COMMENTARY: The Phoenix Will Rise from the Ashes
Sunlight poured into the Stafford Board chambers Tuesday evening; standing among the ashes was Mary Becelia, her husband, and a young man with a heart for public service.
By Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Even the fireworks that lit up the Stafford County Board of Supervisors meeting room during the final 20 minutes of Tuesday’s 3+ hour meeting were outshone by the disinfecting sunlight that family members of Mary Becelia — and Becelia herself — poured into the chambers as they described the damage they had endured due to the Board members’ actions and inactions these past six months.
Wrongly branded with a charge of misconduct and stripped of her seat as a citizen representative on the CRRL library board, Becelia has suffered through the stages of being a victim in much the same way terminally ill people deal with what Elisabeth Kübler-Ross described as the stages of grief.
“It started with confusion when I was first told I was removed [from the CRRL library board in July] but didn’t know why,” Becelia told the Advance following the non-apology apology delivered at the opening of Tuesday evening’s Board meeting.
“It changed to utter bewilderment,” she continued, “when I learned I’d been charged with misconduct.”
“I then felt betrayed,” she said, “when I tried to reach out to [the Board] multiple times via email and certified mail and never got a response.”
But rather than accepting her fate, as Ross witnessed the terminally ill doing, Becelia stood up.
“Then,” she told the Advance, “I started to get determined. Determined that I had to speak up and not allow them to treat me like a non-entity.”
That determination alone is what brought a nonplussed Board and the county’s citizens to this meeting room.
And there, the family finally was able to tell what one Board’s actions had done not just to them personally, but to the community as a whole.
Growth Comes from Pain Learned too Early
Robert Calvert (Becelia’s son) opened his public comments by noting the last time he had been with a Board member was at his Eagle Scout ceremony in 2023. The current Board chair looked directly at Calvert as he recalled her encouraging him and his fellow Eagle Scouts to pursue careers in public service.
Unfortunately, he noted, “I’ve been granted an unexpected lesson into the functioning of our board of supervisors…. What I have seen has shaken me and my faith in local government … by seeing this political body made up of people who are literally our neighbors acting in a manner that has been profoundly damaging to one of their constituents. Someone who is entirely innocent.”
The impact of these action on the community was not lost on young Calvert, either, who also noted that “if it could happen to her, it could happen to any civic-minded person who volunteers their time for their county.”
“At least it would have been more likely,” he noted, “if she had not stood up to the local governing body.”
Becelia’s husband, Clayton Calvert, put into words the depths of disbelief Becelia’s experience have brought him to.
“When I swore my oath to the Constitution …,” he began, “I never thought I would eventually be doing what I could to protect my fellow citizens, specifically my own wife, from adversaries who are domestic, let alone from elected public servants and neighbors who were tarnishing her name with false accusations.”
And it was Becelia who brought home how the Board’s actions had affected all citizens in Stafford County.
“I’ve learned some powerful lessons,” she began, “about local governance, about the rights and responsibilities that go along with citizenship, and about what it means to be brave. None of this has been easy … at all.”
However, she continued, what she and her family have endured is not about her. “It’s about all of us,” as she pointed to the chambers and the citizens seated therein.
She reminded those who were there to hear, that this elected body, behind closed doors, “recklessly accuse[d] a citizen volunteer of wrongdoing, without one shred of evidence.”
“This is about seven people,” she said, “six who could not have put a name to the face of the person they branded with misconduct. Five of whom who had never met that person. And they were willing to accuse a fellow citizen of profound wrongdoing.”
Later in the evening, one hopes owing in some measure to the sunlight that Becelia’s words produced, apologies eventually did flow from individual Board members, who sometimes apologized for the “process.” A choice of words that suggests too many members of this Board still don’t understand how their actions have profoundly damaged a family, and given a young man just beginning a career in public service a jolting lesson in how many of our public officials have lost sight of who they serve.
Sometimes, however, growth comes from pain learned too early.
Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Bill Clinton all lost in their first attempts at elected office. That their names require no further elaboration demonstrates that Phoenixes do rise from the ashes.
This Board’s reputation, on this night, was little more than ashes at the end of the evening because of the light Becelia and her family shone forth.
May their sunlight disinfect the chambers. And may many Phoenixes rise forthwith.
Starting with Mary, Clayton, and Robert.
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