The former housing planner and grants coordinator in Staunton’s local government says the city isn’t spending money meant to assist low-income residents with housing needs because it is following the advice of a consultant that doesn’t know what it’s doing.

The response from the city: radio silence.

Augusta Free Press filed a Freedom of Information Act request to get access to correspondence involving city leaders on the allegations made by Vincent Mani, who was fired from his housing planner and grants coordinator job on Dec. 29 three months after raising his concerns.

Assuming the city didn’t hide anything in its response to our FOIA request, there has been no internal discussion between the community development department, which Mani worked under, and the city manager’s office, and neither has there been any discussion on the matter between city administration and City Council.

Considering the explosive nature of the allegations raised by Mani, that silence has to be considered to be deafening.

The issue came to a head when Mani first raised his concerns in a Sept. 23 memo to higher-ups in which he pointed out that the city, to that point, had only spent 30 percent of its CDBG fund for fiscal years 2019, 2020 and 2021, and according to Mani, the main impediment to the city doing more is M&L Associates, a Pennsylvania-based consulting firm that works with states and municipal clients in the community development and revitalization and affordable housing spheres.

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