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Lincoln Saunders unwisely issued city credit cards to employees with insufficient controls.It was a disaster with much fraud and abuse. Saunders feebly claimed that only a few percent were used fraudulently, but it's perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars. We know that someone in the Richmond Fire Department has been paid for phoney invoices totalling up to $8 million. We demand to know what has been or is being done about this massive fraud and theft of taxpayer money?

Dpu in Chaos
The city DPU is riddled with incompetence. Tens of $ millions in past due accounts are documented as past due or uncollectible. They seem unable to read meters causing wild water and gas bills, some of which are $2,000, $5,000, and even $10,000, for a single residence. The average telephone hold time for DPU customer service is over one hour. Water meters are literally leaking and running wide open all over the city.

Credit Card Fraud

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19 City Employee Holidays. Don't Come to Work! No One at City Hall

Shockingly, former Richmond CAO Saunders and Mayor Stoney increased the number of city employee paid days off to 19 including 2 for mental health. Often making city hall a proverbial ghost town, dark, and unavailable to assist citizens or do any work on an excessive number of days. That's nearly a month per year city hall is empty, but the phones still ring. Serving citizens is no priority in RVA, though under Mayor Avula we expect this will change.

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Breaking State FOIA Law

Former Richmond CAO Saunders in particular demonstrated a penchant for secrecy and there's manifest proof in the FOIA debacle. Led by Saunders it has been a secret riddled government. The secrecy and lack of transparency must stop. Mayor Avula ran on a platform of transparency, so we expect this to dramatically improve.

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Breaking State FOIA Law

The well documented fiasco regarding food tax bills for our restaurant owners was both outrageous and screamed utter incompetence by city staff under Mayor Stoney. Worse yet the city staff seemed bent on trying to avoid solutions, and the problem persists. Has that changed? New reports on WTVR6 June 2025 (link) , provide graphic details of more city Finance Department failures, with $ millions in unpaid, but due refunds to business owners.

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Disappearing Phone Directory, Will Now Reappear on This Site.

Making matters worse, former Mayor Stoney and CAO Saunders, eliminated the city employee phone directory. That's right, they seemingly wanted to make it impossible for a citizen to ever get help by phone or email. There is a consistent theme: If few citizens get through, the city has fewer problems to solve. This is a consummate failure to serve our most needy citizens, especially Black and Brown. Click this link (excel) to search for the name, or department of a city employee you need to reach.

City 311, A Voice-Mail Inferno

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Citizens often can not now reach the city staff by phone, and the problem has persisted for decades! The 311 phone system is a call into Voice-Mail Inferno because, leave a message and likely you will never get a return call. You can literally hold for an hour, and you will be cut off. This is failure of government’s most basic function. Mayor Avula is aware of the problem so let's see if major changes can be made.

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1200 New City Workers, Extreme Low Performance, Low Respect For Leadership

The prior city administration hired about 1200 new city workers and the average taxpayer can't name one new service they received. The morale of Richmond city employees has been measured as among the lowest in the US. The culture is one of criticism, punishment and secrecy. Low morale especially occurs when there is low respect for leadership due to a lack of credentials. There's no doubt that Mayor Avula intends to raise both employee morale and performance.