WILLIAMSBURG -- A man who placed two portable toilets along a retired physician's driveway as "decorations" may keep them there, the Board of Health unanimously ruled Monday after health agent Valerie Bird asserted that a "porta-potty" is not a "privy" under state law, and therefore exempt from town regulation.

It's the latest chapter in a history of conflict between Chris Duval of 15-17 Hyde Hill Road and local residents, including Dr. Henrietta Wallace, his closest neighbor. Several months ago, Duval placed the toilets and a Donald Trump statue along Wallace's driveway, which crosses his property via an easement.

"This is not a privy," Bird said at Monday afternoon's meeting. "It is a sani-can or chemical toilet ... you see them at construction sites ... we have no bylaw, and nobody regulates chemical toilets." A privy is the same thing as an outhouse, said Bird.

Resident Jennifer Dohrman noted that Bird was using a different legal analysis than she had before. Bird had previously said the structures are exempt from oversight because they are "decorations" and not functioning toilets.

The meeting was a "do-over" because an Aug. 5 meeting was posted without an agenda, a violation of the state Open Meeting Law, board chairwoman Donna Gibson previously admitted. Despite that fact, Gibson on Monday repeatedly limited public comment to "new information."

"We have all the information we need," Gibson said, as several residents raised their hands to take issue with Bird's latest interpretation of the law.

Resident Keith Harmon Snow, who has long been at odds with Duval over various issues, told the board they were being inconsistent. "You had no problem regulating chemical toilets when they were on my property," he said.

Robert Parker, a resident and employee of Duval's, said that Snow's prior outdoor toilet at 84 Goshen Road was an outhouse, and not a chemical toilet. "It was a permanent structure with a pit in the ground," Parker said. Parker noted that Snow has long had a dead farm vehicle parked near Route 9 painted as a "decoration," which has not been regulated as an abandoned car.

Duval raised his voice to lash out at Wallace and Snow. "They have invited the press to our house to smear our name. I am sick of it."

Wallace's attorney, Alan Seewald, was not present at Monday's meeting and was reportedly on vacation. "Seewald is a G-D coward ... he didn't show up because he knew he was going to lose," Duval told reporters as he and his wife pulled from the Town Hall parking lot in their SUV.

Duval previously told a reporter that he has problems with his "politically correct" neighbors. He is the man who prominently displayed Confederate flags at his property in the wake of the 2015 Charleston church shooting.

Wallace last year initiated legal action against Duval, and gained an out-of-court settlement where Duval and his employees agreed to stop shooting semi-automatic weapons from the back of his Hyde Hill Road property.



Wallace and Snow were also active in efforts that led to Duval having to move his business, CRD Metalworks. After the Zoning Board of Appeals last year declined to give Duval a retroactive special permit due to multiple code violations, Duval shut down his production shop at Hyde Hill Road and moved it to Northampton.

In a related matter, Duval and Parker have been outspoken supporters of the Hodgkins family in their efforts to maintain the use of a wooded property at 74 Village Hill Road as an outdoor shooting area. The zoning board last year limited the use of that land after a lengthy battle with neighbors, led by Snow, over the use of semi-automatic and other weapons at the site.

As for the porta-potties, Wallace said Monday she would consult with her lawyer but was not at liberty to discuss any possible legal strategy.

According to Department of Environmental Protection regulations, a "privy" is defined as "a structure used for the disposal of human wastes without water transport consisting of a shelter built over an unlined pit or vault in the ground into which waste is deposited."

The state law further says "no privy or chemical toilet shall be constructed or continued in use; provided that the board of health may approve in writing the construction or continued use of any privy or chemical toilet which it determines will not (a) endanger the health of any person; or (b) cause objectionable odors or other undue annoyance."