Following a closed session meeting Wednesday, Martinsville City Council approved several major actions, including allocating $20,000 for an outside firm to conduct a forensic audit and placing City Manager Aretha Ferrell-Benavides on paid administrative leave, effective immediately.
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Councilman Aaron Rawls made the motion to pay an outside firm to conduct the forensic audit.
Martinsville Mayor LC Jones said the audit will be carried out by an outside company, but the information it will be based on came from an internal investigation.
“So now, we’re going to take and hand it over,” Jones said. “I called months ago for an investigation. I asked for the attorneys to advise us. And at that time, I said attorneys and city manager to advise us on how to go about that. … The biggest thing I heard in the public was we shouldn’t be investigating ourselves, and that is what has happened.
“So now, we’re going to take that investigation and turn it over to an outside independent auditor company to complete. In principle, I am for it 100 percent, the auditors, but I will be voting against it because to me, it’s fruit from a poisonous tree,” he said.
The motion passed by majority vote, with Jones casting the lone “no” vote.
Rawls then made a motion to place the city manager on administrative leave with pay, effective immediately.
“Again, as I mentioned in the first discussion, I am 100 percent in favor of her being placed on leave. She should have been placed on leave immediately at the beginning of this investigation,” Jones said. “But as it has been (conducted) in-house, and because it’s in-house, I am 100 percent against it. So, I think we should place her on leave but I’m against an in-house investigation. So, I’ll be voting against it.”
“I’ll clarify the record is written. It’s recorded. Y’all can make up your own mind,” Rawls said. “Hang in there, employees of Martinsville, citizens of Martinsville. We’re getting there.”
“I think this should have been done from the very beginning of the investigation, like some other things, but that’s just my peace on it,” said Council Member Rayshaun Gravely.
The motion passed in a 4-1 vote, with Jones again dissenting.
Vice Mayor Kathy Lawson then made a motion—later amended in part—to appoint Police Chief Robert Fincher as temporary acting city manager. Fincher will serve in that capacity until the next regularly scheduled council meeting.
That motion passed unanimously.
After the meeting, Lawson said she supported placing Ferrell-Benavides on leave because “it just needs to happen. There is an investigation going on, and sometimes when those things happen, it is the right thing to do.”
Gravely, who also supported the motion, added, “Everything in this investigation, including other individuals that’s a part of this investigation, should have been put on leave” earlier. While he could not recall the exact start date of the investigation, “every person involved should have been put on leave.”
Wednesday’s votes came after a Tuesday meeting in which the council ratified a previously negotiated pay increase for Ferrell-Benavides, and approved the minutes from a March 17 meeting.
“As the mayor indicated, there has been some confusion as to the contents of what the minutes should be,” Stephen Durbin of the Sands Anderson law firm, said Tuesday. “There was some confusion on what the actual motion was.”
“If an actual number or percentage was included in the motion, I recommend that be specified in the minutes,” Durbin said. “But if that was not included, I would recommend adopting the minutes to accurately reflect what the action was on 3/17, and then adopt a separate motion to ratify and confirm the city manager’s salary at her current rate, effective April 1.”
Lawson recalled the March 17 action as authorizing the mayor to negotiate a salary with the city manager. That motion passed 4-0, with Rawls absent.
According to Lawson, the outcome of the negotiation was that the city manager relinquished a $10,000 vehicle and cell phone allowance, and her salary was raised to $215,000, effective April 1. She does not receive city insurance.
“The minutes are correct as to what occurred,” Lawson said. “We had the discussion. I started to make a motion. There was some discussion that that motion was not what everyone wanted. So there was an amended … there was a motion actually made by Council Member (Julian) Mei authorizing the mayor to negotiate with the city manager. I seconded it, and then we all voted on it.”
Durbin reiterated more clarity was needed and again recommended splitting the decision into two motions: one to approve the March 17 minutes and another to ratify the salary agreement.
Lawson withdrew her original motion and made a new one to approve the March 17 minutes. It was seconded and opened for discussion.
“I want to be very careful because I wasn’t there,” Rawls said. “One of the reasons I belabor the time of open session is not, at least not solely, because I’m obnoxious, but part of the reason we’re in this boat” is because many people didn’t seem to know about the public meeting.
Rawls pointed out that the agenda did not include the word “open” and that there was no clearly announced open session.
“No time, no date, no media, discrepancy and argument over what actually occurred, and, in this case, I invoke the spirit of the law. I get legally, you could declare it an open session as long as it’s properly announced at 10 a.m., go to closed session for 12 hours and pop back out … maybe. I would fight that, but in this particular case, there was no open session announced at all. None, The word ‘open’ did not appear on the agenda.
“There was no open session. So, I’ve got that concern,” he said. “I have the other concern. I don’t know the appropriate way to do this … I don’t think our deputy clerk wrote those minutes, and I don’t know who did.”
He asked Deputy Clerk Peyton Nibblett whether he authored the minutes and if they reflected his memory. Nibblett responded yes to both.
“Your concerns about the open session item,” Durbin said, “go to whether … and we can have a discussion on that at another time and place, about the notice requirements. I think that is a separate question from what’s on the floor tonight, which is just to approve whatever a majority of council determines happened at that meeting.”
The minutes were approved in a 3-1-1 vote, with Jones, Lawson, and Rayshaun Gravely voting in favor, Rawls abstaining, and Mei voting against.
Durbin then recommended a second motion to ratify and confirm the city manager’s salary agreement.
Lawson moved to ratify that the city manager relinquished a $10,000 car and phone allowance, does not receive city insurance, and now receives a $215,000 salary effective April 1.
Rawls objected to the wording.
“I don’t see where council actually increased deferred compensation,” he said. “More important, we say we took away the car allowance, but we offered a car. That’s a little bit misleading. … I just do not want to mislead citizens while I’m sitting up here,” he said.
“If that is the case, then I think that motion should be amended to accurately reflect that,” Durbin said.
“I will amend the motion to what Councilman Rawls just said,” Lawson responded.
Jones said the city manager had been receiving a monthly vehicle stipend and that assigning her a take-home vehicle made sense now that the city has a fleet of Enterprise vehicles.
Mei said he had “great reservations” about the minutes of the March 17 meeting, but declined to elaborate due to its closed-session nature.
“The first draft version (of the minutes) resembles NOTHING like the current one,” he said. “I really believe in closed sessions, so I can’t go into detail … I gotta feel the amended minutes were made to make it look like this was somehow orchestrated by me.”
Mei also alluded to a “recent development” concerning the city manager that he could not discuss publicly.
The final vote to ratify the compensation package was 3-2, with Gravely, Lawson, and Jones in favor, and Rawls and Mei opposed.
The Tuesday meeting included two public hearings: a rezoning request and the proposed abandonment of a street.
*Wayne Draper was appointed to the Board of Appeals; Brandon Martin was appointed to the Planning Commission.
