Charlottesville City Attorney Jacob Stroman has been on administrative leave since early April. He wasn’t, however, the only one.
Assistant City Attorney Ryan Franklin was placed on leave alongside him, in response to an investigation into an unspecified complaint, emails obtained by Charlottesville Tomorrow through a public records request showed.
Since then, Franklin’s employment with the city was ended, said Afton Schneider, a spokesperson for the City of Charlottesville. Stroman remains on an “indefinite” leave.
The details of the complaint that launched the investigation are unknown— city spokespeople have consistently declined to comment on the case, saying it is a “personnel” matter. Stroman didn’t return Charlottesville Tomorrow’s requests for comment. Franklin has confirmed that he no longer works for the city.
To learn more about the incident, Charlottesville Tomorrow requested all emails sent by City Manager Sam Sanders or any of his staff regarding Stroman’s leave.
In response to the public records request, the city provided two emails sent by Sanders and one sent by city spokesperson Schneider on Sanders’ behalf between Apr. 5 and Apr. 9. Charlottesville Tomorrow paid $33.03 for the records, which the city said required a half an hour to find and redact personal information in one of them.
It was unclear from the emails why Stroman was put on leave.
“This is a personnel matter that will not be discussed further, so please refrain from engaging in any speculation or in speaking to the media,” Sanders wrote in an email sent by Schneider to city employees on April 5.
David Super, a professor at Georgetown Law who focuses on administrative and local government law, said it’s not abnormal for local governments to be private about such matters. Super is not involved in this case, but spoke about general ways personnel investigations are usually handled after Charlottesville Tomorrow shared what it learned through Sanders’ emails with him.
“Local governments often refuse to publicly discuss personnel matters involving appointed officials, both out of fear of being unfair based on incomplete information and a desire to avoid defamation and due process lawsuits,” Super said.
According to an email sent by Sanders on April 8, the city’s risk manager was looking for a third-party investigator to look into the matter in a manner that was “neutral and fair to both parties.” It’s unclear who the other party is.
“All staff in the City Attorney’s Office will be interviewed, and any additional staff who may be witnesses or received reports of any matters of interest will also be contacted by the investigator,” Sanders wrote.
Stroman was put on paid leave — emails seen by Charlottesville Tomorrow don’t specify whether Franklin was on paid leave, too, prior to the end of his employment with the city. In the email, Sanders said that the city anticipated it to be a 60-day leave, “as most personnel investigations have required that amount of time to interview all parties and process the information collected from those conversations.” Stroman’s leave has extended more than 100 days.
Schneider said in an email to Charlottesville Tomorrow on Aug. 7 that there were no updates on when the investigation would be completed.
In one of Sanders’ emails to Charlottesville Mayor Juandiego Wade and members of the City Council, he said that the “findings from the investigation will be shared with you as any further action will include Council since the City Attorney is your employee who reports to the City Manager for day-to-day oversight.”
There is no way of knowing if the matter in question is indeed a wrongdoing, said Super. But it’s clear that the complaint that initiated the investigation wasn’t ruled out as “ridiculous.”
“Some concern has arisen, and it is believed to be serious enough that it may justify termination, but they haven’t finished investigating,” said Super.
The prolonged administrative leave, according to Super, means that the investigation into the complaint might have turned complex, possibly because there are many witnesses to interview or because the investigators had to check the credibility of some of them.
To replace Stroman in his absence, the city retained Richmond-based law firm Sands Anderson, which has served as acting city attorney in the past. Pamela O’Berry, one of Sands Anderson’s attorneys, was scheduled to attend the next City Council meeting, according to one of the emails.
O’Berry is the same attorney who was retained by the Charlottesville Police Civilian Oversight Board as independent counsel in case the Board had any conflicts with the city. The Board’s chair has called this double-role a conflict of interest — an accusation which the city denied.
Charlottesville Tomorrow submitted a public records request to the Virginia State Bar for any files related to a possible internal investigation into Stroman. The Bar responded that its “discipline records are confidential unless introduced at a public hearing or incorporated in a pending Certification or Charge of Misconduct on the public District Committee hearing docket.” Neither of those things have happened.
The attorney look-up on the Bar’s website states both Stroman and Franklin are in good standing and have not been formally suspended or disciplined.
“This is an unfortunate and major disruption,” Sanders wrote in his Apr. 8 email to City Council. “It is something that will pose a challenge for quite some time. And this too shall pass.”
