Town Upset with Process Server

FRONT ROYAL -- Town officials are upset with the way defendants in a $30 million lawsuit were served their notices during a Town Council work session.
"I don't know how else to describe it, [the process server] was slapping the copies [of the lawsuit] down on the table, just plopping the copies of the lawsuit to the named defendants and to me, which was of course to serve the town," Town Attorney Thomas R. Robinett said of the Monday session.
"I think he did, if not disrupt, he certainly interrupted an ongoing meeting of the council," Robinett said. "In other words, all they had done was vote to close the meeting and therefore to clear the room. Their meeting was ongoing and continuing at the time he decided it was time to serve process, and various folks started snapping pictures and running video cameras and whatever."
The town and three councilmen are defendants in the $30 million defamation suit that is related to an allegation involving whether Town Manager J. Michael Graham was offered what could be construed as a bribe during the bidding process for the construction of a solar energy farm.
On Thursday, David W. Silek, of the Manassas law firm of Ours & Silek, filed the lawsuit in Warren County Circuit Court on behalf of SolAVerde LLC, Donald F. Poe and Gregory A. Horton.
In addition to the town, the defendants in the lawsuit are Vice Mayor Chris W. Holloway and Councilmen Carson C. Lauder Jr. and Thomas H. Sayre.
Silek says Horton and Poe are partners in SolAVerde. Horton is the owner of Arctic Air Refrigeration Inc. in Front Royal, and Poe operates a local construction business, Silek says, adding there could possibly be other defendants added to the lawsuit.
Silek had informed The Northern Virginia Daily prior to Monday's meeting that he was going to have the defendants served at that time.

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