Hollins District supervisor Al Bedrosian has certainly been no backbencher in his first nine months on the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors, and he took it up a notch at a news conference he held outside the county administration building on October 7. This followed a recent board meeting where Bedrosian and Catawba supervisor Butch Church refused to go into closed session with other supervisors to discuss the opening for County Administrator.
Bedrosian’s beef: that the county failed to adequately discipline two high-level employees accused of infractions such as lying to employees, use of vulgar language, sexual harassment, intimidation and the improper use of credit cards.
Bedrosian and Church apparently wanted to be more involved in an investigation but were told that now-retired Administrator Clay Goodman and County Attorney Paul Mahoney had already dealt with the issue. “The decision on how to deal with these issues had already been handed down – before we were told of the issue,” said Bedrosian.
Three other supervisors – Charlotte Moore, Jason Peters and board chairman Joe McNamara, who often vote as a block against Bedrosian and Church, sided with the county’s position that the matter had been looked into and the employees in question dealt with. That wasn’t good enough for Bedrosian, who aired his grievances for the media, a handful of county employees and some residents.
Bedrosian, who works for Xerox, said his private employer would handle such matters differently – such as terminating employment in some cases – but civil service can be a whole different world. Bedrosian said he had also received communications from current employees within the county indicating working conditions were poor – and that some were afraid to speak out for fear of losing their jobs.
Cave Spring Supervisor Charlotte Moore, who watched the news conference and was called out by Bedrosian about a possible conflict of interest, said it was time to move on to more weighty matters. “We don’t get involved in personnel issues, period,” Moore told a resident who approached her and asked why she didn’t ask to see a detailed report on the employee infractions. (Bedrosian and Church were allowed to see the summary of a report prepared by an outside investigator but did not see the full report despite requesting that from Mahoney.)
“Day to day personnel issues we do not deal with …that is correct,” Bedrosian said from a podium outside the County Administration building, “serious issues we do deal with.” In fact Bedrosian said the board had been involved with another “serious” personnel issue a few years before, where an employee was indeed terminated.
Moore said she was ready to move on from the issue. “We have to trust our staff – they make good decisions,” said Moore. “There are [ethics] codes that state we do not talk about personnel issues. This … has been dealt with. We have to trust in our employees.” Moore said the board is moving forward, vetting candidates for the administrator’s position that Goodman retired from at the end of July. (He wound up taking the same job in Craig County on a part-time basis.)
As for the beef over the county employee discipline – and the rancor often seen at board meetings these days – Moore said it’s the opinion of “one or two people. It’s up to the Board of Supervisors to set policies. Our staff and employees implement those policies. We will hire a strong [Administrator] who will be a good leader.”
Regarding the employee issue that has Bedrosian and Church so rankled (the latter attended the news conference but did not speak or appear at the podium), Moore said the matter has been handled. “We need to move on with county government and talk about broadband, stormwater and economic development. It’s an embarrassment, its disrespectful to our citizens and to every former employee or elected official that’s ever served on the board. And to every staff [member] or every [current] employee.”
Later that same day interim County Administrator Dan O’Donnell released a statement, saying the employee matter Bedrosian had questioned at the news conference had been properly dealt with by Goodman (before he left the county) and by Mahoney.
– Gene Marrano
