Richmond officials said today that J.R. Pope has resigned as director of the Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Development, subject of two blistering investigative reports by the city auditor.
They would not say whether he was asked to resign. His cell phone number has been disconnected and he did not respond to an e-mail.
“He no longer works for the city,” said Tammy D. Hawley, press secretary to Mayor Dwight Jones. “We don’t discuss personnel matters.”
Pope, hired under the administration of then-Mayor L. Douglas Wilder almost five years ago, led a number of high-profile initiatives to improve city parks and community facilities, including the restoration of the lake at Forest Hill Park in South Richmond.
However, two investigative reports released today by City Auditor Umesh V. Dalal criticized oversight in the parks department and said the city had spent $36,673 on an unnecessary and still-unfinished project to refurbish a reception counter for the Pine Camp Community Center.
The auditor’s Office of the Inspector General chronicled the activities of two parks maintenance employees and accused one or both of unauthorized use of a city vehicle for personal business, sleeping during work hours, inadequate supervision and excessive overtime charges.
And that doesn’t address any of their work on the reception counter for Pine Camp.
In a separate but equally critical report, Dalal said the project appears to have been motivated by the workers’ desire to collect overtime pay. A total of 135 hours of overtime were billed, but Dalal said the project was so poorly handled that the counter stands too tall to be used.
Dalal said the investigations were launched during a planned audit of the parks department.
His office released the reports today to Chief Administrative Officer Byron C. Marshall and Deputy Chief Administrative Officer for Human Services Carolyn N. Graham. In a statement released last night, Jones said disciplinary hearings have been ordered for the employees, who are not named in the reports.
Pope is referenced by his title once in the reports, in a section that describes the 135 hours of overtime incurred in construction of the reception counter.
“These hours were approved by several levels of management, including the superintendent of citywide maintenance, the operations manager and the director of parks, recreation and community facilities,” the report said.
Two other carpenters in the division estimated that the desk could be built in about 40 hours, according to investigators.
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