Stafford Supervisors at Odds over Library Board Dismissal
By Martin Davis and Adele Uphaus
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF/MANAGING EDITOR & CORRESPONDENT
Just over two weeks ago, the Advance exposed how the Stafford Board of Supervisors refused to communicate with, or apologize to, Mary Becelia after dismissing her for supposed misconduct from the Central Rappahannock Regional Library board in July 2024.
On Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, members of the Stafford Board of Supervisors began publicly giving their versions of what happened. And there are differences in their accounts.
Monica Gary Apologizes, Explains
On Wednesday afternoon, Stafford County Supervisor Monica Gary was the first supervisor to go public with an apology via Facebook to Mary Becelia. She shared that apology with Becelia in a phone call before posting it to Facebook.
“Mary Becilia [sic] was appointed to the Library Trustee Board by the Stafford County Board of Supervisors as a dedicated citizen appointee,” Gary wrote on Facebook. “… However, in a series of events driven by misunderstanding, poor judgment, and, in some cases, deliberate action, this Board has failed to uphold the principles of fairness and legality.”
As the Advance reported earlier this month, Becelia said Gary had reached out to her by text message on July 10, asking if they could talk by phone. When they connected, Becelia said Gary asked for her seat on the CRRL board’s hiring committee, which was beginning its work to replace Martha Hutzel, who had announced she was stepping down as the library’s executive director.
Becelia took notes during the phone call. “[Gary] said ‘her Board [the Board of Supervisors]’ was not happy that she was not a voting member, and that a large amount of money goes to the library,” Becelia recalled.
Becelia told Gary she needed to reach out to Cheryl Miller, the then-chair of the CRRL Board.
“It wasn’t my seat to give away,” Becelia told the Advance, “and I couldn’t do it in a phone call.”
In Gary’s statement Wednesday evening, she wrote:
“When Ms. Becilia [sic] declined to relinquish her seat on the Library Director search committee—a role appropriately assigned to her by the Trustee Board—some of my colleagues wrongly labeled this as misconduct. Her refusal was within her rights and responsibilities as a Trustee, yet I motioned to remove her, albeit for a different reason, and the Board unanimously voted to remove her from the CRRL Trustee Board. It is now clear to me … that this decision was not only unjust but also illegal. Misconduct is the sole legal basis for removing a Trustee, and Ms. Becilia’s [sic] actions did not meet that standard.”
Gary then went on to apologize to Becelia.
“Today, I publicly and unequivocally apologize to Ms. Becilia [sic]. No words can undo the harm caused, but I want her to know that I am committed to making this right.”
Competing Reasons for Dismissal
In a separate statement that Gary both read to Becelia in their phone call and delivered via email Wednesday evening to the Advance shortly after posting her public apology, Gary provided more detail about the “different reason” she had for removing her from the CRRL board during the July 2024 meeting.
“I had a phone conversation with Ms. Becilia in which I asked her to consider relinquishing her position on the committee and allowing me to serve instead,” Gary wrote. “She declined, citing her commitment to the library system. She also stated that her primary responsibility was to serve the Library and not the County, which concerned me, as I believed the Trustee Board appointees should act with the interests of the County in mind.”
Gary then said that she shared this concern with the Board of Supervisors in a closed session. “During that session,” Gary wrote, “some Supervisors … expressed a desire to remove Ms. Becilia [sic] from the Trustee Board. Their stated reason was her refusal to relinquish her committee seat, but this did not meet the legal definition of misconduct— the only grounds for removal under Virginia law. My own concern stemmed from her stated focus on serving the Library rather than the County.”
Gary goes on to explain that she was “not informed by legal counsel that my reasoning for removal did not meet the legal standard of misconduct.” She maintains, however, that “Some of my colleagues … had been informed that their stated reason (refusal to give up the committee seat) would not likely rise to the level of misconduct.”
However, following the meeting in July, Gary says a review of Virginia Code and consulting with outside counsel convinced her “that our actions were not only unjust but illegal. Ms. Becilia’s role as a Trustee was to serve as a citizen appointee focused on the success of the library, not as a representative of the County in the same way that I serve. In essence, she was fulfilling her duties appropriately.”
Another closed meeting was requested by Gary and convened in September. She reports that at that time she asked her fellow board members to “to correct our mistake by reappointing Ms. Becilia.” Ultimately, that was not done.
Following the Advance’s story on November 11 outlining the Board of Supervisors’ failure to respond to Becelia, the board again held a closed session meeting and voted Gary off the CRRL board, replacing her with Supervisor Pamela Yeung.
In her penultimate remarks given to the Advance Wednesday evening, Gary wrote: “I call on my colleagues to join me in issuing a formal apology to Ms. Becilia [sic] and to reappoint her to the Library Trustee Board without delay.”
Competing Stories
But on Wednesday evening, Vice Chair Tinesha Allen of the Stafford County Board of Supervisors reached out to the Advance via phone to respond to the public apology that Gary posted on social media.
Allen told the Advance that Gary is still not taking responsibility for her role in removing Becelia from the library board at the July meeting.
According to Allen, the supervisors initially voted to remove Becelia from the library board in July because Gary came to them with complaints about Becelia and asked them to trust her.
“I just need you to support me” in removing her from the board, Allen recalls Gary saying.
“She basically said to us that Mary was not serving Stafford County and its citizens,” Allen said. “She said Mary’s loyalty was to the library, not the citizens. In my mind that is dereliction of duty and could be argued as misconduct.”
Allen said this is what convinced her to support Becelia’s removal. She said Gary also told board members that Becelia was refusing to give up her seat on the hiring committee for the new library director, but did not share that Becelia had told Gary that the seat was not hers to give away.
Allen said board members asked Gary if she had attempted to resolve her issues with Becelia prior to asking for her removal. Gary told them that she had, Allen said.
When Gary came back to the Board in September, Allen said, Gary said she’d made a mistake in asking for Becelia’s removal.
Allen said she pressed Gary for details and asked if any of what she told the board in July about Becelia was untrue. Gary said no, according to Allen, but gave “vague answers” as to why she felt she’d made a mistake.
Allen said she decided not to change her vote because she still believed, based on what Gary continued to say, that Becelia had not been acting in the best interest of Stafford County’s citizens.
“How do you expect us to change a vote if she did what you are telling us she did?” Allen said.
Now, Allen said, she does not believe there was any “misconduct” on Becelia’s part. She said she feels the board was misled by Gary and that there are now “trust issues” with the Aquia supervisor.
“I believe that truth is the best disinfectant,” Allen said.
Competing Memories
Concerning Allen's take on what happened at the July and September meetings, Gary agrees with Allen’s recollection in some places, but disagrees in others.
Gary told the Advance via email Friday morning, for example, that she never said to the Board of Supervisors: “I just need you to support me to remove her from the board.” And she denies that she gave “vague answers.”
Gary also told the Advance Friday morning that she shared all the information she had about the role of library trustees with supervisors at the September closed session.
“They had all the information I had,” she said. “Some made the decision [not to reappoint Becelia] for a different reason,” which doesn’t add up to misconduct.
This is an evolving story and the Advance will have more on this in coming days.
Read related reporting
Library Board Member Dismissed for "Misconduct"
Stafford Supervisors Remove Monica Gary from Library Board of Trustees
Commentary: Integrity, Transparency, and the Sounds of Silence
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I don’t understand in what ways the interests of the county and the interests of the library that serves the citizens of the county differ? Are there specifics? Is this code for something?