The surprise resignation of Staunton Mayor Andrea Oakes was the first of two stories involving the Queen City that has tongues in local political circles wagging.
The second is the move by the city to fire a city employee who in September had raised concerns about the city’s administration of federal Community Development Block Grant funds, alleging that a Pennsylvania-based consultant contracted by the city to assist in the distribution of the funds meant to assist low-income city residents is to blame for the bulk of those dollars going unspent.
Vincent Mani, who was fired from his job as the city’s housing planner and grants coordinator last week, first raised the issue with the city manager, Leslie Beauregard, and the community and economic development director, Billy Vaughn, in a Sept. 23 memo.
The response from the higher-ups was to remove Mani from having any oversight of the CDBG funds shortly thereafter, and then last week, Vaughn fired Mani, citing “insubordination, unsatisfactory job performance and unprofessional behaviors in your role as a City of Staunton employee.”
Mani reached out by email to members of the City Council after his meeting with Vaughn to inform them of the issues that he had raised in September, and one responded that it was “curious” that the issues had been “raised months ago, yet I, at least, knew nothing about it.”
Oakes also responded, thanking Mani in a reply email for reaching out with his concerns, saying that she had reviewed his...
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