Former city manager’s compensation deal called typical by experts

City manager’s contract calls for 6 months’ salary plus sick, vacation, compensatory time

For those who ask why City Manager Doug Walker was not re-hired, consider the following.

Although, as a Staunton resident, I have no dog in the current Waynesboro city officials’ dog fight, I do, however, have an interest in assuring that the press and public have an accurate accounting of Doug Walker’s purchase of a Lofton Lake share (“Retreat connects Walker, Hausrath,” June 5).

Amid the tempest over Doug Walker’s looming departure from City Hall emerge bedfellows and politics strangely familiar and curiosity freshly stirred.

Set against the Blue Ridge Mountains is a 220-acre retreat featuring a lake, rolling hills and a half-dozen cabins owned by some of the region’s most prominent figures, including lame-duck City Manager Doug Walker and real estate agent and political power broker Bill Hausrath.

The Waynesboro City Council named an interim city manager Monday in an effort to quell lingering angst over Doug Walker’s sudden resignation from the job.

When will the bloodletting stop? When will the vicious, venomous behaviors of City Council members (old and new) run its course? When will the new majority and new minority call a truce and let the pain subside?
I do not believe the Waynesboro citizenry can expect a change for the better any time soon. In fact, future events may get worse.
Why?
The hurt, pain, anger and frustration suffered by the old minority has lasted too long for a reconciliation of the parties in the near future. The arrogance of the old majority is too raw and recent.
The citizens of Waynesboro have witnessed two good men, Bob Lunger and Doug Walker, sacrificed because they got caught in the crossfire of the two warring factions.
How many more good civil servants must be sacrificed on the altar of venomous, petty behaviors?
Neither side has displayed the Christian values for which this community is famous. Neither side has shown the necessary humanity needed to rise above the anger and hurt so that the citizens of Waynesboro can face the challenges of the future united.
As one senior citizen said to me, “They treated Doug Walker like the Romans treated Jesus. Nobody should be treated like that on television, nobody.”
Signed, That Damn Yankee.
David O’Brien
Waynesboro

The best show in town this week is Channel 14 from about 9:10 to 9:35 p.m.

City Manager Doug Walker will walk away from his job next month with a lump-sum payment covering a half-year’s salary, benefits and deferred compensation under the contract originally negotiated after his hiring five years ago.

As Doug Walker fielded a flood of conciliatory e-mails Wednesday in the aftermath of his resignation as Waynesboro city manager, the specter of council infighting reemerged.

After more than five years as Waynesboro’s city manager, Doug Walker offered his resignation during a closed session at Tuesday’s City Council meeting.