In the past seven years, Buchanan has seen eight town managers come and go through its municipal building situated in the heart of the small town, tucked into a curve of the James River about 30 miles north of Roanoke.
As for what, or who, has propelled this revolving door, multiple former and current town officials, managers and residents point the finger at longtime town council member Jamie Manspile, citing what they say is his disregard for protocol, policy and professionalism.
“Jamie wants to run everything,” said former town council member Mike Burton. “He wants to be in charge, to tell everybody what to do.”
“He can really be ruthless and make people’s lives miserable, that’s why so many of them left,” Burton added.
Manspile first joined Buchanan Town Council in 2017. Over the past eight years, he’s not only clashed with town managers, but fellow council members and mayors as well.
Former mayor Tristan Harris, who served from 2022 to 2024, referred to Manspile as “a huge detrimental force” in Buchanan in a post made on the Facebook page he used while in office.
“From my time spent trying to lead the town, and now following the current events, it is clear to me that there is one council member, Jamie Manspile, who is largely responsible for the stagnation and backward progress,” said Harris in his Facebook post on June 12. “This town has a problem for sure, and it will continue to have one until Mr. Manspile is no longer affiliated with the government of Buchanan.”
A lifelong Buchanan resident in the midst of his third term on the council, Manspile says these accusations are unfounded and the result of small-town gossip.
“You got a little clique in town that wants to blame everything on me, but it ain’t got anything to do with me, per se,” said Manspile.
However, Buchanan’s most recent town manager, Angela Lawrence, who resigned after less than a year, said it has everything to do with him.
“I certainly have never only worked somewhere for a short period of time,” said Lawrence, whose resume includes prior executive and planning experience as well as six years as mayor and vice mayor of Ashland, a town just north of Richmond. “It was obvious that my ability to do my job would continue to be impeded.”
Shortly after she stepped down in early May, Lawrence sent a letter to the town council, which was later made public, to clear up “misrepresentations” about her resignation “that I am told are coming from council members.”
“The primary issue was continued interference with administrative functions from a council member,” according to her letter.
Lawrence’s statement accuses “the council member” of obstructing staff function and hiring processes and negotiating with vendors without her knowledge “subjecting the town to possible regulatory actions.” She said the councilor frequently made purchases on behalf of the town despite policies barring council members from doing so.
Though she did not directly name Manspile in her letter, Lawrence confirmed to Cardinal News that he was the council member to whom she was referring.
“I just felt like my ability to do my job that way would continue to be impeded, was being impeded and continued,” said Lawrence, now the director of community development and zoning for Colonial Beach. “I did not think things were going to change just with the makeup of the full council.”
A revolving door
The revolving door of town managers was set into motion in January 2018, a year after Manspile joined town council, with the departure of Mary Zirkle, who had served for three years.
Since then, the position has passed through four permanent town managers and three interims. Additionally, the town has seen five different treasurers in less than three years, none of whom lasted a full year.
According to Manspile, this turnover has had nothing to do with him, rather the competence, or lack thereof, of the town managers themselves. His reasoning: a majority of Buchanan’s former town managers no longer work as municipal managers, though all remain in local government.
“That tells me a whole lot. When people say you run a town manager off, if they are truly a town manager, they don’t go somewhere else,” he said. “None of them that has left, except Jason Tyree, has ever continued their career as a town manager. I don’t know what that says, but that says something to me.”
Yet others still say it was Manspile’s behavior that has chased off a number of town employees and officials.
The first incident took place soon after he took office. During a town council meeting in April 2017, Manspile took his colleagues and the entire town by surprise when he read aloud a letter accusing then-Mayor Larry Hall of using disrespectful language and verbally harassing the town’s female secretaries and a council member.
“[Manspile] said he had gotten a letter that a friend of his had left, put in the windshield of his car that day, that day,” said Burton, who was on the council at the time. “He said he had pulled it off, looked at it, read it. He only had a few minutes to get to the council, so he didn’t have time to investigate. But he read the letter, and the letter was written specifically attacking the mayor.”
Subsequently, the town hired Royer Law Firm out of Roanoke to investigate the allegations; according to news reports at the time, the investigation reportedly cost the town $16,550 in general funds. The results were revealed at a council meeting in August 2017, stating that there was “no basis to determine the mayor discriminated against an employee on the basis of sex,” according to the meeting minutes.
Still, Hall tendered his resignation by the end of the year, citing family and health reasons. He told a news outlet at the time that he was “completely shocked” when Manspile read the letter.
“It was very unprofessional. It was read without any verification,” said Hall in December 2017.
Hall could not be reached for comment for this article.
Manspile said he simply read it on behalf of a Buchanan resident who was unable to attend the council meeting. Burton believes Manspile had another objective: “try to drive Larry out of the office.”
The former council member and his wife, Jessie, wrote a letter to the editor that was published in the Fincastle Herald on Sept. 15, which detailed the Hall incident along with several other examples of Manspile’s alleged behavior.
“Beyond the monetary cost, Mr. Manspile’s pattern of bullying, protocol violations, and interference has caused lasting damage to Buchanan’s governance and reputation,” reads the letter. “As long as he remains on council, the town is at continued risk.”
Manspile said “every point in their letter” can be disproven, and he said he’s been in contact with a lawyer to explore legal action against the couple.
There haven’t been any more reports of letters tucked in windshields. Yet community members have noted other unprofessional occurrences.
Kitty Edwards, a Buchanan native who moved back to the area several years ago to care for her elderly mother, has not shied away from speaking her mind at town council meetings.
“I just want the town to function in the most positive way, I don’t like the negativity. I don’t like the turnover, and it really looks bad that we’re losing so many female employees. To me, that’s just a red flag, there’s a problem,” said Edwards.
She recalled after a particular council meeting earlier this year, Manspile came up to her and demanded the papers she had read from during public comment that included the names of all the different town managers and employees over the years. Edwards told him it was all publicly available on the state website.
“He goes, ‘No, I want your list,’” said Edwards.
The councilor is not the only member of the Manspile family who has approached her.
“His dad is notorious for coming out, I mean, I’ve had him follow me out of a meeting,” said Edwards. “I’ve had him just stand with his arms crossed and just stare and just stand there and try to intimidate me. And I’m like, ‘What is going on with you people?’”
Manspile says it’s more often the other way around. He’ll leave town hall after “just about every council meeting” to a group of town residents waiting on him outside, he said, away from recorders.
“They want to argue with you, wait to jump on you,” he said. “I usually hang around a little bit after the meeting … but, no, as far as me jumping on anybody, I’m the type of person, I’ll tell you the truth, and the truth ticks people off at times.”
Spring Witt said she’s had similar encounters with the Manspiles as Edwards.
“Oh God, they stop at my house all the time,” she said, particularly when her husband, Chris, was on the town council from 2018 to 2022. “There was a point in time when I was like, ‘Jamie, I’m not the girl. Chris is on council, not Spring. So don’t come to my house telling me what you don’t like about what I did. Leave me alone. I have a spine. I won’t tolerate that.’”
Witt now has her own front row seat to the inner workings of Buchanan; she was appointed to the town council in August after another council member resigned.
“This isn’t how you run business. I think there’s so, so many issues for such a small town,” said Witt, who owns and operates the historic Anchorage House in town. “It is in very traditional fashion, Buchanan-like, a hot mess.”
While she’s quick to point out that all the blame does not fall solely on Manspile’s shoulders — “We have a very cliquey community that chooses to be uneducated about certain processes” — she also says that Manspile is “a bully” with a controlling streak.
That nature frequently exhibits itself, she said, in relation to the two other members of town council, Marty Rickman and Sissy Austin, who, according to Witt, “whatever Jamie wants, they traditionally will vote with him.”
When contacted for this story, Rickman spoke briefly on the phone, saying Manspile volunteers a significant amount of his time to assist with maintenance issues around town.
“I tell you, he helps this town a whole lot. He really does,” said Rickman. “He’s done a whole lot for this town. I can’t say nothing bad about Jamie.”
Austin did not respond to an attempt to contact her.
Though Witt said it can be a challenge to include different opinions on the council when there’s “definitely a majority” with Rickman, Austin and Manspile, the latter of this trio views this dynamic as unified leadership.
“I can say this and the record reflects it: since I’ve been there in 2017, you got enough fingers and toes to count the times — and you don’t need them all — the vote has been five to nothing,” said Manspile. “That’s how tight the council has stayed on stuff.”
The texts
It’s not all they said-he said. Some of Manspile’s own words have come back to haunt him.
A slew of Manspile’s text messages, which were obtained via the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, were shared with Cardinal News. In multiple texts sent to Mayor Sue Way since she took office in January, Manspile repeatedly mentions how “Angela can’t keep her smart mouth shut to people” — referring to former town manager Angela Lawrence — and refers to the need “to set Angela straight.”
“The [town manager] works for us we don’t work for her. I think right now that’s her greatest problem,” Manspile said in a text to Way on Jan. 28. “I am not a control freak but I do think we need to have a little more control than we do as we are voted by the people to run the town.”
The week prior, Manspile had sent the mayor a text about firing Claudine Stump, who took over as town treasurer after Eva Shannon left in October 2024.
“I still want to get with you and discuss some more details but we seriously need to get rid of Claudine,” said Manspile in a text to Way at 9:53 a.m. on Jan. 22.
These aren’t the only town officials that Manspile singles out in his messages.
Rose Jeter took a seat on the town council in January 2024 but resigned this June. Her family was in the process of building a house outside of town limits, meaning she’d have to step down once they moved. She decided to resign before then to allow time for a special election for her replacement, but she also recognized she had reached her limit.
“It was quite frustrating,” said Jeter, referring to working with Manspile. “I didn’t see the point in continuing to take time away from my family when it felt like I was hitting my head against a brick wall.”
One specific point of contention involved Buchanan’s water and sewer systems. The town owns and operates these utilities, rather than partnering with a regional management authority. For example, the Western Virginia Water Authority provides water services for the surrounding Botetourt County in addition to nearby Franklin and Roanoke counties, the city of Roanoke and the towns of Boones Mill, Iron Gate and Vinton.
Handling these utilities has been an ongoing challenge, accompanied by a hefty financial burden, for Buchanan. Manspile said he’s often the first call for many residents when they run into a sewer issue or there’s a water main burst.
“I’ve done this stuff since I was a teenager, the town’s never had to go back and fix anything behind me,” he said. “I’m certified to do utility locates. I know how to do sewer taps, water taps, the whole nine yards.”
Recently, he’s tried taking a step back from managing such problems, he said, referencing a water main break that occurred in early December.
“I purposely stayed out of it for three hours. They could not get the water cut off, could not,” he said, adding that his attempts to teach the town staff how to handle these situations have been unsuccessful.
Thus, Manspile eventually went over and “within 20 minutes, I had the water shut off.” During this time, a passerby began to question what he was doing and why it wasn’t someone else’s responsibility.
“I was a smart aleck,” Manspile admitted, adding he was well-acquainted with the individual. “I said, ‘I’m turning the water off to keep us from going to boil water advisory.’”
The resident in question returned to the scene a while later to apologize for her remarks, according to Manspile.
“[She] gave me a hug, and said, ‘Jamie, keep doing what you’re doing,’” he said. “That’s kind of the Jekyll and Hyde stuff we have here in Buchanan. Big time.”
According to Witt, Buchanan currently contracts with Inboden, a Mount Jackson-based utility management firm, for about $200,000 a year to also maintain the town’s water and wastewater services.
Several current and former Buchanan council members and employees stressed the need to at least discuss the prospect of selling the utilities.
“If we’re going to keep it, what is the maintenance and the work needed? What does that budget look like, and is that feasible?” said Jeter. “I don’t think anybody can answer any of those questions right now, and to me, that’s irresponsible. That, to me, is really a ticking time bomb.”
This topic was recently discussed at a town council work session in November, but it was also the subject of a brief exchange between Manspile and Way a few months before Jeter resigned.
At 6:47 p.m. on March 9, Manspile texted Way: “[Rose] has had mouth about anything I have done. She had her little click in town trying to get us to sell the water and sewer so I wouldn’t have nothing to do as far as helping the town.”
Way responded: “Wow. Someone loves the town and is willing to do anything they can to help and it’s a bad thing?”
Manspile said: “To be honest with you she’s that much of a b****. If it ain’t thought of by her or her way she fights the rest of us. I think you’ve seen a little bit of it but you’re just getting the tip of the iceberg right now.”
When asked recently about these comments, Manspile did not shy away — “I did put that in text, I own that” — saying his frustration came from Jeter often interrupting other members of the town council during meetings.
“Rose was to the left as far as any council member to ever been,” said Manspile, referring to her political ideologies. “It drove the hatred, and not only me, but other council members. You could be talking about an issue, and because Rose didn’t approve of it, she would interrupt you in the meeting.”
Jeter declined to read or comment on Manspile’s texts.
“For my own mental health, I don’t think it’s helpful for me,” she said. “I just don’t even want to know.”
She added that “knowing what’s in the texts” wouldn’t change the pride she takes in the work she accomplished during her time on council.
As for the other person privy to these conversations, Way said “everybody has free will,” but that she has continually called for respectful discourse from both town leaders and residents.
“I may or may not agree with something that somebody does, but, you know, I’m not their employer,” said the mayor, a former technology instructor who was elected last November. “I can’t fire them. I can’t kick them off council.”
Way said she didn’t “feel comfortable going into any more depth” on the matter as she didn’t want to contribute to all of the “ugliness.”
On the other hand, Witt believes this style of “we’re not going to rock the boat” does Buchanan more harm than good.
“To get things straight, you definitely have to rock the boat,” she said, “Not my style, not how I run business.”
At one point in March, Manspile pushed the idea to implement time clocks in town hall, requiring the hourly paid town staff to clock in and out of the office. In her texts, Way repeatedly reminds him that the council has no authority to do so.
“Well I’ve never been told that and how do we be accountable to our citizens for their tax dollars if we cannot enforce our hours of operation?” said Manspile in a text on March 7. “We can direct the town manager to do as we say and if we want the time clock we need to tell them we want it.”
“No we can’t. That’s my point,” Way replied.
These issues precede Way’s tenure as mayor. One of the documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act is an independent review that was commissioned by the town council in 2022 to assess communication among town staff. The investigation was conducted by David Dickerson, a consultant with Business Results Training based out of Martinsville.
A summary report of Dickerson’s findings almost foreshadows Lawrence’s resignation letter.
“The Town Council Members acknowledge there are communications issues between the Town Manager and Staff with predominately one Town Council Member which are disruptive to the work of the Council and the Town Manager,” reads Dickerson’s review. “It was explained that this has been a pattern of communications issues with this Council Member that has caused disruptions with past Staff and Town Managers which has continued with the current Staff and Town Manager.”
“These communications issues include bullying tactics, innuendos of retaliation if specific actions are not taken, and ignoring standard communications protocols of the workings of the Town of Buchanan,” according to the review.
In response to the report, Manspile said he and Susan McCulloch, the town manager at the time, met with the consulting group for a conflict resolution session. McCulloch left two months later in October 2022 after 18 months in the job. Tina Kingery, who had served as Buchanan’s treasurer since 2006, left shortly after McCulloch.
‘They try hard’
When Lawrence arrived in August 2024, she found these issues remained unresolved. Problems frequently arose regarding the duties and authority assigned to respective officials in a council-manager form of governance.
Most Virginia localities adhere to this model, which confers all legislative power to an elected body, the council, which then appoints a town or city manager. The structure intends for the council to determine a locality’s policies and vision while the manager is granted the administrative and financial oversight to carry out that vision.
Yet these lines can occasionally get blurred. This is especially true in communities such as Buchanan where the population barely tips 1,200, according to Drew Williams, CEO of the Berkley Group, a government consulting firm based in Bridgewater that was hired by the Buchanan Town Council to headhunt for the town manager position in spring of 2024.
“Sometimes in smaller towns, it’s easier for councils to get more involved in the day to day, but really the manager is the leader of the organization,” said Williams. “So when you do have those interruptions in service, especially rather frequently, it can lead to just challenging continuity.”
Executive director of the Virginia Municipal League Michelle Gowdy says she’s often had “very hard conversations” when she comes in to advise council members and mayors in these types of situations.
“None of it’s easy. When you tell a council person who got elected that they can’t do something, there’s a lot of hard feelings,” said Gowdy.
“Buchanan has been a tough town, but they try hard,” she added.
The coming and going of town staff over the past few years has not gone unnoticed in the 2.5-square-mile town. Yet Williams pointed out the high rate of turnover isn’t necessarily unique to Buchanan.
Smaller municipalities across the state are struggling to retain town managers as salaries for these positions have “increased pretty significantly over the last decade,” according to Williams. With reduced tax bases and budgets compared to greater population areas or cities, it’s a challenge for small towns to meet the market rate.
The Berkley Group has encouraged the Buchanan Town Council to improve the salaries it offers. Before the consulting group started assisting the town, town managers received $62,000 to $70,000. Lawrence, who was the first person recruited by the Berkley Group, was paid $110,000, according to personnel information obtained via Freedom of Information Act requests.
Still, money can only go so far. Williams pointed out that managers in smaller localities are often stretched thin across many different departments.
“Just because it’s a small town doesn’t mean that there are small issues, and typically smaller communities have less resources and less staff to get the work done, but still have a lot of requirements that the larger localities have, so it’s a big ask,” he said. “It’s just finding the right person that is excited about going to the community and then doing that kind of work.”
Buchanan is hoping they’ve found that person in Tim Mack, who became the ninth town manager in seven years on Oct. 13.
Previously the director of community development and planning for Siler City, North Carolina, Mack is a Roanoke native and Virginia Tech graduate. He’s well aware that his numerous predecessors didn’t last long in the small office — painted a “brain-splitting yellow,” as he puts it — that is essentially the entire second floor of Buchanan Town Hall.
Mack said he is prepared to dedicate the time to build the relationships and trust that will allow both him and the town to succeed. Not only that, but he’s already begun to establish some boundaries with the town council to potentially break old patterns.
“The trick is to make sure that you’re reminding the council, ‘You have a very important job. Your job is to be the legislative, you are the decision maker,’” said Mack. “‘You guys hire a professional manager to manage the town, manage the staff, make decisions on a day-to-day basis, and I think it’s important to maintain that.’”
“Unfortunately, other town managers have come and gone, and I can understand their frustrations for sure,” he added. “I’m in a position where I’m from here. I want to be here, so I’m willing to deal with things the best I can a little bit differently.”