Drudgeville

05/15/2023

ALERT!!!

It appears that discovered evidence of Terminated City Manager Aretha Ferrell-Benavides engaging in Official Misconduct with the Alteration of Official Records may exist.

It appears emails may have been altered/manufactured when Ferrell-Benavides advised she would be on extended leave.

If true, the question is how many documents, emails, et cetera, did Ferrell-Benavides alter/manufacture in the performance of her duties. Could this activity also include the action of surrogates within her administration?

This is compounded by other reports of altered emails, texts and other documents. One such instance reportedly includes soon to be taken legal action against Ferrell-Benavides.

Time to launch an investigation?

05/15/2023

Duncanville City Council Members Did Not Know About Terminated City Manager Ferrell-Benavides' Last Minute Extended Absence Prior to Requesting Her Review After Multiple Prior Attempts, Contrary to the Narrative She and Others Promoted.

Recently received documents indicate former City Manager Ferrell-Benavides had a habit of notifying council at the very last minute of several vacations and meetings which would preclude her from performing her duties in Duncanville. It is most likely certain the remaining City Staff fell under much stricter guidelines when requesting vacations.

Based on official documents received, six times between October 2022 and March 2023 Ferrell-Benavides notified council on the day of her departure she would be absent. Only once was a one-day notice given and once was a five-day notice given based on information received. One notice did not provide exact dates.

Four of the notices were vacations on:

10/21/2022-Date Not Provided
11/22/2022-11/30/2022;
12/23/2022-01/03/2023;
01/26/2023-01/30/2023;

Three of vacation notices were provided on same day, and one with one-day notice. This appears to be a month's worth of vacation over a three-month period, which may contribute to the dissatisfaction with Ferrell-Benavides employment. When combined with the first NLCC meeting below, Ferrell-Benavides was unavailable for two weeks during November in 2022.

One request was made on 03/15/2023 was for illness between 03/15/2023-03/20/2023.

Two other items reviewed are notices for absence to attend National League of City Conferences (NLCC).

The first one appears reasonable with a request made five days prior on 11/11/2023 notifying Ferrell-Benavides would be attending the meeting between 11/16-11/20. The actual meeting was 11/16-11/18, so it appears Ferrell-Benavides did not rush back to run Duncanville, and took a few extra days with at minimum one being a travel day.

It is the second one that really stands out.

A Notice was generated dated 03/24/2023 that Ferrell-Benavides would be absent for NLCC between 03/24/2023 and 04/03/2023, total of 11 days, however The NLCC meeting was on 03/26-03/28, a total of 3 days.

The question is why at the last minute would Ferrell-Benavides advise council she would be out of town for NLCC six days after the meeting ended? The letter only indicates she is out of town for NLCC, so why delay returning to Duncanville?

Taking an extra day for travel is understandable, two days is excessive, but six days after the meeting ended should raise concerns.

So what happened at the City during this time? On March 30, 2023, Ferrell-Benavides was terminated. The Official Posted Notice for this Special Meeting was on March 27th, 2023. So the question would be who and when was the Special Meeting requested, and when did council know of Ferrell-Benavides' itinerary?

Ferrell-Benavides' own statement indicated that this meeting was scheduled with council knowing she could not be there. Is that true?

The NLCC was between 03/26/2023 and 03/28/2023, and the meeting was scheduled for two days after the meeting ended on 03/30/2023. On the day Ferrell-Benavides notified of her absence, 03/24/2023, she advised she would be conveniently absence for an additional six days after the event ended.

Considering prior to this extended break after the March 2023 NLCC Ferrell-Benavides had taken a about a month of vacation between 10/2022 and 01/2023, and at minimum 6 additional sick days, it appears to an egregious abuse of privilege to take an additional six days off at the last minute conveniently at the same time her review is scheduled, what would now be for the third time.

A review of timelines based on official City emails indicate that the Special Meeting was called for on 03/24/2023 @ 3:12pm by Council Member At-Large Patrick Harvey, and then seconded by District Five Council Member Greg Contreras at 3:25pm.

It was not until after this, at 3:35pm, that council was first advised by Ferrell-Benavides, and then at 3:48pm by Assistant to the City Manager David Kees, that City Manager Ferrell-Benavides would be taking off for an unusually longer period of time.

Council was not aware and did not schedule Ferrell-Benavides' Review with any knowledge she would be unavailable, and reasonably would have believed she should have returned to her duties in time for the review, as the meeting she would be out of town for ended on 03/28/2023, with the review scheduled for 03/30/2023.

Conveniently, after the meeting was requested, Ferrell-Benavides then provided late notice she once again would be unavailable for her review. Contrary to what was presented as fact by Ferrell-Benavides, as well as others, it is not true that council attempted to hold her review without her, and it now appears she was making efforts to avoid it.

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05/12/2023

Still working on uncovering some details about some new information received recently related to some claims made by the former city manager and her surrogates hoping to retain her.

So far we know the former city manager and current mayor were not truthful with remarks about our finances by alleging two sets of books. People in their position should not be (at best) that reckless, or (at worst) deceptive when communicating to the publc, or to anyone. Power corrupts.

05/11/2023

Thank you all for being interested, wanting to understand what happened under the tenure of Aretha Ferrell-Benavides, and for the increase in followers on this page in the past 24 hours. We are approaching 500 unique views per post.

Just got official word today that the City is about to start providing responses to our open records requests. Amazing how quickly things started to move once the gate keeper (City Secretary) gave up the keys on Monday.

Right now there are about ten request pending over the past 5+ weeks. Stay tuned.

Please share and follow this page.

05/09/2023

FOLLOWERS WANTED!!!

While each post on this page appears to be reaching several hundred people, if it has 100 Followers then additional analytics become available to better understand the target audience.

So please Share this Post and Follow the Drudgeville Page!

05/08/2023

There is an interesting item on the Duncanville City Council Agenda from 05/02/2023 in Executive Session. It states:

'City Council shall convene into closed Executive Session pursuant to Section 551.071 of the Texas Local Government Code to seek legal advice from the City Attorney regarding Article 2, Section 2.10 of the Duncanville Home Rule Charter concerning council’s right to make inquiry regarding the appointments or removal of the City Manager, administrative and/or executive personnel.'

The interesting part is that it says "...council’s right to make inquiry regarding the appointments or REMOVAL of the City Manager, ADMINISTRATIVE AND/OR EXECUTIVE PERSONNEL."

It is written in a way that it appears someone other than the City Manager was the topic of discussion since they already removed and appointed a City Manager. Immediately after this meeting the Finance Director, Edena Atmore, resigned. And not lost in this is that the City Secretary also just resigned. Makes one wonder what was talked about in this Executive Session? Maybe a records request will uncover something, and with Willman gone it might be possible that we may get a response.

And the request has been made. Let us see what happens.

05/08/2023

It has been reported that Duncanville City Secretary, Juanita 'Janie' Willman, has resigned. Ms. Willman was brought to Duncanville from Glenn Heights, where she had previously worked for Duncanville's recently terminated former City Manager Ferrell-Benavides. Unconfirmed information suggests Willman’s ties to Ferrell-Benavides spans decades.

The City Secretary essentially is the gate keeper for the City Manager, acts as a buffer and among many things is in control of how open records requests are handled. We are now at five weeks waiting for several requests with an official complaint filed with the Texas Attorney General's Office last week. It has also been reported that Ms. Willman was handling other requests in a way where they were not exactly official responses, which may indicate that they were not completely responsive and/or may have omitted information.

It should come as no surprise that the City Secretary resigned immediately after the election, as it is now a clear indication that Ferrell-Benavides will not be returning to Duncanville based on the overwhelming victory for Incumbents Greg Contreras for District Five, Jeremy Koontz for District Three, who both voted to terminate Ferrell-Benavides (Along with McBurnett & Harvey), and our new At-Large Council Person DeMonica Gooden, who soundly defeated the candidate who was supported by Ferrell-Benavides' backers.

This now makes the second high profile resignation, with the Finance Director recently resigning with many issues hanging over her head and this is likely just the tip of the iceberg. It would not be surprising if there are additional resignations of Ferrell-Benavides strategically placed hires, as well as significant information starting to come to light which will provide a better picture of how bad things were under the tenure of Ferrell-Benavides.

05/08/2023

This is a story of two Duncanville’s. A lot of permission is needed to tell one side, so It will be told the best it can without that.

It revolves around commercial property sprinkler systems and two businesses. One person knew the city manager, Aretha Ferrell-Benavides, well enough that they were able to get the city to turn a blind eye to a system that would cost $100k+. Ferrell-Benavides was buying political influence.

But the other guy, a small businessman with a very unique operation, was trying to relocate his business to Duncanville… he had an awesome business plan.. very successful… 30+ years experience… would’ve been a great new businesss for Duncanville.

He specialized in high end custom interiors for private jets. He was attempting open up a 30k square foot operation in Duncanville and started moving his shop in. Six weeks into the move the City decided he needed a sprinkler system, which is something they could have told him before he started the move. Six Weeks. Never mind that his materials were more fire proof than anything the City had ever seen.

He couldn’t afford the $100k+ for the system, but he already spent/lost over $30k moving and updating the building before Aretha’s people told him something different. Six weeks! This failure in the City management killed his business and arguably destroyed much more.

In the mean time another business owner in Duncanville got handed a favor for the exact same thing. They would’ve easily survived without the favor. The person that needed the favor got destroyed.

05/07/2023

The election may be done, but we are not.

This election sends a clear message that citizens overwhelmingly supported the council members who terminated Aretha Ferrell-Benavides. Unfortunately, the fallout from her short tenure is just now starting to become clear. We are going to bird dog the heck out of uncovering the truth.

With the recent abrupt resignation of the financial director that Ferrell-Benavides hired, we can safely assume there is much more to the story we haven’t been told.

05/04/2023

Former City Manager Ferrell-Benavides came to Duncanville after a brief tenure in Petersburg, Virginia. After publicly committing to staying "at least five years," rumors began to arise about her seeking other jobs within her first year. She denied this, however applied for and began taking interviews within at most two years.

Ferrell-Benavides came to Petersburg in 2018 after the City was under the supervision of the Robert Bobb Group (RBG) for almost two years for Emergency Financial and Operational Restructuring following a failure in the City's Management, and was provided a 5 year plan by RBG to navigate the recovery.

After Ferrell-Benavides was City Manager for a year, RBG performed a review and many of the 'Significant Risks' identified in the report echo many of the concerns Duncanville is seeing now, and may be an indication of other issues Duncanville has yet to address. Could it be that Ferrell-Benavides was looking for an out after this poor review? And now with Ferrell-Benavides' hire for Duncanville's Finance Director abruptly resigning, are we looking at more yet to be discovered problems coming from the tenure of Ferrell-Benavides?

1) The City of Petersburg has not maintained a daily, weekly, or monthly cash flow review as left by the RBG to manage the finances of the City, nor has this been presented to City Council. This is a significant risk to the City given the lack of available cash reserves to even out the revenue streams and represents a return to past practices.

2) City of Petersburg to seriously consider the Five-Year Financial Action Plan recommendations, and pay specific attention to remediate the audit findings as identified by the external auditors.

3) The FY ‘18 Approved Budget (adopted while the RBG was managing the City) as managed by the current management team, had significant overspending during the transition.

a. As a result, the City management team projects a $300,000 surplus for FY ‘18. Not only is this significantly below the projected $2 million surplus from the RBG, it is at risk of not being achieved given that $500,000 in surplus real estate properties included in the revenue assumptions may not occur prior to the fiscal year end. To date, the City has not executed a plan to support this $500,000
assumption should it not materialize.

b. One-time revenues from the sale of property are not being put toward one-time uses, or the establishment of a fund balance, as required by the Council-adopted financial policies

4) Transitionary audit between the City Treasurer and Collector of Taxes was started but not completed by CliftonLarsonAllen LLP, the City’s Internal Auditor, due to lack of follow-up from the City.

5) There is no financial plan for the Utility Fund’s significant capital needs.

a. Some areas related to the Utility Fund could lead to a technical default by the City on bonds outstanding through the Virginia Resources Authority (VRA). If this occurs, an immediate repayment of the outstanding bond principal could be required by VRA, thus leading to a financial disaster far bigger than the summer
of 2016, before the RBG was hired. Immediate remediation is encouraged.

b. We strongly encourage the City management to work with its financial advisors and its bond attorneys to understand the bond covenants surrounding the Utility Fund, the use of the Utility Rate Study, and the commitment to uphold them.

6) The Utilities infrastructure continues to be a significant risk as the City continues to deal with water main breaks and boil water notices. There may be a risk if the prime contractor for water main break repairs refuses to do business with the City due to concern over invoice payments. The capital budget and plan that was approved last year has not progressed with the same sense of urgency as RBG recommends.

a. In a February 21, 2017 Council presentation on the “Utility System Overview,” the water and wastewater infrastructure and its financial challenges were carefully detailed.

b. There is an operational risk with the recent departure of the Utilities director. This risk can be mitigated through the hiring of experienced personnel or outsourcing the management and operations for Utilities.

c. CityWorks software was purchased by the City to automate public works repair requests utilizing the City’s Geographic Information System (GIS). Timmons Engineering provided CityWorks training for Public Works staff in late June 2017.
The Public Works Department is not currently using CityWorks.

7) Billings and Collections continues to be an area of significant risk and challenge as it impacts the flow of revenue to the City. The transition of duties to the newly hired Collector of City Taxes requires greater collaboration between that office, the elected
Commissioner of Revenue, and the elected Treasurer. There continues to be a disjointed flow of information from the Commissioner of Revenue, the Collector of City Taxes, and
the City Treasurer. The Billing and Collections activity and analytics are not understood by all involved, and they are not actively tracking collection activities. This includes a need for documented and understood process flows of all billing and delinquency cycles
that all parties review and follow.

a. As the City transitions to a new Collector of City Taxes model, the City must continue to work very hard to improve the Utility Billings processes and systems. Utility Billings is a critical piece of the overall collections process as it manages the only monthly recurring revenue to the City.

b. The RBG strongly encourages the City to implement the recommendations of the Severn Trent Report completed in August 2017.

8) The Treasurer’s Office is not depositing customer payments in a timely fashion leading to continued customer complaints. Additionally, there is a significant risk and liability with how cash is handled by the City. The physical location of the City Treasurer’s Office should be re-evaluated. At risk of exposing the vulnerability, the RBG will not report in this document but will ensure that City Council and City management are fully aware of the risk that exists to how cash is managed in the City.

KEY AREAS OF RISK:

a. Online Banking – HIGH PRIORITY: There is an urgent need to develop a process to confirm funds have been credited to a customer’s account in a timely manner after an online payment has been made. This is an “All Hands On Deck” issue to be solved
immediately.

b. Roles & Responsibilities – HIGH PRIORITY: The City should urgently confirm the role and responsibilities of the Treasurer and the Collector of City Taxes.

c. Training & Development – HIGH PRIORITY: It is an urgent and immediate need for the City that the Treasurer identify resources for training, development and business process mapping.

d. Permanent Staffing: The Treasurer’s Office has a critical vacancy that needs to be filled immediately. Need job descriptions for all positions in the Treasurer’s Office.

e. Bank Reconciliations: The Treasurer’s Office is several months behind in bank reconciliations of the City’s bank statements. The City administration should work with the Treasurer’s Office on resources and staffing beyond what is currently there to eliminate the backlog.

f. The Treasurer is responsible for all online banking services. There is a critical need for documented policies, practices, practices, procedures, and business process mapping.

g. The Treasurer should develop an Investment Policy. The purpose of this Investment Policy would be to secure the best interest rates for the City’s funds, and the policy should be approved by City Council

9) . The FY ‘19 Proposed Budget did not develop a capital budget or Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) at the time the operating budget was developed. A CIP should have been presented to the City Council at the same time as the FY ‘19 Operating Budget. The
Council’s adopted financial policies (available on the City’s website) require that an annual capital budget be prepared as part of the CIP. On p. 13 of the Adopted FY ’18 Operating Budget, Capital Improvement Budget Policy #4 states: “The City will need to
coordinate development of the annual capital budget with development of the operating budget. Future operating costs associated with new capital improvements will be projected and included in operating budget forecasts.” In addition, leading practices in the Commonwealth of Virginia are to develop a CIP and present in conjunction with annual operating budget. Given these were not developed together consistently, the needs for capital projects are not being fully represented on the operating side of the budget.

10. The FY ‘19 Proposed Budget was developed without an updated Cost Allocation Plan so this could be a financial vulnerability once the new plan is updated. In addition, $250,000 was budgeted from the Perpetual Care Fund. This figure exceeds the interest earned and will need to be addressed prior to the budget being adopted.

05/04/2023

While looking at City of Duncanville Website to identify staff with connections to the former City Manager, it was revealed a name is missing from Financial Services Department - Finance Director Edena Atmore no longer appears on list of Fiscal Services Staff.

Considering the issues surrounding Atmore's previous two places of employment, issues with Duncanville's unreconciled accounts since September, failure to complete Duncanville's 2022 audit... this may be very troubling for Duncanville.

This may also point to more evidence that Council Members Contreras, Harvey, Koontz and McBurnett made the right decision to terminate former City Manager Ferrell-Benavides.

05/03/2023

Duncanville's Audit Committee gave their report regarding allegations made by former City Manager Ferrell-Benavides & Mayor Gordon regarding alleged 'two books' and the status of the City's current finances. To summarize it appears these allegations were nothing more than a false flag to distract from the pervasive inattention to detail on the part of the former City Manager and the current Finance Director installed by Ferrell-Benavides two years ago.

At approximately the 52 minute mark the findings are stated, which were:

1) City's external auditor, Mr. Williams, confirmed the City has not / does not maintain two sets of books.

2) Existence of spreadsheets for use by previous Finance Director was NOT suspicious, nor abnormal.

3) Fiscal Year 2022 Audit Due 03/31/2023 has not been started as of 04/20/2023.

4) Finance Department Staff (installed by Ferrell-Benavides) unable to confirm when Audit will be complete.

5) City bank account has not reconciled since 09/2022.

6) Finance Statements / Reports appear to be incomplete and inaccurate as a result.

7) Audit Committee is concerned about accuracy of internal audit report based on unreconciled bank statements.

In summary... Pervasive inattention to detail.

These issues and many more throughout City Hall have been known for some time by council members and Mayor Gordon. It begs the question why Gordon, Cherry and Veracruz supported the former city manager and retaining Ferrell-Benavides.

Recent employment history also begs the question as to why Ferrell-Benavides hired our current Finance Director considering extremely questionable short tenures at most recent past two places of employment and significant issues at much smaller municipalities.

CONSENT TO AGENDA ITEM NUMBER. OR WHERE. AND, HMM. MR COHEN SAID REQUESTED REMOVING. I MADE A NOTE ON ONE OF THEM HERE. ANOTHER CONCEPT OF GENDER IDOL FOUR B. CONSIDER NORTON CITY COUNCIL. PROCUREMENT. THAT ONE IS MOVING TO AGENDA ITEM TWO MINUTE YEAH. INDIVIDUAL ITEMS. CONSIDERATION OKAY. TOO MANY....

04/28/2023

Texas Attorney General's Office, after the City advised AG they would take care of the multiple requests, has now advised to file a formal complaint due to City of Duncanville's failure to comply to open records requests going on business day 20 now. Guess Ferrell-Benavides' people really don't want to release the information.

04/28/2023

Despite attempts by former City Manager Ferrell-Benavides and others the raise a false flag, Duncanville’s Audit Committee receives independent confirmation that there are not two sets of books.

Ferrell-Benavides, Mayor Barry Gordon and former council member Mark Cooks all promoted this false narrative seemingly for political reasons and wrongfully caused damage to the City of Duncanville and attempted to do harm to the reputation of council members voting to terminate Ferrell-Benavides.

Serious questions remain around Ferrell-Benavides’ hire for financial director and their inability to reconcile cash accounts.

Duncanville audit committee's meeting with Fiscal Director Edena J. Atmore and auditor Marlon Williams found no two sets of books.

04/25/2023

There is talk that Mayor Gordon of Duncanville and a handful of others are planning to bring back Ferrell-Benavides if the election goes their way in spite of failures on several levels, and if true it would be a return to a City Manager that has a history of not honoring publicly stated commitments.

After taking a prior job in Petersburg, Virginia, Ferrell-Benavides denounced rumors she was looking for another job after just a year, stating that she has "no intentions of applying for another job. My goal was to be here for at least five years, and I'm committed to that five years."

A year later, after only two years on the job, Ferrell-Benavides breaks her commitment to the City of Petersburg, and would apply at minimum for three other jobs within three years. As these are the only applications for other jobs found to be publicly reported, there may have been more and the rumors that started after only a year on the job may have been well-founded at the time.

FACT VS. FICTION Evaluating Former City Manager Ferrell-Benavides

04/24/2023

Texas Attorney General's Office has reached out and will be contacting City of Duncanville immediately to investigate suppression of open records requests.

04/24/2023

This page and corresponding website, www.drudgeville.com, have been set up to address the tenure of the Duncanville's former City
Manager, Aretha Ferrell-Benavides, her hiring practices, management, etc., as well as address claims made by the former city manager.

Several open records requests have been made and are currently being ignored by long-time friend and associate of the former city manager, recently hired City Secretary Juanita Willman.

This page will continuously update as new information becomes available.