More City Credit Card Chicanery; No Such Thing As Consequences; One Expensive Tab Left Behind.

RVA 5x5 - July 16, 2024

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STORY #1 — More City Credit Card Chicanery
Samuel Parker at the Times-Dispatch put out another article last week about yet another city employee who had their credit card suspended by the Procurement Department because of a violation of city policies (such as they are), and the billing details showed some serious signs of graft that has brought the cesspool back to City Hall.

The article noted the employee in question worked in the city’s Office of Strategic Communications, which just so happens to be the same department where less than two weeks ago, the Director of that department, Petula Burks, resigned after it was revealed that she had spent more than $98,000 for services from companies controlled by her former business partner.

Parker wrote in the article that Raymond Dark Jr., an executive assistant in the Office of Strategic Communications and Civic Engagement and worked under Burks before her departure, charged just shy of $64,000 in the first nine months of 2023, including $4,400 on numerous Amazon purchases and more than $3,000 at TopGolf (Download PDF). Certainly, there are legitimate reasons and products that the Office of Strategic Communications would need and be able to get quickly on Amazon, but hey, let’s support small and local business wherever we can people!

Mayoral spokesman Gianni Snidle told the RTD that Dark had used his card “outside the bounds of the program and policies,” which is hard to drill down on because apparently no one at the city is willing to talk about which policies are in place, which ones are followed, and which ones are even remotely close to a best practice (like reviewing the credit card bills when they come in).

But some of the charges are outright bizarre and need clarification from the city beyond the generic “outside the bounds” sidestepping. For example, why would an employee in the Office of Strategic Communications make four purchases over a few months totaling almost $1,800 at a self storage unit on Cowardin Avenue? There could be an easily explainable reason, if the Mayor’s office decided to talk about it, but the city has numerous facilities where they can and do store equipment and files so it seems like a suspicious charge.

One moving and storage company saw charges from both Mr. Dark and Ms. Burks. Burks made four charges with Southside Moving & Storage totaling $3,374. Dark made one purchase that cost $1,694. Again, there could be easy explanations for these charges, but it seems like an odd purchase given the city has and does move things all over the city all the time with city crews using city vehicles.

Maybe they were all booked up, but an explanation of these types of charges are just as worthy of an explanation as why Burks and Dark were spending money with a Florida based firm for promotional video, especially when the city has that capability and also that there are a LOT of local companies that can also provide those services.

Another interesting costs are numerous recurring charges for Squarespace and