ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, March 16, 1996 TAG: 9603180121
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: DUMFRIES
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DUMFRIES, VIRGINIA'S OLDEST CHARTERED TOWN, blames the delay in its restoration on local political wrangling and civic leaders' intrigue.
Since 1989, the little town of Dumfries has been through three police chiefs, all of whom resigned under a cloud. The mayor was charged with falsifying a document. And a fired town manager has criticized civic leaders as petty backstabbers.
A member of the Town Council that fired Michael Long as manager last summer ended up getting a no-trespass order against Long and his wife.
Boosters fear the wrangling and intrigue have given the town of 5,000 in eastern Prince William County a black eye and damaged long-term hopes for a restored downtown tourist area.
``I can't imagine it's put any face on the town but a bad one, and it's left a sour taste in the mouths of people who aren't involved in politics,'' said Mike Borggren, chairman of the town's planning commission.
Dumfries, founded in 1749, is Virginia's oldest chartered town. It was a trading center for Virginia's colonial tobacco-dominated economy.
Today, the town's main drag is a commercial stretch of U.S. 1 that includes 1960s-vintage strip shopping centers, a car lot, motorcycle dealership and fast food restaurants.
Acrimony among civic leaders has damaged the town in small but important ways, Mayor Samuel Bauckman and others said.
The centerpiece of a planned revitalization is the expected purchase and renovation of the town's first coach house. A revived historic district would eventually include antiques dealers and other shops.
But the application for a $200,000 state grant to help the town buy the coach house had to be withdrawn recently after the mayor and council members couldn't agree on funding.
The opposing parties reached accord one week after the deadline to apply for the money, Bauckman said. The town now must wait a year before reapplying.
Weeks before Bauckman's 1994 re-election, he was charged with falsifying zoning records for a developer friend. The felony charge was dropped after Bauckman pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge that he filed a false entry on a public document.
Bauckman was fined $1,000 and re-elected. He said the charge arose from co-workers who wanted to discredit him.
``I don't think politics is any different here than it is at the national level,'' Bauckman said. ``It's just that, in a small town, you visually see it being played out.''
One police chief quit, followed by four of the department's officers, after repeated conflicts involving the police department, the mayor and the Town Council.
The two chiefs who succeeded him resigned under pressure from other officials.
The last chief, James K. Habern, quit in December after almost four years on the job because of a no-confidence vote by his officers.
But civic leaders say they are putting the town's house in order and looking for a new town manager. This time, they say, they will ward off trouble by curbing the manager's power.
``The council doesn't want a town manager being dictatorial,'' Bauckman said. ``That has happened. It did happen, and they don't want it to happen again.''
Long, now town manager in Bowling Green, still lives in Dumfries. But he said he is washing his hands of local politics.
``I'm proceeding with my professional career in Bowling Green as if the town of Dumfries does not exist,'' Long said.
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