of command, advance knowledge of the time, date, and place of a pending arrest.

In both his interview with the Eccentric he deemed such behavior absolutely inappropriate. In his presentation to Council he reiterated that on his watch "there would be no media notification of an impending arrest" noting that there were "a number of reasons not to do so." Such notification, he said, was now, in his view, "specifically prohibited" by the Department's General Orders, and that his officers "were trained in this order."

When asked by Council Member Cathy Jo Shea, whether or not the Virginia State Code "distinguished between violent and non-violent prisoners with regard to the use of handcuffs," the Chief observed that there was nothing at all in the State Code about the use of handcuffs.

When Shea pointed out that the Department's General Orders mandated their use in all "custody arrests," Klugh conceded that that was so, noting that their use was essentially required by the County Jail. The Adult Detention Center, for example, would not accept prisoners without handcuffs, he told Shea, "unless there was an extenuating circumstance, such as a medical condition."

Shea then observed that the new policies stated that, "if an officer saw any misconduct on the part of a fellow officer toward a prisoner, he/she should notify the Chief of Police."

"What would occur," she asked if it was the Chief who was acting inappropriately.

Klugh, blushed, and smiled, and noted good-naturedly that such a thing had never occurred to him.

The Chief, Town Administrator and Council immediately agreed to add a notation that in cases of misconduct by the Chief, an officer would be required to report it to the Town Administrator.

Who is in Command?

Though Council and the Town Administrator generally praised the Chief for the thoroughness and quality of his work, debate arose about role of Town Council in the approval of the Police Department's Rules, Regulations and General Orders.

Chief Klugh suggested "that with everything the Council had to read, it would be a burden to also read the General Orders that he put out." Noting that he had "never worked for an agency in which the Council approved the General Orders of the Police Department" the Chief observed that "anyone could review the orders as they were a public document." In his view, however, it would be "...burdensome to have a meeting every time he changed the General Orders."

Chief Klugh then recommended that Council amend its Employee Handbook to reflect those views and "trust the employees to do their jobs of putting the proper policies in place."

Council member Bundles Murdock, the Council's "Public Safety" chair, agreed and noted that she believed "the Council was not qualified to make comments on most of the orders."

Council member Mark Snyder concurred, noting that, in his view, the Council was not qualified to review or substantively critique them" Snyder argued that he would favor approving the Chief's draft revisions as they stood, "with the understanding that the General Orders would be available for review."

Council member Kathy Jo Shea pointedly disagreed with Snyder and Murdock, noting that in the course of one evening's cursory review, Council had not only caught a number of small but important errors, but a significant omission, namely what an officer should do if the Chief of Police was guilty of misconduct.

It is "the responsibility of the Council," she insisted, "to know and understand the Police Department's General Orders," and if a major change those orders was required or suggested, to approve or reject them.

Minor changes, she agreed, need not come to Council for review. She was not, she noted, concerned about the color of shoes or the length of ties worn by an officer. What to do if and when the Chief misbehaves, however, was another matter entirely.

Council then agreed to amend the Town's Employee Handbook "so that minor changes to the Police Department's General Orders no longer required their approval. Major changes, however, should be subject to Council review and approval.

At that point Town Attorney Whiting noted that all the changes, additions, and corrections to both the Police Department rules and the town's Employee Handbook, considered so far had been reviewed in isolation, out of context with what came before and after them in the larger documents of which they were a part.

Noting that Council had just gone through least two amendments trying to undo relatively simple internal contradictions, Whiting suggested a review of all the changes in context.

Vice Mayor Kirk agreed, but noted that a job of that magnitude could not be done in one meeting, much less of the night of February 9.

In the end Council approved a motion to tentatively approve the submitted changes in both the Town's Employee Handbook, and Police Department standing orders, rules and regulations, pending further review.

Summing up the work of the evening, Vice Mayor Kirk told the Eccentric, "I think Bill did an outstanding job pulling the new rules and regs together and that the way he wrote them is perfect for our town. Bill has given us the framework and now it's up to the Council to make sure our police treat all our citizens' fairly and equally and without embarrassment and humiliation, no matter what the charge.