Mayor rains down on Petersburg councilor after vote on bonds for new downtown courthouse

PETERSBURG – A comment from a colleague that he was not on council “when the city went into the toilet” made Mayor Sam Parham flush with anger Wednesday night, so much so that he began yelling at the councilor on the dais and then later asked for a closed session so he could yell some more.

The comment by Ward 4 Councilor Charlie Cuthbert came after a particularly contentious exchange with Petersburg’s outside fiscal consultant that saw the consultant himself verbally challenge Cuthbert several times. Others on council rose to the consultant’s defense, particularly Ward 5 Councilor Howard Myers and Parham, who at one point angrily gaveled a special meeting on adopting financial policy adjourned to stop Cuthbert from speaking.

Cuthbert initially reacted by leaving the regular meeting right after the Pledge of Allegiance. He returned to the meeting during discussion on another financial topic, and his questioning of the need to issue bonds now for a long-term project to build a new courts complex prompted Parham’s final outburst and the call for the immediate closed session.

Round 1

The fireworks began during the special-meeting presentation by David Rose, a municipal advisor with Davenport & Associates, on a proposal for council to adopt new financial policies to improve the city’s bond rating, which has been steadily climbing since 2015 when the city was at its lowest money point in decades. Mismanagement of the city’s coffers and problems with utility billing drove the city into near financial ruin then and prompted a Washington-based municipal consulting firm to take over day-to-day city management to pull Petersburg from the brink of bankruptcy.

Parham and Myers were on council then, with Myers serving as mayor.

After the city’s money ship was righted and the consulting firm gone, Petersburg’s bond rating – a barometer measuring a city’s ability to borrow money by selling bonds – began swinging upward to its current A1 rating. A rating of AAA is considered the highest, and Rose told council that the city was on its way to that level as long as it adhered to the financial policies Davenport presented at a council meeting last month.

Chief among those recommendations was the establishment of a city finance committee consisting of the mayor, city manager March Altman and Petersburg’s financial leadership in addition to a Davenport representative and possibly one or two councilors. That committee would meet monthly to look at the city’s ledgers and make quarterly recommendations to the full council for action.

That was when Cuthbert spoke up. He raised questions about Petersburg’s potential AAA rating, saying he thought the policies needed more discussion before council acted.

However, Rose noted that Cuthbert had enough time since the policies were first proposed to ask his questions earlier and not wait until the council meeting. Rose said he speaks with Altman on a weekly basis, and since the recommendations were presented last month, no one on council – including Cuthbert – had any questions.

Parham then stepped in, calling the recommendations a “road map” for this and future councils to follow.

“I’m not going to sit here and nitpick,” he said, referring to Cuthbert’s questioning.

Myers made a motion to adopt the policy recommendations, saying “we’ve come a long, long, long way” from the dark days eight years ago. The motion passed 6-1, with Cuthbert dissenting.

After the vote, Parham continued his criticism of Cuthbert, saying the vote to approve the recommendations was “about the city as a whole.”

“We’re not going to continue to let one person’s opinion spiral this city into the way we were before,” he said.

Cuthbert responded with a dig at Parham and Myers.

“I’m not an obstructionist, but I was not on council in 2015 when the city went into the toilet,” he said.

That made Parham even madder. He shot back at Cuthbert that the reason the city was almost in ruins was due to financial decisions made “in the 1980s and the 1990s” by previous councils and administrations.

“And with that, guess what?” the mayor said, loudly banging the gavel. “This meeting is adjourned!”

Round 2

The special meeting might have adjourned but the hostilities did not.

When council reconvened for its regularly scheduled meeting, Parham asked for the agenda to be amended so that a discussion on issuing bonds for a new courthouse – an issue that was supposed to be discussed in the special called meeting before the quick adjournment – could be held. Cuthbert, who walked out of the regular meeting, eventually returned, and did so while Rose was presenting the proposal to issue bonds next month for the courthouse, which the city was under judicial mandate to build.

At a meeting earlier this year, council approved the purchase of several lots around the current complex on which new General District and Juvenile & Domestic Relations courtrooms could be built.

Cuthbert began questioning the need for issuing bonds now for a project that still was about a year and a half away from being started. Rose noted that interest rates were much more favorable to issue the bonds now and lock in on a rate that could go up anytime in the future. Additionally, he said, that portion of Petersburg’s unassigned fund balance not designated to pay bills would benefit from the rate of return on issuing those bonds.

Cuthbert’s next question brought the escalated tension in the meeting room to its eventual boiling point. He asked why Davenport had never recommended that strategy before.

“You’re pre-supposing, Mr. Cuthbert, and I don’t appreciate it,” Rose snapped. When Cuthbert attempted to speak, Rose stopped him, adding, “My turn, now.”

After council voted 5-1 with one abstention to issue the bonds, that was when Parham unleashed his harshest attack on Cuthbert. He said anyone who votes against the bonds “will have to answer to the judges” about why the new court buildings are being delayed.

“Councilman Cuthbert, you sat here and we had several meetings about what needs to happen in getting this court complex done,” Parham said. “And now to have amnesia up here talking to Mr. Rose about what are the financial obligations of the city and why we are doing this and why we are doing that just to nitpick and vote against the city moving forward and getting things done. We are up here to get things done.”

The mayor was not finished. He told Cuthbert that if he had questions, “you were in the city manager’s office this morning and you could have asked those questions … before this meeting.”

“There’s no need to sit here and grandstand in front of the public doing nothing!” Parham said. “Doing nothing is absolutely ridiculous!”

He still was not done, saying this was "time and time again what goes on in the city of Petersburg.” People on council have consistently voted to kill actions “and make the citizens suffer,” and Parham said that was what Cuthbert was doing Tuesday night.

“It’s absolutely criminal what these councils have done in previous years, and I'm not going to sit here and be a part of this foolishness in 2023 when you know what led to the whole economic collapse of the city,” Parham said, his voice rising with every sentence.

Cuthbert’s father, former Mayor Charles Cuthbert IV, was on one of those councils.

“It’s time to stop playing games, Councilman Cuthbert,” Parham said. “You were elected here to do the work of the people, not sit here to try and vote against everyone who’s trying to help us.”

He concluded by accusing Cuthbert of “making a mockery of the city’s business,” then asked for a vote to go behind closed doors “to discuss personnel issues.” Even with the door closed, Parham could still be heard yelling at Cuthbert.

The final round

Less than a half-hour later, council emerged from the closed session, voted on its agreement that only personnel issues were discussed back there, and continued with the meeting quietly but tensely. After adjournment, Parham and Cuthbert left the meeting separately without further comment, as did most of the council and city administration.

The only post-meeting comment came from Ward 1 Council Marlow Jones, who abstained on the courthouse bonds vote. He said the issues “were aired out” during the closed session, and he apologized for the overall behavior on the dais. However, he said both Parham and Cuthbert raised valid points during the verbal melee.

“The mayor is right. We have to do our homework and ask our questions ahead of time to the city manager,” Jones said. Of Cuthbert, Jones said, “He has the right to ask questions, but if we have the responsibility to do our homework, then we have to do our homework.”

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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 Twitter at @BAtkinson_PI.

This article originally appeared on The Progress-Index: Petersburg mayor sharply criticizes colleague on dissent votes