Mark Hand
Lynchburg City Council has taken steps in recent weeks to move away from the chaos of the previous two years when members were regularly at odds with each other.
While Republicans expanded their majority on council after last November’s election, the turmoil between the GOP’s two factions extended into the first two months of 2025.
In March, at the request of Ward I Councilwoman Jacqueline Timmer, council backed away from additional confrontations, perhaps signaling a rapprochement between the two factions.
Timmer successfully introduced a motion to cancel a March 11 closed session where the conduct of two councilmembers was slated to be discussed.
Council also agreed, based on a motion offered by Timmer, to remove an item from a closed session on March 25 that called for an evaluation of the job performance of City Attorney Matthew Freedman.
During her campaign for the Ward I seat and since getting sworn into office in January, Timmer has stated on multiple occasions her opposition to councilmembers policing each other. Her election victory last fall flipped the Ward I seat, giving Republicans a 6-1 majority.
“I just don’t feel that it’s my role to police the other behaviors of individuals on council,” Timmer said at council’s work session meeting on March 11. At the conclusion of the work session, members were scheduled to go into closed session to discuss the conduct of Ward IV Councilman Chris Faraldi and At-large Councilman Martin Misjuns, both Republicans.
Timmer said she hasn’t seen “a lot of value come to the table” from “policing behavior.”
Jacqueline Timmer is shown during a work session at City Hall on Jan. 27. Timmer successfully introduced a motion to cancel a March 11 closed session where the conduct of two councilmembers was slated to be discussed.
Prior to the March 11 meeting, Misjuns had submitted a written request to city staff asking for Faraldi’s conduct at a Feb. 25 council meeting to be added to the next council meeting’s closed session.
During the public comment period of the Feb. 25 meeting, a local resident described Lynchburg’s LGBTQ community (https://newsadvance.com/news/local/article_c6fd3c6c-f466-11ef-8c57-8bc3f2020af4.html) as an “abomination before God.” As the citizen continued his remarks on another topic, someone in the audience began to cough loudly in protest of the citizen’s comments about the LGBTQ community.
After the resident finished his comments, Faraldi left his seat on the dais and walked around the perimeter of Council Chamber to the back of the room. He then walked into the audience where he gave the person who protested the citizen’s comments a hug in support.
On his way back to the dais, Faraldi walked by the citizen and told him, “That was uncalled for,” in response to his comments about the LGBTQ community.
In his request for a closed session, Misjuns said Faraldi approached the citizen in an “intimidating manner.”
“This is not an isolated event. Councilmember Faraldi has repeatedly engaged in provocative and intimidating behavior during meetings,” Misjuns wrote in the March 2 request to discuss Faraldi’s behavior, obtained by The News & Advance in a Freedom of Information Act request.
Misjuns said Faraldi’s pattern of behavior “raises significant ethical and legal concerns.”
On March 3, At-large Councilwoman Stephanie Reed sent a request to city staff and Mayor Larry Taylor for Misjuns’ behavior to be discussed in a closed session on March 11.
“His intimidating and obsessive behaviors have reached a level that I don’t feel comfortable or even safe, for that matter, being around him,” Reed wrote in the email, obtained in a FOIA request.
Reed, who served as mayor in 2023 and 2024, accused Misjuns of singling her out constantly.
“Look at how many FOIA requests I have had from him. Look at how many emails are focused on me and no one else,” she said.
Reed also wrote that Misjuns recently threatened the Save Our Schools parents group with litigation, “yet he is accusing Councilman Faraldi of intimidating a citizen by saying something was ‘uncalled for.’”
At the council work session meeting on March 11, Timmer introduced her motion not to go into closed session to discuss the behavior of Faraldi and Misjuns. The motion was seconded by Vice Mayor and Ward III Councilman Curt Diemer.
Reed, who opposed the motion not to go into closed session, said at the meeting that council previously tried to address the behavior of members in a public manner. Last year, council voted at an open meeting to censure (https://newsadvance.com/news/lynchburg-city-council-votes-4-3-to-censure-helgeson-misjuns/article_52ce33c0-59b9-11ef-8ed4-b382f5b72df5.html) Misjuns and former Ward III Councilman Jeff Helgeson.
“But certain people don’t like that,” she said.
As a result, Reed said she requested Misjuns’ behavior be discussed in a closed session. She emphasized that either way, it needs to be discussed “because people aren’t behaving.”
“Yes, it does,” Taylor responded.
At this point in the discussion on her motion, Timmer said she believes matters regarding complaints about other councilmembers should be handled in ways other than closed sessions.
“If there are legal matters that require council’s attention, let those findings be brought to closed session,” Timmer said in a statement to The News & Advance.
“But we do not need to hold a session to review claims without evidence,” she said. “Doing so allows members to weaponize closed session by bringing an accusation in public but not being held publicly accountable to support that claim.”
At the March 11 work session meeting, Timmer also said she would have brought forward the motion not to go into closed session even if it was only to discuss Faraldi’s behavior. The fact that Misjuns’ behavior was added to the closed session had no bearing on her decision, she said.
“My motion was and would have been the same,” Timmer said.
In her statement, Timmer contended council “should not utilize the false virtue of closed session as a political tool, volleying accusations and baseless claims into the air without evidentiary support.”
Ward II Councilman Sterling Wilder, the only Democrat on council, voted to support Timmer’s motion not to go into closed session.
“Whatever we do, it’s not going to help,” Wilder said. “It’s just so uncomfortable, every meeting you come to.”
The past “two years of chaos” on council have been “horrible,” he said.
The decision at the March 25 work session meeting to remove a discussion of Freedman’s performance from the closed session was less contentious. In a unanimous vote, council agreed to remove the item.