The mayor resigns, a whistleblower was fired: What’s going on in Staunton?

The surprise resignation of Staunton Mayor Andrea Oakes was the first of two stories involving the Queen City that has tongues in local political circles wagging.

The second is the move by the city to fire a city employee who in September had raised concerns about the city’s administration of federal Community Development Block Grant funds, alleging that a Pennsylvania-based consultant contracted by the city to assist in the distribution of the funds meant to assist low-income city residents is to blame for the bulk of those dollars going unspent.

Vincent Mani, who was fired from his job as the city’s housing planner and grants coordinator last week, first raised the issue with the city manager, Leslie Beauregard, and the community and economic development director, Billy Vaughn, in a Sept. 23 memo.

The response from the higher-ups was to remove Mani from having any oversight of the CDBG funds shortly thereafter, and then last week, Vaughn fired Mani, citing “insubordination, unsatisfactory job performance and unprofessional behaviors in your role as a City of Staunton employee.”

Mani reached out by email to members of the City Council after his meeting with Vaughn to inform them of the issues that he had raised in September, and one responded that it was “curious” that the issues had been “raised months ago, yet I, at least, knew nothing about it.”

Oakes also responded, thanking Mani in a reply email for reaching out with his concerns, saying that she had reviewed his letter, and telling Mani that she believed the city attorney, John Blair, “needs to have an opportunity to look into this matter.”

“Please give us time to investigate your claims, so we can then follow up with you,” Oakes wrote in her email to Mani.

That email from Oakes back to Mani was dated Dec. 29, last Thursday.

Between that email and the beginning of the business day Tuesday, Oakes decided to step down from her seat on Staunton City Council.

According to a letter read by Blair at the City Council’s reorganization meeting, Oakes said she is stepping down because she wants to focus on being a grandmother, news that the News Leader reported she had just recently received.

The decision by Oakes to step down has thrown City Council politics into disarray. Oakes was the leader of the four-member Republican majority on the seven-member public body that was elected in a rare GOP wave in the 2020 city elections.

The 2022 cycle saw voters elect three center-left candidates – Brad Arrowood, Michele Edwards and Alice Woods – who had to have been thinking that they would spend their first two years on City Council fighting an uphill battle against the Republican bloc that has run roughshod through City Hall the past two years, most notably forcing out the city manager, Steve Rosenberg, early last year, following an uncomfortable several months of discord between the Republican majority and the city manager.

Now a new-look City Council – three on one political side, three on the other – has to come together to select a temporary replacement for Oakes ahead of a special election that will be held in November to fill out the final year of her term.

This will all be taking place against a backdrop of this other story involving a whistleblower who was fired last week after alleging that the city and a consultant are letting federal funds earmarked for assisting low-income residents go unspent because of basic incompetence.

To be clear, there is a lot more to that story – hint, hint – for anybody to think that it’s just going to go away.

Grab some popcorn, because the next few weeks, maybe few months, in Staunton politics will be worth the watch.

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