By EMILY BATTLE
Fredericksburg Mayor Tom Tomzak has asked the City Council to hire an outside attorney to review its proposed river easement.
Tomzak said yesterday that he wants John Lain, a partner with the McGuireWoods law firm in Richmond, to look over the document and answer questions submitted by council members.
Lain works in McGuireWoods' real estate and environmental department. Tomzak said he called Lain, and asked City Attorney Kathleen Dooley to consult with him, after doing some Internet research and asking around for recommendations on attorneys with experience in environmental and land-use issues.
Tomzak's request comes as the City Council prepares to hear public comment on the easement at a March 9 hearing.
Tomzak said yesterday that he thinks the easement is an "adequate vehicle to protect the river."
He also said he'd like to see the issue--which has been debated for more than two years--resolved by the end of April.
"I do think the council has done due diligence on this document," he said. He said he wants Lain to help sort out varying interpretations that both council members and county officials have had of parts of the document.
The agreement would permanently sell development rights on 4,232 acres the city owns along the Rappahannock and Rapidan rivers to The Nature Conservancy, the Virginia Outdoors Foundation and the Virginia Board of Game and Inland Fisheries.
Tomzak said he hopes Lain will be able to clarify points such as who really has authority over what roads cross the river in the future, how liable the city could be for future litigation over boundary disputes, and how the city can get more concrete guarantees that easement holders will be held to promises to help it protect the land far into the future.
Some council members feel those questions have already been answered.
Vice Mayor Billy Withers said he has no problem with another level of review, but "there's been more than enough due diligence."
He said he thought the roads issue was cleared up when Dooley got a written statement from the state attorney general's office saying that the Virginia Outdoors Foundation had "no statutory authority to veto or override local decisions" on road crossings.
"That's not the opinion that some people want to hear," Withers said. "So I guess we'll continue to look."
Tomzak also said he thinks the document clearly states that the local governments will get to decide whether roads cross the easement. He said he doesn't think the easement adds an insurmountable hurdle to the already difficult process of getting transportation projects approved.
"Right now, 26 federal agencies and 17 state agencies have to be appeased before you can cross that river. I honestly don't think this easement is going to be another hurdle," he said. "The bar is high. It should be."
Councilwoman Debby Girvan and Councilman Hashmel Turner--both of whom have questioned the need to bring outside groups into river protection efforts--both said they were pleased with Tomzak's decision to consult an outside attorney.
"I believe this will carry us closer to finalizing our document," Turner said.
Girvan said she wants stronger requirements of the easement holders written into the document. She also wants another opinion on whether the wording that takes the Virginia Outdoors Foundation out of the road crossing approval process will hold up under state law.
Dooley asked the attorney general's office for an opinion on the issue after an attorney who helped craft some of Virginia's conservation laws questioned it.
"I don't know that it will resolve every issue, but I also realize that we all want to get to a resolution to protect this property," Girvan said.
"If an easement is what the city chooses to do then I want to make sure the legal document is financially and legally sound."
As the council debate continues, the Fredericksburg Regional Chamber of Commerce also is looking for outside counsel to review the document before it takes a final position.
"We're really trying to be supportive of what they're trying to do," chamber President Linda Worrell said of the proposed easement. "We needed someone who understood land-use law and easements."
The chamber has not yet selected an attorney to review the document.
To reach EMILY BATTLE:
Email: ebattle@freelancestar.com