Parkersburg council member says mayor should resign

PARKERSBURG, W.Va. — A member of the Parkersburg City Council says the time has come for he city’s embattled Mayor Bob Newell and Finance Director Ashley Flowers to step down.  Speaking on MetroNews Talkline Thursday, Kim Coram said the mayor has become ineffective as a leader.

“I do not believe he can effectively lead any more,” Coram said. “That’s hard for me to say when I was the one trying to lead the charge to have term limits removed so the citizens could bring him back.”

Coram said she had long admired Newell’s talents in steering the city.  She said she has been in his corner, but that changed when she got more deeply involved and examined the inner workings of how things were getting done.

“It’s very difficult when you hear recordings of the mayor and Ashley talking about lying to city council and lying to the citizens and covering up,” she said. “It was very difficult doing the budget with the mayor knowing these things are going on. It’s very difficult based on sloppiness and lack of consistency in our financial records. It’s very difficult to have faith in Ashley.”

Coram has been pushing for a state audit of the city’s financial records.  She believes there has been either general sloppiness or genuine fraud happening, but either way said the city’s finances are a mess.  She said tracking money has become almost impossible because there is no transparency.

“The disrespect he has show council and the citizens,” she said. “During the budget hearings I saw a $175,000 donation in the police fund and when I asked where that came from he told me it was none of my business, it was a donation.”

Coram says she herself has seen first hand what the money management problems have done to city business owners;.  She received notice from the city her rent had not been paid on her business lease agreement in a city managed building.  Coram says as a member of council she had access to the budget line items and researched to find her deposits had been made, but she was still being told she was in arrears.

Coram says they have tried to rise above the salacious details which have surrounded the controversy.  The alleged affair between the Mayor and Flowers has been everybody’s first discussion, but she said council isn’t on a witch hunt.  She said they are in search of truth, transparency in records, and a way forward to put the city back on solid financial footing, which she said is lost.

“We’re doing a systematic review of all the financial laws and we’re finding a lot of them are not being complied with,” Coram explained. “We’re working with the administration to bring them all back into play.”

However, for Coram personally the mayor’s behavior has left her, a longtime supporter, with only one thought.

“Me personally, not as a council person, I’m embarrassed.  He embarrasses me as a leader,”  she said.