Youngkin and Morrissey tout Petersburg work but residents remain cautious
Some context on the rough years Petersburg residents have dealt with recently.
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Morrissey and Youngkin tout progress in Petersburg but not everyone is on the same page
Democratic state Senator Joe Morrissey (D) released a statement on Tuesday praising Governor Glenn Youngkin for his efforts in Petersburg. Youngkin also held a press conference praising the work, but not everyone involved in Petersburg agrees with the spin coming from Youngkin and Morrissey. Years of lies and corruption within city government remain prominent in residents’ minds as the same elected leaders remain in charge as when the city hit rock bottom in 2016.
Youngkin launched the Partnership for Petersburg in August and says it has already netted millions in grants and charitable contributions for the city that continues to struggle with poverty and violent crime.
"Our goal over the past few months has been to break down silos and provide comprehensive and sustainable solutions to the unique challenges of Petersburg," Youngkin said. "With more than 40 initiatives under six distinct pillars, the Partnership for Petersburg is doing just that.”
State Sen. Joe Morrissey praised the efforts from the governor Tuesday. “Governor Glenn Youngkin has given concrete examples of how he plans to help Petersburg,” Morrissey said. “These initiatives are not just fluff. In my lifetime, I have not seen a governor bring more positive, productive, and substantive change to the City of Peterburg than Governor Youngkin.”
But not everyone is convinced of the efforts. Former state Delegate Lashrecse Aird (D) commented on the statement from Morrissey Tuesday. “While Joe & Glenn pat each other on the back to sell this partnership; our public school teachers continue to need support, parents still can’t afford their child care costs and families don’t allow their kids to walk our streets, even as recent as last night on Halloween,” Aird said.
Aird is challenging Morrissey for his state Senate seat in a primary next year.
Members of a community watchdog group in Petersburg are also not so accepting of the claims from Youngkin and Morrissey. “I hope someone can help me understand this,” said Barb Rudolph, a Petersburg activist and the founder of Clean Sweep Petersburg. “Why does the governor/his administration make these extravagant claims for big declines in violent crime here when the facts don’t back it up? It makes you wonder what other ‘exaggerating’ is going on.”
Petersburg’s violent crime report for just the last week of October shows that crime is still prevalent across the city of only 33,000 residents.
Related: Petersburg Police investigating 2 shootings near elementary school
Petersburg’s mayor praised the governor for the efforts Tuesday but he himself has a complicated history managing the city. Just a few years ago, Petersburg was wrapped up in such financial ruin due to mismanagement by some of the same leaders who are in charge now that an outside consultant group was sent into the city to help them dig out of the massive hole they were in.
Context:
Petersburg residents have been saying they feel unheard and overlooked for years. “We don’t care nearly as much about yet another rule broken by ‘bad boy’ Fighting Joe as we do about getting even a spoonful of attention to the many Petersburg problems that have been referred to the state judicial establishment over the past 5 years,” Rudolph said in 2020 when Virginia Scope covered the issues plaguing the city. “Whether it’s Petersburg, Chesterfield, Richmond, or New Kent, Commonwealth’s Attorneys are state-funded, constitutional officers and the conduit to the investigative firepower of the Virginia State Police. No one outside of here seems to really want to turn over all of the slimy rocks in Petersburg.”
The city teetered on the brink of bankruptcy in 2016 before bringing in outside consultants, the Robert Bobb Group, to help the city recover. At the time, the city was facing over $18 million in bills and its budget was experiencing a $12 million shortfall. The city manager at the time, William Johnson, was facing sharp scrutiny and there were calls for his resignation for allowing the city to reach such a low point financially.
An audit at the time revealed that several law enforcement agencies including the FBI and Virginia State Police were investigating different aspects of Petersburg’s government operations.
After the audit was completed in 2017, Petersburg’s Treasurer Kevin Brown admitted to stealing $2,300 in petty cash. According to reports at the time, the audit showed that he also waived tax penalties, interest fees, and sometimes even the principal on customers’ tax payments.
The audit also found that $200,000 was missing from the city’s recreation and parks department. They were unable to investigate the incident, however, due to the statute of limitations on how that potential crime could be investigated.
Howard Myers was the mayor of Petersburg at the time when the city hit rock bottom financially. His vice mayor at the time was Parham, who is now the mayor.
In early 2016, Petersburg officials were facing mounting pressure from the community after the dire situation of the city’s finances was magnified. Then, after water bill delivery was delayed across the city, residents said they were done waiting, and began to loudly demand a change in management.
Several members of the community were planning to show up to a city council meeting on Feb. 16, 2016, to express their displeasure directly with the councilors, but the following sequence of events altered that movement.
The mayor implied a state legislator used threats against him in an apparent attempt to influence the decision and the meeting.
In a 2016 phone conversation that was recorded by Myers, state Senator Rosalyn Dance (D), who would later be primaried and defeated in 2019 by Morrissey, can be heard discussing the city manager situation with Myers. Just days before the city council was scheduled to meet and face the public backlash for massive mishandling of city operations, Dance described a process in which council could terminate the city manager and replace his staff. “Knowing the five people at the level of assistant manager, those people function at the [pleasure] of the city manager to the extent that if he goes, they can go too because the next one doesn’t have to be saddled with that person.”
Dance also threatened to keep funding from Petersburg if Myers did not take her advice. “We asked them to give you money and you haven’t [shown] that you can handle what you got,” Dance said, according to a transcript of the recorded phone call. “So there’s no project that you’ve got out there that the state will support unless Lashrecse and I say, Governor, yes, we want you to support this. You will get no state money. You will get no federal money. You will not because my reputation is out there.”
The recorded conversation between Dance and Myers then continued:
“So what are you thinking?” asked Dance.
“Um, I’m thinking that I am still making decisions,” responded Myers, the mayor at the time.
“Tell me what you mean by that,” replied Dance.
“Well, basically, I guess I need to see the facts behind the allegations,” answered Myers.
“Do you know what you sound like?” asked Dance.
“What?” replied Myers.
“You sound like I’m telling you I’ve shared with you information that I really should not have shared with you, but I did not want you as a mayor to go down as not being in control of the situation, not being on top of it,” said Dance.
“I do understand that,” replied Myers.
“But I can tell you this,” said Dance. “Know what this sounds like? It sounds like you have consulted with people that I asked you not to consult with.”
Myers denied consulting with anyone on the matter.
“Okay. I’m just saying what it sounds like because, you know, this isn’t my first rodeo,” replied Dance.
This conversation took place three days before the city council meeting that was scheduled to take place on Feb. 16, 2016.
That meeting was canceled, however, just a few hours before it began. The Petersburg City Attorney at the time, Brian Telfair, reported receiving a racially-charged email and phone call threatening violence against city leaders on the day city council was supposed to meet. The meeting was then canceled due to the threats.
The problem, however, is that the threatening phone call was not real. Telfair lied.
Detectives eventually retrieved camera footage that showed the Clerk of Council, Nykesha Jackson, purchasing a pre-paid burner phone from Family Dollar. According to court documents, Jackson said that Telfair gave her the money to buy the phone.
Members of the community were concerned at the time that members of city council were involved with the scheme to cancel the Feb. 16 meeting. Court documents from Telfair’s case show that Myers, the mayor at the time, emailed Telfair’s aid telling her to announce that the meeting was going to be canceled. This email was sent 17 minutes before Telfair claimed to receive the threatening phone call.
While Myers is no longer the mayor, he still serves on city council. “The meeting was canceled based on the direction of the City Attorney to myself and the Clerk of Council,” Myers said in an email interview with Virginia Scope in 2020. “I emphatically had no part in the process of the actions the City Attorney conjured or knew of such action other than the advisement to ensure that the council and citizens were safe based on the information provided by counsel.”
Telfair was able to resign before it was uncovered that he filed the false reports. He was eventually convicted in Sept. of 2017 after pleading guilty. He received 12 months of jail time with 11 months suspended.
Johnson, the city manager for five years was fired for ‘cause’ at the beginning of March in 2016. In interviews at the time, residents expressed their relief that he was finally terminated, as many of them blamed him for the dire state of Petersburg’s finances. “This is evidence that people, united, can bring about change that is sorely needed,” Larry Akin Smith said at the time in an interview with Richmond Times-Dispatch. “We have no animosity toward our city. We love our city. We want to see the best for our city. When millions have been mismanaged, when bills aren’t being paid, we can’t sit idly by without raising our voices.”
While Myers is no longer the mayor, he remains on city council. Parham is the current mayor and he served as vice-mayor during Myers’ tenure.
Parham faced backlash in 2017 as a petition circulated calling for him to be removed from office for several listed reasons, one of them being the failure to publicly report the details of the severance package that was given to Telfair in 2016. The details were only released after a FOIA request was made at the time. Parham has not responded to several requests for comment.
Members of the community say they feel like they are shouting into the void as they continue to point out irregularities, with no action being taken to provide accountability for the people that allowed Petersburg to reach such low depths in 2016.
Rudolph brought concerns of corruption within the government to the Commonwealth Attorney in 2019, Cheryl Wilson, who is now a judge in the 11th district. “She believed my concern was valid and forwarded the information to the Chesterfield CA’s office,” says Rudolph. “Yet none of these ‘investigations’ have led to any findings or any changes in management of this city. The people’s attempts to get support from [Mark] Herring, including a petition sent in 2016, have been met with complete silence.”
In 2016, a group of citizens from Petersburg sent a letter to the Office of the Attorney General asking for his assistance. “Dear Mr. Attorney General,” begins the letter. “We the citizens of the City of Petersburg are writing this letter because we are in dire need of your assistance. Petersburg, a once-proud city with a glorious past, is faced with its very survival due to the apparent mismanagement and ineptness of its elected officials and their hires.”
Rudolph says they never heard back from Herring’s office. “It seems like they figure they performed their obligations when they sent us Robert Bobb.”
Myers told Virginia Scope that he doesn’t believe state officials have failed the city. He blames a convoluted process for the public’s mistrust. “I do not believe that the state and law enforcement failed with regards to the specifics of any matter as it relates to Petersburg,” Myers said in an email. “I believe that there is much convolution in the process and the reporting of certain actions whether valid or invalid leads the public to question the validity of such investigations. The layers of government, its structure and environment are not perfect at best, but the elected officials provide the best representation based on the form of government-chartered.”
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