by Dick Hall-Sizemore

I have always thought that local government was the most interesting level of government to watch. Officials from two jurisdictions made the news (not in a good way) last week.

Martinsville. A member of city council, Aaron Rawls,  filed a lawsuit in federal court charging that the city manager and a deputy sheriff had violated his First, Fourth, and 14^th Amendment rights. The suit stems from an incident at a council meeting in March when Rawls, while criticizing a salary increase that had been given to the city manager and the management in general, was interrupted by the mayor and warned about insulting the staff in public. Shortly after that, a deputy sheriff approached Rawls, asked him to leave, and escorted him out of the council chambers.

Rawls claims that the city manager signaled to the deputy to remove him. The city manager denied signaling the deputy. She said, “No one signed [the deputy]. She is a court deputy and acted as trained in her court role. While the moment was difficult I do not have the authority to remove a member as city manager. While I serve as clerk the mayor is the chair and is the only [one] with the authority to request the removal of someone who is out of order.” 

The mayor claims that he never gave such a signal. He explained that, instead of removing Rawls, he would have given him additional warnings and, if they were not heeded, he would have called a recess in the meeting. But he defended the deputy. “I believe that when she looked at everything that was in there, the things he was saying, the responses he was getting from the crowd, I think she took the totality of the circumstances at play…and made a judgement call. I think she did the right thing.” 

The poor deputy caught in the middle of this has not made any public statement.

Spotsylvania. Richard T. McGrath, the chief district court judge of the local district, was indicted on a charge of bribery of a public official, a Class 4 felony. The public official who was allegedly bribed was not named in the indictment. This situation is counterintuitive—one would normally think it would be the judge being bribed, rather than being the briber. The members of the Spotsylvania County Board of Supervisors, who apparently were informed of the forthcoming indictment, as well as the State Police investigator handling the case, understandably, are not talking to the press.

Perhaps LarrytheG can enlighten us.