PARKERSBURG, W.Va. — City Finance Director Ashley Flowers is once again out of the Municipal Building, on paid leave after being arrested Wednesday by Vienna Police on felony child endangerment charges.
“She’s not in the office and won’t be until further notice,” Mayor Bob Newell said Thursday.
The mayor said that’s standard practice for an employee accused of a crime.
“It’s being handled just like every other case,” he said.
Flowers had been working from home preparing the city’s proposed budget after five employees of the Finance Department filed lawsuits claiming sexual harassment and a hostile work environment due to conversations, photos and videos related to an alleged affair between Flowers and Newell. She’d recently returned, Newell said, spending some time in the department but usually working elsewhere in the building.
That was before Wednesday night when, according to a criminal complaint filed in Wood County Magistrate Court, a call to 911 reported Flowers’ 22-month-old twins were left alone in an unlocked car at the Grand Central Mall. The call came in at 7:51 p.m. and Vienna Police officers arrived at 8:01 and placed the children in a heated cruiser. When Flowers returned to the vehicle at 8:39, she was arrested.
Vienna Police Chief George Young said the person who called 911 was a passerby with no known connection to Flowers.
“It was just a lady walking through the parking lot,” he said.
Flowers used a bondsman to post a $100,000 bond Wednesday night, Young said.
Newell said he does not intend to name an acting finance director at this time.
“The Finance Department is not one person. It’s a 10-person office,” he said.
The other employees will take on Flowers’ duties, while Personnel Director Pam Salvage will handle administrative responsibilities, as she’d been doing in the wake of the lawsuit filings, Newell said.
Newell recently presented the proposed 2015-16 municipal budget to City Council, and hearings on the nearly $28 million spending plan are slated to begin Tuesday. The mayor said other department heads will be able to field questions about their portion of the budget during the hearings.
“I think the budget hearings will go on as planned, and I don’t anticipate any delay,” said council Vice President Sharon Lynch, who will preside over the budget hearings.
Flowers’ attorney, Matthew Devore, did not return a call seeking comment Thursday.
After the arraignment, Devore called the charges “baseless” and “conveniently timed,” apparently a reference to the investigation of electronic files related to the suspected affair between his client and the mayor. A complaint filed with the West Virginia Ethics Commission by the Wood County Republican Party chairman claims the relationship resulted in the misuse of municipal time, money and property.
West Virginia State Police opened an investigation last month into a series of flash drives that contain text, photo, audio and video files connected to the alleged relationship, the same set of files that were the basis of the ethics complaint. No criminal charges are anticipated based on either the origin of the files or the contents, although Capt. A.L. Cummings, the investigating trooper, said recently he still plans to meet with Wood County Prosecutor Jason Wharton on the matter.
That probe expanded to include a recording of unknown origin recently posted online that seems to be a conversation between Newell and Flowers about a trip to Joliet, Ill., during which a room service bill was charged to a city card and potential ethics violations related to it. Cummings and another trooper took files from the city building Wednesday afternoon apparently related to the investigation.
Both Newell and Flowers have denied any violations of law. Neither has commented directly on the affair allegations.
A number of people have called for the mayor to resign or be removed from office, and a petition to get a three-judge panel to decide whether Newell can remain in office is being circulated.
Council President J.R. Carpenter has said it is too early for council to take any action, as the investigation is ongoing.
He said Thursday that council will fulfill its duty and submit a budget to the state by March 28 as required by law, even if the mayor and finance director wind up unable to participate.
“If we have to finish this budget by ourselves, we will,” he said. “For every likelihood, we have a plan to ensure the financial flow of Parkersburg through this dark time.”
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