Several city councilors had a tense exchange during a specially called Martinsville City Council meeting Thursday evening, which ended with the council directing its attorneys to give information from a forensic audit to Virginia State Police and a special prosecutor. The council also directed attorneys to identify information from the audit that it can release to the public.
On Aug. 7 and Aug. 26, the city council voted to provide Martinsville’s commonwealth’s attorney with information to explore a possible investigation into the city’s spending. That case has since been referred to a special prosecutor, and attorney Steve Durbin of the Sands Anderson law firm, which serves as the city’s legal counsel, advised the council on Thursday that its August vote also covered the future release of information to the special prosecutor and state police.
“I think that provides us with sufficient authorization now that we’ve completed our analysis and report,” Durbin said to the council.
The city will share with state police and special prosecutor Wes Nance the results of a forensic audit into the city’s spending during the tenure of then-City Manager Aretha Ferrell-Benavides, who was fired last summer. Council members saw the audit for the first time Thursday in a closed session.
On Tuesday, council members Aaron Rawls and Julian Mei had submitted an addendum to the agenda requesting that the review happen in public. The debate over that addendum turned into a tense exchange Thursday evening between Mei and Mayor L.C. Jones when the latter asked the former to stop talking. Jones then called for a five-minute recess before speaking directly to Mei.
“If you’ve got something we need to talk about,” Jones said as Rawls positioned himself between the two.
“I’m done, I’m done,” Mei said as he walked away.
After the break, the entire council returned and voted to hold the meeting in closed session after Durbin and interim City Manager Rob Fincher advised that some information contained within the audit could be sensitive.
Rawls said the council didn’t take the tension into the closed session.
“It was actually not combative,” Rawls said. “It was mostly just listening.”
Following the closed session, council members voted 4-0, with Jones abstaining, to publicly release information contained within the forensic audit and a workplace investigation conducted by Sands Anderson in a manner that does not interfere with the special prosecutor’s investigation. The council directed Sands Anderson to provide it with information that is appropriate to release to the public.
“Within the next reasonable amount of days, Sands Anderson provides the council with a summary statement of things they feel are appropriate to share without jeopardizing parallel efforts that are underway,” Rawls said.
After the meeting, Rawls clarified that while he still wants transparency, he acknowledged that the disclosure needs to be done in a way that doesn’t hinder related investigations.
“If I want the charges, if I want the accountability, it’s been made clear to me that I need to let the people working on that work on that,” Rawls said, adding that information will be publicly released, just not in the time frame he had originally hoped for.
On Dec. 11, Rawls held a press conference during which he said he planned to release information from the audit to the public sometime in January or February. Rawls said that Thursday’s vote wasn’t necessarily a reversal of this promise.
“I”m going to keep my word, you will find out,” Rawls said. “Let me be very clear, this is all done with the mutual understanding that all of this will be coming out. It just won’t be done until the folks doing the accountability work are done.”