Kawahna Persinger believed serious changes were needed in the town of Iron Gate two years ago when she announced her candidacy for mayor.
“At that point in time, when I saw what was going on, I could not stand on the sidelines any longer,” she said. “That’s why I put my name in the hat.”
This was not her first experience in local government. Persinger was in the midst of her second consecutive term on the town council in 2024. Beyond that, she’d regularly volunteered and sat on other town-appointed committees over the years. She considered it part of her civic duty.
The majority of Iron Gate agreed with Persinger’s sentiment for changes, and she won 98-34, with nearly 70% of the vote. The victory meant she was set to take over the job on Jan. 1, 2025. But when incumbent Gary Craig instead announced his immediate resignation at the town’s next council meeting, the transition of powers was fast-tracked.
And it’s been hectic ever since.
“I had to learn everything on my own and from scratch,” Persinger said last week. “When we opened the mayor’s computer, it had been wiped clean, so I was starting from the beginning.”
Her two-year term ends Dec. 31, and she has already announced she will not be seeking reelection. No one else in the town, where 146 registered voters cast a ballot in 2024, filed to run for the vacant position prior to the deadline. That is also the case on the town council, where current members Norvella Burrell and Patricia Shifflett conclude their terms at the end of the year.
Persinger fears that if Iron Gate’s residents continue to avoid public service, the 139-year-old town may need to continue dissolving.
There have been past elections in Iron Gate where write-in candidates ended up holding office, but not having anyone opt to run is uncommon. The lack of civic participation has become a problem elsewhere in the town. While the town council is supposed to have six members, only four seats are currently being held.
Persinger also fears that she will have to dissolve Iron Gate’s board of zoning appeals, which has the charge of considering appeals filed by residents who might have had a proposed building plan denied by the town’s zoning director, because she cannot find anyone willing to sit on it. Its work has been limited recently anyway because the volunteer zoning coordinator position is also vacant.
“I was not anticipating such a lack of participation by the residents,” Persinger said. “I was very much surprised that people do not want to volunteer to take a council seat. They don’t want to volunteer to be on any of the committees.”
Iron Gate sits just inside Alleghany County on the side where it borders Botetourt County and just a few miles up the road from the town of Clifton Forge and the city of Covington. The three communities share a school district, but each has its own unique story.
Iron Gate forged a personality of a blue-collar town since incorporating in 1890, first, according to the municipal website, as the hub of Alleghany County’s late-1800s iron mining boom, and later as the home of a large tannery operation.
The town has quietly existed ever since, and the local government has served its residents as promised with things like water and sewer systems, weekly garbage service, and maintenance of municipal buildings and the community park.
But while there are a handful of paid employees handling many of those tasks, the town cannot operate properly unless residents volunteer to pitch in elsewhere by serving on both elected and appointed boards. In recent years, this has become one of Iron Gate’s two biggest challenges.
The other challenge, a financial one, is likely one of the reasons people are choosing to avoid getting involved.
In 2023, the town was found liable in a lawsuit filed by resident Jennifer Simpson Worley for damages on her property due to drainage issues that had been left unresolved for more than a decade. After an appeal failed to reverse the decision, Iron Gate was ordered to pay $240,000 in damages, legal fees and court costs. So far no payments have been made, according to Persinger, and because of interest the outstanding bill is more than $300,000.
Revenue sources available to the town are limited. Other than property taxes and any extra money retained from utility bills, the town’s only other source of cash comes from its business sales tax. There used to be three retail businesses in town: two restaurants and The Rusty Hinge gas station and convenience store. One restaurant closed in December 2025, and the other followed in July.
“It’s kind of lingering, and we have tried different paths,” Persinger said. “At this point in time, what the town would need would be a loan from a financial institution that would give us 15 to 20 years to pay it back. …
“But so far, we have been unable to find any financial institution that is willing to carry a loan for that length of time.”
Budget, staffing challenges
Iron Gate’s challenge to exist as a town begins with how it is structured. Unlike nearby Clifton Forge, which is operated by a full-time council-appointed town manager, Iron Gate’s administration is handled by its elected mayor.
It is a similar structure to Fincastle, which is 25 miles south of Iron Gate in Botetourt County. But the two self-governing experiences are completely different.
Perhaps the biggest difference between the two — one that is out of Iron Gate’s hands — is population. Fincastle’s estimated 2020 population was 720, more than double Iron Gate’s 2020 census count of 324. Fincastle’s community participation is also healthy. In the 2024 election, six candidates ran to fill three seats, and 263 ballots were cast.
Two part-time employees — Town Manager Melanie McFadyen and town clerk Pam Brooks — take care of day-to-day operations, supervised by Mayor Mary Bess Smith and six council members.
Fincastle also has many more businesses, which means more taxes being collected from franchise fees, licensing, meals and lodging. The town also receives part of Botetourt County’s personal property taxes. In the 2024-25 cycle, Iron Gate operated on a budget of just under $420,000, while Fincastle’s approved budget was $545,000.
Fincastle does not handle garbage collection, property tax collection, road improvements or electrical operations. Those are left to entities such as Botetourt County, the Virginia Department of Transportation and Appalachian Power.
It does provide water and sewer service, maintain the community’s Big Spring Park and hold planning and zoning oversight powers. This is important, McFadyen said in an email, because a significant part of the town is a designated historic district.
“We retain our charter because it allows self-determination, direct control over zoning and preservation and an independent political voice,” McFadyen added in her email. “I can’t imagine that we would ever give up our charter.”
Persinger also became the supervisor of a handful of paid employees when she was elected, but Iron Gate’s employment situation is more complicated. Town hall is open three days a week from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., and its part-time town clerk/treasurer is available at that time to collect payments for utility bills and respond to other questions. There is also a full-time public works employee whose duties at any given time include maintaining town properties, collecting trash and reading the water meters. That person, however, is currently on an extended medical leave.
That leaves Persinger to help fill the holes. She has received some help from Alleghany County. When other options for operating the garbage truck had been exhausted in the past, the county did send a licensed employee to operate the truck on collection day, along with two other workers to dump the containers.
Another part-time employee has recently been hired but is still being trained for his duties. His trainer: the mayor.
“I have now assumed the duties of a part-time public works employee,” she said. “I’ve driven the town truck. I’ve taken the dump trailer up to the transfer station. I spent 3 1/2 days last week with the part-time employee reading the meters. We read them by hand, going from property to property.”
Will the town someday vote itself out of existence?
Change is needed, and the extent of it will likely unfold over the next 14 months.
Following a town meeting late last month, which Persinger said was attended by 11 people, the decision was made to place a question on the November ballot to see if the town’s residents wish to reduce the number of town council members from six to four.
The bigger question, which will not be on this ballot, is whether the community would prefer the town dissolve its charter and instead exist as a census-designated part of Alleghany County, like the Low Moor and Selma areas.
This very question has come up before. In 2000, Iron Gate voted 127-44 against repealing its town charter.
Persinger said that while she believes the question again needs to be asked, she did not want to be the person to pursue it. Therefore, the soonest the town could put this up for a vote again is 2027.
The dissolving of town charters is rare in Virginia and has generally happened in the southwest part of the state. Two of the surrendered charters — Clover in Halifax County and Castlewood in Russell County — happened in the mid-1990s. The other two are more recent: St. Charles in Lee County dissolved its town charter in 2022, and then Giles County’s Glen Lyn ended its town status in 2024.
Ending the town charter would not make all of the residents’ troubles go away. Persinger said if Iron Gate were to revert to unincorporated status, those who live within the current town limits would still be responsible for paying off outstanding debts, including the legal damages. All town-owned properties, including town hall, the public park, some property adjacent to the Cowpasture River and the maintenance building, would become part of the county’s real estate portfolio, which if sold could contribute to paying down the debt.
The other option would be to create a special tax district for the former residents, allowing the debts to be paid back to the county over time.
“We are responding to communications we are receiving from the Town of Iron Gate and are learning more about the town’s needs and alternatives they are considering at this time,” Alleghany County Administrator Ken McFadyen said in an email.
Regardless of how Iron Gate’s troubles are resolved, Persinger said it is painful to think about what has already changed or been lost. Many of the town’s traditions are already in mothballs. The annual Halloween party and cakewalk at the park has not been held since before the 2020 COVID pandemic due to a lack of volunteers to help with setup or even bake the cakes. The late summer town homecoming is also on hiatus. Persinger said the annual tree-lighting ceremony at town hall continues to be celebrated, but attendance can vary greatly year to year.
The one remaining event Persinger considers a success is the annual Christmas parade. This, she believes, is because while Covington and Clifton Forge hold a similar event each year, their parades are at night, which can be a bit nippy in December in the Alleghany Highlands. Iron Gate, on the other hand, holds its parade under the sun in the afternoon.
It will be one of the last events Persinger will oversee as mayor before her term ends.
“It’s a sad situation,” Persinger said. “This is a nice little town, and everybody knows everybody else and knows what’s going on. Usually, the residents or neighbors will know when there’s someone going on vacation or if someone is deceased — and they’ll inform you.
“But it’s changing. It doesn’t seem to be like that much any more. Things from 30 years ago are not as they are now.”
