Hopewell councilors write letter to legislature asking to reject 'fiscal-distress' bill

RICHMOND – Most of the Hopewell City Council are pushing back against bills from their state lawmakers that were sparked by the city’s contentious back-and-forth with the Youngkin administration over state intervention into Hopewell’s finances.

Five of the seven councilors sent a letter Tuesday to the House and Senate committees that vet municipal-related legislation. In that letter, the councilors said the proposals “usurp local elected governing authority” and designates powers to the governor not spelled out in Virginia’s constitution.

The bills from Del. Carrie E. Coyner, R-Chesterfield County, and Sen. Lashrecse Aird, D-Petersburg – both of whose legislative districts include Hopewell – would give governors emergency powers to appoint fiscal managers to take over the budgetary business of a fiscally stressed locality if that locality is “either unwilling or unable to comply” with state-generated recommendations for correcting the money issues. That intervention could only happen if the locality fails to submit state-required annual audits, giving Virginia’s auditor of public accounts discretion to declare fiscal distress.

Hopewell had not submitted an audit to the state since 2015.

Last year, a council majority rebuffed Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration attempts to help right the financial wrongs. The administration paid for an outside audit of Hopewell’s books and made recommendations for assistance. That refusal prompted an administration official to refer to Hopewell’s finances as “a five-alarm fire.”

In the interim, Hopewell signed a $1.85 million agreement with the Robert Bobb Group to set up process management and protocols, things both the Bobb Group and the state noted had been invisible in Hopewell for many years. One of the more common complaints surrounded a lack of uniformity in how citizen payments were entered into the system. Employees and some councilors blamed that on the inavailability of training on the system from previous city administrations.

The letter – signed by Vice Mayor Jasmine Gore, and councilors Janice Denton, Michael Harris, Dominic Holloway and Brenda Pelham – said the Coyner and Aird proposals were too vague on what localities were and were not able to do before the state would intervene. It also took issue with published reports attributed to Coyner that current Hopewell government was too inexperienced or too resistant to properly handle the problems.

“Interpretations of 'unwilling,' ‘inability,’ or 'comply' as they pertain to potential directives used to justify an intervention are subjective and ambiguous,” the letter read. The bills, the councilors claimed, give the governor the “power to undermine duly elected officials with differing opinions on how they should fulfill their duties” and the right to “control” localities.

“These bills disenfranchise voters and violate state laws and local charters by infringing on the purpose of local elected officials,” the letter stated.

The letter pointed out progress made in reconciling Hopewell’s ledgers since the Bobb Group came on board last October. In its latest report, the group said it had gotten the audits from 2015-19 caught up, was close to finishing work on the 2020 audit, and had the remaining ones in the starting gate.

The councilors want the bills’ sponsors to pull the legislation and request a state study to determine best practices for a partnership between the state and the stressed localities.

Mayor Johnny Partin and Ward 1 Councilor Rita Joyner did not sign the letter because both support the bills. Partin was quoted in the Richmond Times-Dispatch as calling them a “great piece of legislation” that will help struggling localities like Hopewell.

Coyner’s version of the bill had been scheduled to be heard Thursday morning in a House Counties, Cities and Towns subcommittee. She pulled it from the docket after receiving the letter and put it on the panel’s calendar for Feb. 1.

Aird’s bill will be heard Monday morning in the Senate Local Government Committee.

Messages left for both legislators seeking comment on the letter have not yet been returned.

How we got here

Because it had not submitted the state-required audits for the last eight years, Hopewell got the attention of both the state auditor of public accounts and the Youngkin administration. Last May, state Finance Secretary Stephen Cummings brought an independent audit firm to a City Council meeting where councilors were given a list of 27 recommendations to straighten out the city's financial controls.

Some of the councilors did not agree with the state meddling in its financial affairs and told Cummings that in essence. They said the state was coming to them with the suggestions but not offering any help in implementing them.

Three weeks later, Cummings returned to council saying he had gotten clearance from Youngkin and the General Assembly money committees to bring in personnel to help. That help came with the caveat that council not make a move to delay replacing City Manager March Altman − under whom the councilors said the money problems intensified − who had resigned to take over the city manager's role in Petersburg. Instead, the state wanted Hopewell to bring in an executive with experience in righting fiscal ships and let interim City Manager Dr. Concetta Manker work alongside that executive.

However, by that time, a najority of council had decided it wanted to give the job full-time to Manker. So, they again declined the state's offer.

This time, though, Cummings was not going to go away quietly. He took time to lecture council on what they could be facing if they did not follow the state's advice.

“This is a five-alarm fire that’s been burning in my mind at a five-alarm level for a long time,” Cummings told councilors then. “And it’s kind of become the reality of this environment. People, I don’t think, really feel like it’s a house on fire. This cannot continue.”

The majority did not budge. Almost two months after Cummings' comment about the fiscal picture, council voted 4-3 to remove Manker's interim label.

Bill Atkinson (he/him/his) is an award-winning journalist who covers breaking news, government and politics. Reach him at batkinson@progress-index.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @BAtkinson_PI.

This article originally appeared on The Progress-Index: Hopewell councilors: Fiscal-distress bill can 'usurp' local authority