After two years of slugging it out in court, the two sides have agreed to a settlement.
And when it comes to Richmond, it’s a classic case of being penny wise and pound foolish.
The case itself was straightforward. Clay was fired in January 2024, after lodging claims that the city was continually violating Virginia’s transparency laws. Two months later, she filed a lawsuit demanding $250,000.
Clay claimed she was told by former director of the city’s Office of Strategic Communications and Civic Engagement, Petula Burks, to refuse to provide information requested under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). She also said that Burks ordered her to tell people filing freedom of information requests that the city would need a seven-day extension—even when the requests could be fulfilled more quickly.
“I was silenced and then fired.”
Clay said the FOIA process in Richmond was “chaotic and mismanaged” and that she was “silenced” before being terminated.
“I sounded the alarm for several months, and no one listened, and I was silenced and then fired,” Clay said. “It’s just such a huge disappointment that the bureaucrats in City Hall do not want to follow the law. And if I don’t say something, who will?”
Instead of addressing those claims, the city escalated, foolishly choosing to play hardball with Clay. They even refused to allow Clay access, via FOIA, to legal invoices from the city’s attorneys, claiming this would give her an advantage in her lawsuit against the city.
Answering FOIA requests isn’t optional; it’s the law—yet the city again refused to obey it, just as Clay said they had been doing all along.
This kind of obstruction isn’t unique to Richmond. Bureaucrats too often run their departments like tiny fiefdoms—as if they are the kings and all others mere vassals who can be denied any right to information, even when the law says otherwise.
And the problems didn’t stop there. The city made another grievous mistake in its legal defense. When the court demanded Burks’ city-issued cell phone to examine text messages relevant to the case, the city’s attorneys produced a newer phone, claiming Burks had lost her original one.
That newer phone contained virtually no information related to the case, prompting the judge to accuse the city of a “reckless failure” to protect evidence. “The Court still has not received a complete, consistent and definitive story regarding how exactly the phone was lost, where it was lost, when precisely it was lost and where it is now,” the judge wrote.
Clay initially sought $250,000. In the end, the city agreed to more than double that sum: a $549,000 settlement. Add nearly $700,000 in legal fees, and Richmond taxpayers are left footing a bill nearly $1 million more than Clay’s initial demand.
“While the city has consistently maintained that the facts of this case did not meet the legal requirements necessary to qualify the plaintiff as a whistleblower under Virginia law, continued litigation is not in the best financial interest of the city or its residents,” Chief Administrative Officer Odie Donald II said in a statement. “As such, we have agreed to resolve the case through a negotiated settlement.”
Donald added that the settlement is “in no way an admission of wrongdoing.”
Sure. No “wrongdoing” occurred—unless of course, you count the “wrongdoing” of the city refusing to obey freedom of information law.
Clay’s attorney, Sarah Robb, would only say, “This matter has been amicably resolved.”
Amicably? For whom? The officials who signed off on this—or the taxpayers forced to pay for it?
“I just don’t want the city to look stupid,” Clay was told by Burks. Clay said she thought at the time, “Well, the city needs to stop doing stupid things.”
Speaking of stupid, how stupid is it to end up paying more than a million dollars to avoid paying a fifth of that?
“You pay the salaries of everyone in City Hall, from the janitor on up to the mayor. You pay their salaries and they should report to you,” Clay said. “I hope they will realize that you can fight City Hall, that you can stand up for your rights, that you must stand up for your rights.”
This is exactly why FOIA laws matter—and why they are so vital in protecting our democracy. Without information on what our government officials are up to, how can we possibly know how to vote? How can we be the watchdogs democracy demands of us?
Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard wrote, “Democracy depends exclusively on the informedness of the individual citizen.”
This case should serve as a clear warning to government administrators, politicians and bureaucrats: Get off your self-protective high horses, set your egos and arrogance aside, and do your jobs and obey FOIA law.
You might save yourselves time, trouble—and a whole lot of money.
