Civic activists, ACLU criticize Petersburg's mayoral selection process

The meeting, which comes at a watershed moment for the beleaguered city, is scheduled to begin at noon. Critics of the schedule say the council should move the meeting to later in the day, ahead of the council’s 6:30 p.m. regular meeting.

This timing is traditional but not acceptable given the city’s fiscal distress and complex political climate, say civic activists and a spokesman for the ACLU of Virginia.

The city came under scrutiny from the ACLU in 2016 for meeting practices it said in a pointed letter violated “the spirit of open government laws.”

“Electing the mayor who leads this City Council for the next two years is one of the most important decisions this council will make, and the citizens of Petersburg should be able to be there,” said Bill Farrar, director of public policy and communications for the ACLU of Virginia.

“This is exactly the kind of issue we raised in our previous letter.”

The organization’s executive director warned in a four-page note mailed to council members in November that the city had over-relied on special meetings — sometimes called at the last minute, during the workday or held in cramped quarters — to decide matters of governance and financial management at a time of fiscal crisis.

The city never responded to the organization’s criticisms, which were brought forward at the behest of Petersburg residents, Farrar said.

“We had hoped that the letter would be enough to encourage (City Council) to do the right thing,” he said, “but this meeting falls squarely in line with our prior concerns.”

Embattled incumbent Mayor W. Howard Myers said the city has held the organizational meeting at which new members are sworn in and leadership is selected at noon for the past 20 years. According to minutes provided by the clerk of council, the past two times City Council members selected a mayor, the meeting was at noon.

“Government leaders need to make decisions based on the public interest and not on the way things have been done in the past,” Farrar said.

Outgoing Ward 4 Councilman Brian A. Moore, a former mayor, agreed.

“In the current climate, I could understand the need to do this later in the day,” Moore said.

The city began the fiscal year July 1 about $19 million in arrears and $12 million over budget.

The council voted to slash employees’ pay, strip millions from the budget of the struggling public schools, and eliminate a youth summer program to make ends meet.

Bond ratings slipped. Employees fled to jobs in surrounding counties.

In October, the council voted to hire a turnaround team from Washington to stabilize municipal operations over a five-month, $350,000 contract that ends in March.

To accomplish this, the council appears to have violated its own rules and the city charter; a first vote failed to pass and was improperly superseded by another that was called days later, according to expert parliamentarians asked to review the circumstances at the time.

City Attorney Joseph Preston has challenged the characterization and said nothing untoward happened, but the circumstances surrounding the contract award drew scrutiny from the ACLU.

The vote to hire the Robert Bobb Group occurred at one of 13 special meetings called by the council from March to October, according to an ACLU review. The council publicized some in advance as being called solely for closed-session discussions, which “has the result of suppressing interest in attending and participating,” ACLU of Virginia Executive Director Claire Guthrie Gastañaga warned in a four-page letter in November.

She asked that the council lessen its reliance on executive sessions and schedule meetings to encourage citizen participation.

“Even if legally permitted, the council should hold all meetings in public unless there is a specific and important policy reason for the council to meet outside of the hearing of the residents and public the council was elected to serve,” Gastañaga stated.

Barb Rudolph, an organizer of the good government group Clean Sweep Petersburg, said residents should expect more consideration from their employees — the council members they elected to serve their interests.

“Myers and City Council need to be roundly criticized for having the organizational meeting during the day,” Rudolph said. “Why are they all of the sudden so wedded to ‘tradition’? Working people and students are excluded from noon meetings.”

Myers, who announced last week that he would seek to lead the council for two more years, said he respected residents’ concerns but asked them to trust their elected leaders.

“These disagreements are unfounded,” he said. “We have done everything in a legal manner and will continue to do so.”

A petition drive to oust Myers and current Vice Mayor Samuel Parham from office is underway. Parham also has emerged as a contender to lead the council. He did not respond to an interview request.