Council, Wilder Back in Court?
Richmond City Council met in a closed session Monday night to consider, among other options, taking legal action against Mayor L. Douglas Wilder who has instituted his budget as the legal one and declared council's version invalid.
Shortly after council members approved their $655 million fiscal year 2009 budget May 27, Mayor Wilder held a press conference to declare the budget invalid. He cited the city's charter in explaining that because council approved two budget-related ordinances two weeks after the May deadline, council's budget was unbalanced and therefore his original budget would go into effect.
Wilder ignored an opinion from the city attorney who stated that because the two ordinances were included in council's budget adoption, the budget was in fact legal. He stated that because the city attorney was hired and fired by council that he would of course find in its favor.
In his initial statement, Wilder said he would keep council's 3-cent real estate tax reduction, which cut $6 million in revenue for the city, but that he would have to find a way to make up for the lost revenue.
On Monday, Retirement System Executive Director Philip R. Langham said he was told by chief financial officer Harry E. Black that the cost of living increase was put on hold indefinitely, according to news reports.
In a press release sent out late Monday, chief administrative officer Sheila Hill-Christian stated, "As indicated in his June 10 statement, the mayor will be sending amendments to cut city spending by $6 million to uphold the reduced $1.20 tax rate. That $6 million, representing the cut in the tax rate, could have been used for other services and necessities, among them, a cost-of-living allowance."
Council president and mayoral candidate Bill Pantele (2nd) called the issue "needless conflict on an issue that's being contrived."
"It seems litigation, trials and the courts are being desire here for someone's political purpose. Not by me," he said.
The situation is made worse by the fact that it puts city employees between a rock and hard place, Pantele said, because they're used to following council's actions, which are backed by the city attorney.
"This puts them at great personal and professional risk ... because they don't know how to act," he said.
"The mayor takes great pains to talk about who sues whom without taking a moment to see why the lawsuit was filed in the first place."
When asked before council's closed session if suing the mayor was an option, Pantele replied, "Might be."
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