Accusations of ‘tantrums’ and ‘tyranny’: Internal emails show how deep the divisions on Lynchburg City Council are

Less than a year into the Lynchburg City Council’s new Republican majority, heightened discord has been on full exhibit in public meetings, called out by irate citizens and drawn out in more private correspondence.

Emails obtained by Cardinal News through a Freedom of Information Act request show a glimpse of how deeply some of the most factious issues have festered. Though Stephanie Reed, Marty Misjuns and Larry Taylor campaigned last year on a combined Republican front, political schisms between them and existing Republican council members Chris Faraldi and Jeff Helgeson have leaked more vitriol than interparty interplay.

Almost as soon as the races were won, division became apparent in the new Republican majority’s choices for mayor and vice mayor. Misjuns and Taylor backed Helgeson for mayor, but Democrats MaryJane Dolan and Sterling Wilder voted with Reed and Faraldi to make Reed the mayor and Faraldi the vice mayor.

At the center of much of that drama has been Misjuns, who was terminated from his job as a city fire department captain in October 2021. He has since sued the city, saying that he was dismissed because of political cartoons he posted on his Facebook page that mocked transgender people and that officials violated his First Amendment right to religious freedom when they retaliated against him. A federal judge dismissed his claim of wrongful termination in April but allowed his claim of a First Amendment violation to go forward.

The latest installment of council drama has been an accusation that Misjuns tried to find a “hit-man” to clandestinely record a town hall meeting organized by Faraldi to “make him look bad,” according to city correspondence that was posted online Thursday and has been verified by Cardinal News.

“Over the past several months, your behavior as a Councilmember has become increasingly concerning and is something that needs to be addressed,” Reed starts in a Oct. 9 letter addressed to Misjuns. 

She was told Misjuns had tried to recruit a “[redacted] University student” to find someone to wear a body camera at the meeting and “set the Vice Mayor up with difficult questions,” the letter states. Reed said the incident was reported to the university and it’s being reviewed, and Misjuns didn’t address the accusation in an earlier response.

Reed tells him “what you did was unbecoming of a Councilmember and highly inappropriate,” later warning him to carefully consider his conduct.

In a reply letter dated Oct. 10 and addressed to the mayor, Misjuns doesn’t substantially address the base allegation, instead going straight on the offensive in listing off alleged abuses of power by Reed.

“Moving forward, I urge you to carefully consider how you act before spreading unsubstantiated and unfounded claims, that include false elements,” he fired back. “The only thing that is consistent in your official actions is that you give a free pass to those that sing your praises, and you try to use your official office to crush those that oppose you. If there are some things that I have learned about you in the past year, it is that you cannot be trusted to act with integrity and if you are accusing someone else of something — it’s probably because you are doing it.”

Prior to that, a major point of lasting contention has been Misjuns’ repeated insistence on bringing what he’s named a “Merit, Excellence, and Opportunity,” or MEO, resolution to a vote in a council meeting. The resolution has been volleyed by council members, city staff and citizens alike during meetings, work sessions and settings outside city hall.

It decries “divisive concepts,” and in discussions among council and with relevant city staff, Misjuns has posited it as a replacement for diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, training, equating the concepts therein with critical race theory. 

In emails, he stated that the resolution had been “vetted by highly qualified legal counsel” but didn’t elaborate on that counsel when asked about it in an interview, citing attorney-client privilege.

Other members of the council have voiced objections or doubts about the resolution in the months since it was introduced, and members of city staff have described how existing policy already bases personnel decisions on merit and performance.

Misjuns first submitted the resolution to clerk of council Alicia Finney on June 20. It was disseminated to other members of the council and city leadership, according to emails obtained through the FOIA request. Reed opined that city hiring processes and personnel policies fall under City Manager Wynter Benda’s responsibilities, to which Misjuns responded that “[f]actually, with no disrespect intended, the City Manager is an unelected bureaucrat” and called for the council to take direct control on the issue.

He claimed that “the city government contributes it’s [sic] fair share to racial division in our city,” and warned that “[o]pposition to this resolution will reveal a person’s true character on this governing body.”

What followed was a series of feedback and discussion that involved other members of council, the city manager and the city attorney, and that quickly escalated in tone. The exchanges included Misjuns accusing fellow council member Sterling Wilder of supporting “sustaining racist and sexist concepts in city government” after Wilder, a Democrat, said he was against putting the resolution on the agenda. Wilder did not respond to a request for comment for this article.

Council member MaryJane Dolan, the other Democrat on the council, said in an interview that the resolution is a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” that bears the potential to conflict with state and federal laws.

“The most damaging thing I think it does is the elimination of diversity training and education, which I think is so important when employees are dealing with each other. This is not a new concept at all,” she said. 

Getting an item on the council’s agenda isn’t a given, she continued, and Misjuns’ repeated attempts to do so with the resolution after abundant discussions and emails about it is a waste of time for the council, staff and residents. Misjuns pushed again at the council’s Oct. 10 meeting to bring the MEO resolution to a vote, but an amended motion to punt it to a work session later this month was rejected 4-3.

“I think it’s an insult to the city that we would even consider this,” Dolan said.

The MEO resolution is part of a larger effort by Misjuns to bring city personnel matters directly up to the council, at times with little or no preamble. Another email chain starts with a request from Misjuns to put a closed-session personnel matter involving discussion of performance and discipline on the Aug. 8 meeting agenda.

“I don’t understand why the details are so vague,” Reed responded after being copied on the request. “And I don’t think we need to continuously address issues that are not our primary responsibility unless there is absolute evidence that we need to — which would mean it had been worked up the chain with no success and now Council needs to intervene.”

In response to a question about whether the matter had been brought before him, Benda wrote that Misjuns had confirmed the request for him but “out of concern for me, he did not share any further details.”

When Reed reiterated that standard personnel procedure should be taken into account and said that the matter was premature, Misjuns responded: “Thanks for ending your tantrum. It was very unbecoming.”

The Aug. 8 meeting was canceled, and a closed-session item with that description was not on agendas for subsequent meetings.

Misjuns has painted a dismal picture of the climate among city employees with a broad brush, citing nameless sources and stating in emails that more thorough evaluations and surveys would reveal “that at least half of the leadership team would need to be relieved of their duties.”

He clarified in an interview that he applied that statement to those in the city manager’s office and department heads across the city. He said he’s been told that performance reviews among city employees have “essentially gone away,” replaced by less substantive and opinion-based check-ins, but he acknowledged that he hadn’t checked with the city’s human resources department or other officials to learn more about what procedures are actually in place.

Contacted for clarification, officials in the city manager’s office stated that the city had pivoted to a new, biannual check-in process between employees and their supervisors. Such check-ins, based on HR trends, are meant to facilitate a dialogue rather than a one-way review and “are also designed to be focused on the employee and supervisor’s present and future with the City, and not the employee’s past performance.” A form for the process includes sections to fill in performance feedback.

When asked where he sees the line between the city manager’s office handling personnel issues and the council stepping in for direct action, Misjuns said “it’s whatever a majority is willing to do.”

“If there’s allegations of people’s civil rights being violated and there’s good cause to believe that … has occurred, I think that it is critical for us to have the courage to weigh in,” he said. 

Reed said she trusts existing procedures to address concerns and issues, something Misjuns characterized as “rubberstamping.”

“It’s not our job to interfere with the processes that are already in place, but to work alongside our city manager if there are concerns,” she said.

In more of a symbolic move, Misjuns added an item to the city’s 2024 legislative agenda that seeks to “allow for elected officials an exception under the Freedom of Information Act to access otherwise exempted public records.”

At the Oct. 10 meeting, he cited it as an issue when seeking full, unredacted exit interviews from city police, given the Lynchburg Police Department’s struggles with hiring and retention. In an interview he also said that it makes no sense to him that the council should hear protected matters in a closed session but be denied requests for related records.

Several council members voiced doubt about his agenda item at the meeting and tabled further discussion to their next meeting.

Another request from Misjuns for the use of council chambers to host a press conference with Helgeson in August also escalated in internal emails. The request was ultimately denied, with Reed holding that such press conferences are reserved for emergent citywide issues.

Misjuns first met resistance from Finney, the clerk of council, who expressed similar reservations and asked what the press conference would be about. Misjuns pushed back, not elaborating on the reason for the press conference and asking, “Do we need to file a mandamus to accomplish this?”

Reed then weighed in with her opinion on the matter, starting off by telling Misjuns that “you absolutely did threaten Alicia and it is on the record for all of us to see.”

Firing back, Misjuns stated she was interested in “compelling speech of others. What comes next, must we pledge allegiance to you?”

“While you may have succeeded in censoring Council members during meetings with your iron-fist approach to governing, I will not allow you to control my voice outside of council chambers,” his response reads in part. “As a veteran, I’m totally disgusted by your disdain for free speech and love for government censorship. I did not sign up to defend government tyrants.”

“Oh Marty, that’s the best laugh I’ve had all week so thank you for that! Have a wonderful day,” Reed responded.

“Your arrogance fits your elitism,” Misjuns replied.

In response to interview questions about his rhetoric, Misjuns said he’s been frustrated with the mayor for not delivering on campaign promises as a conservative. He sees her actions as dodging responsibility for city employees facing down violations of their rights.

“It’s not about me attacking the mayor, it’s about delivering on what we said we would do for the citizens; it’s about holding government accountable and not embracing government for the sake of bureaucracy,” he said. “To me, it’s really about putting the people back in charge of their local government, so when I don’t see that happening, I’m gonna be frustrated.”

Reed limited her comments on Misjuns’ barbs.

“I will never support disrespectful behavior towards anyone,” she said. “There is an appropriate way to communicate with our peers and our city staff, and unfortunately I’ve witnessed some disappointing behaviors.”

Faraldi, the vice mayor, came under fire from the Lynchburg Republican City Committee for cutting short a vote on the MEO resolution in June, admonishing Misjuns for not following city procedures and saying his fellow council member is “downright disrespectful to our city staff, you are downright insulting to their character, you are downright to offensive to their reputation.” He did not respond to a request for comment for this article.

Dolan, who’s served on the council since 2016, said Misjuns’ calling card back-and-forths have been unprofessional, unproductive and unprecedented at city hall. She said his disrespect of staff has been the subject of repeated citizen concern.

“It’s just horrible the way he treats staff, from a verbiage standpoint,” she said. “We’re going to be lucky if we keep people.”

Reed said she strives to foster unity among the city’s workforce and added that each employee is a valued asset.

“I would never want some of these recent events to discourage them from continuing to take pride in the vital roles they play for our city,“ she said.