Style Weekly
UPDATE: Mayor Demands Apology From Councilman
Bruce Tyler refuses to say he's sorry.
by Vernal ColemanUPDATE: Bruce Tyler responds to the mayor in a letter obtained by Style Weekly. Sent January 30, Tyler calls for an investigation into the Department of Social Services’ handling of the payments to child care centers. Also, he does not apologize. Full text of the letter below:
“I am in receipt of your letter dated January 27, 2012 regarding the January 17th Health, Human Services and Education committee meeting. At this time, it is premature to take the actions you have suggested. Instead, a thorough investigation of the issues with the way Department of Social Services conducted themselves with this childcare center is the next logical step.
“Once this issue has been properly reviewed, I will meet with you to discuss this matter. While I understand your concern for your staff’s wellbeing, I believe the same concern should have been expressed for the children that have been allegedly damaged by the mishandling of issues by your staff.”
Mayor Dwight Jones isn’t all deliberateness and cool detachment. A week after City Councilman Bruce Tyler accused a ranking city official of lying, Jones fired off a letter to Tyler demanding a public apology.
“If one of our City employees made such a derogatory comment to another employee, they would receive a written reprimand (at a minimum), and may receive a week’s suspension,” Jones writes. “While I cannot impose personnel sanctions on a member of the City Council, I would strongly suggest that a public apology from you to the employee is in order.”
The letter, obtained by Style Weekly on Friday, was Jones’ response to a verbal tiff between Tyler and Doris Moseley, director of the city’s Department of Social Services.
Two weeks ago during a council committee meeting, Tyler questioned the city’s handling of a program that funnels payments from the state to local day-care organizations that provide services to needy children. Payments from the city have been delayed, Tyler and others complained.
When Moseley stepped up to refute those claims, Tyler accused the department of not processing the payments in a timely manner, and thereby jeopardizing child-service providers.
“I want to tell you unequivocally, I believe you stood up here and lied,” Tyler told her.
Tyler isn’t backing down. Having received the letter, he calls the mayor’s comments “premature.”
“For someone to make statements about my conduct as opposed to not looking at the total picture of how children of the city are not getting their due is just shortsighted,” Tyler says.
Jones and Tyler have had dust-ups before. Perhaps the mayor’s staunchest critic on council, Tyler remarked in April 2010 that the mayor needed to be “slapped” and attempted to cut funding for his security detail.
So what now for Tyler?
“I’m going to do what I planned on and get to the bottom of this,” he says. “Because we’re talking about protecting the most fragile members of my community. … And I have no trouble using everything in my arsenal to get people’s attention on that.”
Comments (5)
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Funny, I thought the same thing. If Ms. Moseley was not lying, then why didn't the Mayor say so and show proof. If the COuncil man believes Ms. Moseley is lying, why should he not be able to say so? Tyler did not say she lied as a fact, he said he "believed" she lied. It is now up to Ms. Moseley to show preef that the payments were made on time.
I think the real point of the story was the lack of tact that Councilman Tyler continues to demonstrate. Instead of using the public forum to levy his personal opinion on a matter, (which he freely admits, even HE has not gotten "to the bottom" of) he calls the mayor's request "premature". Certainly a textbook case of hypocrisy if I've ever seen one. Tyler has been embroiled in everything from a sexual harrasment case within council against his own 20 something liaison to personally drafting and sponsoring a paper to license panhandlers in Richmond among many other things. He was prohibited from chairing any committee within council early on by his peers and has no bigger fan than himself, so there has never been any doubt the poor guy is troubled. Mayor Jones did the right thing by asking for the apology outside of the public forum. Tyler would serve himself and his constituency well to sit down, shut up and listen for a change, but his ego just won't allow him to do it. It's amazing the 1st district elected the guy, but it was about time the 1st district stepped up and put it's own crazy on council. Welcome to Richmond!
Tyler was right to question the practices of this city employee. What are we supposed to expect, Council members passively sitting around letting these long-time bureaucrats get away with substandard service and maybe even lying to an official? Thank you Bruce Tyler for calling the one out. The last time I checked even school children get in trouble for lying to an official.
Politico - Clearly you have a personal ax to grind against Tyler based on the two posts by you I just read. To clarify, I think it was Graziano who was embroiled in the sexual harassment situation involving her aide who behaved inappropriately with Tyler's aide.
the real story here is.... state money going to "needy" children. Another words my money going to bozo kids and their nasty mothers. Did you vote to have your money sent to "needy" children?
Although I appreciate all participation in this thread, there are a few things some folks apparently do not understand. First, I have no "ax to grind" against Bruce Tyler, he's just one of the reasons the city is in the mess it's in. Second, Tyler didn't "question the practices of this city employee" as you say (that would have been completely appropriate), he called her a liar, admittedly before he knew all of the facts. Third, you apparently didn't read any of the articles regarding the situation with Tyler's liaison, Jennifer Walle. Just to quote the Style Weekly story by Scott Bass, (since we are on their forum) I offer you this... "The city’s lawyers say that Walle also made claims that Tyler had made inappropriate comments about her dress and appearance -- things like Walle 'looked good in heels.' The city’s hired guns say that Walle also asked to be reassigned, that she didn’t feel comfortable working with Tyler." Of course, what late-fifty something man hires an extremely attractive twenty-something girl with no experience to be his city council liaison anyway...you guessed it! Just setting the factual record straight for you, city taxpayer. You're welcome.