Former supervisor Wilford Kale, who received a nomination to the Williamsburg Regional Library Board of Trustees last week, is supporting a new political action committee that favors James City County supervisor candidates Jim Icenhour and Bob Mandala in their 2013 campaigns.
A question of whether Kale had been participating in campaign efforts for the two candidates, both Democrats, came before the Board of Supervisors after Kale, a published author, had been nominated to the library board at the Oct. 8 supervisors meeting.
In response to Supervisor Andy Bradshaw’s nomination of Kale, Supervisor Jim Kennedy cited Kale’s political ties in the upcoming election and an incident involving Kale arguing with deputies at the Williamsburg-James City County Courthouse in January.
Kennedy said he was both concerned about all four library board applicants’ government affiliations — Kale served on the Planning Commission and was an appointed member of the Board of Supervisors in 2012 — and Kale’s demeanor, citing the courthouse incident and an overall impression of Kale during his time as a supervisor.
In an interview on Oct. 9, Kale told WYDaily he had been contacted by the PAC, called James City Citizens for Good Government, and understood it to be a nonpartisan PAC that worked to support various principles of good government rather than working for or against specific candidates. At the time of the interview, he said he had been asked to contribute and probably would, but had not yet decided.
According to records from the State Board of Elections, paperwork for the PAC was electronically submitted Oct. 8. The documents show Ben Kellam, a James City County accountant, filled out the paperwork, though Kale’s email address is also listed.
To be made official, the PAC needed signed paperwork received by fax or mail, or a scanned copy sent via email. SBE received that paperwork Monday. On that paperwork, Kellam is again listed and Kale’s email address is again included. Kellam is also listed as the only officer as treasurer of the PAC.
Kale said in an interview Tuesday he allowed Kellam to list his email address because Kellam is having computer problems and could not receive emails.
“I wanted to help him out any way I could,” Kale said.
Kale also said he has decided to support the PAC’s effort, but said he is not an officer.
According to the paperwork submitted to SBE via fax, the purpose of the James City Citizens for Good Government PAC is “to support local political candidates,” and information submitted electronically Oct. 8 indicates the PAC supports Democratic Board of Supervisor candidates Jim Icenhour, an incumbent currently representing the Jamestown district, and Bob Mandala, who is seeking election to represent the Powhatan district.
Kale confirmed the PAC is supporting Icenhour and Mandala, but is concerned with getting politics out of local government.
“We would much prefer that people ran as independents and did not have party allegiances. National party efforts are nine times out of 10 inappropriate at this level. What a national party believes, quite honestly, in my view, does not play a very big role. It plays virtually no role in local government, and it just doesn’t factor,” Kale said. “… [The City of] Williamsburg has a wonderful situation where council members run as independents and local politics play a role, but not national politics or party politics.”
Kellam did not return requests for comment.
Williamsburg Regional Library Board of Trustees Chairwoman Jean Van Tol said a person’s affiliation with a PAC or contribution to a political candidate while serving on the board is not opposed in the board’s by-laws. The by-laws also don’t prevent board members with political affiliations from serving.
In Virginia, any person or group anticipating receiving or spending contributions for a non-federal election in excess of $200 is required to register as a political committee with SBE. Groups — stock or non-stock corporations, cooperatives or other groups or labor or membership organizations — are considered to be political action committees if they solicit contributions with the intention of using 75 percent or more to influence the outcome of a non-federal election.
PACs are required to submit quarterly reports to SBE detailing financial receipts and payments, either in cash or in-kind. Reports detailing activity between July 1 and Sept. 30 this year were due to SBE by 5 p.m. Tuesday.
The second issue brought forward at the Oct. 8 board meeting was an alleged incident at the Williamsburg-James City County Courthouse in January.
In an interview Oct. 9, Williamsburg-James City County Chief Deputy Dave Hardin, who was not present at the courthouse in January when Kale visited for an appointment, told WYDaily he had been alerted of the incident earlier this year and reviewed the surveillance video.
“Mr. Kale came into the courthouse and when he came to the front door he got upset about being screened coming in because our guys didn’t know he had a meeting with the judge,” Hardin said in the interview. “He got into a little verbal incident with our people at the front door, and that’s kind of where it was left.”
Hardin said a police officer was in the courthouse at the time and indicated he would have stepped in if Kale didn’t calm down, but the incident settled and Kale kept his appointment with the judge.
Kale did not speak to the details of the incident in an interview last week, but called Hardin’s account fair.
In response to questions about the incident, the sheriff’s office released an incident report written late last week in response to the volume of requests for information on the incident, which occurred in January. Hardin confirmed Tuesday the report was not written at the time of the incident in January.
Deputy Tracey Leftwich wrote the report, citing Deputy Art Bornschein as being present at the time of the incident. The report is not dated, and lists the incident as occurring “sometime in Jan of 2013.”
The report states Leftwich and Bornschein “encountered a man” who said he had an appointment to see Judge Michael McGinty; the deputies said they would call McGinty to let him know his visitor had arrived.
“This man immediately became irate, He started yelling that he had just spoke to the Judge and that we didn’t need to call him, and that the Judge had told him we would screw with him when he came to the security and that we were going out of our way to just screw with him and he was going to let the Judge know what we were doing to him and he would not stand for this,” the report reads.
Leftwich continued to write the deputies attempted to calm the man down and a Williamsburg Police Officer said “he was tempted to arrest him for Disorderly conduct if we were not able to get him under control.”
The deputies did confirm the appointment, and the man was admitted to the courthouse “without further incident,” the report reads.
The man is not identified until the end of the report, when Leftwich wrote she spoke with Williamsburg-James City Sheriff Robert Deeds, who told her the man was Wilford Kale.
“It was so we could give the right information instead of guessing what we heard,” Hardin said when asked why the report was written. “Typically, if something is important enough to warrant a report, then you do it right then and there. I mean, this to us wasn’t something that we thought needed to have a report. Because you know, people come in and are irritated all the time, just [at] the situation of having to come to court.”
Hardin said he and Deeds decided to have the report written.
James City County Attorney Leo Rogers is also following up on the report; he said in an interview Tuesday that Leftwich is out sick so he wasn’t able to speak with her regarding the report. He anticipates she will sign and date it upon her return. He did not know any additional details and said he was unaware of the sheriff’s office’s practices regarding incident reports.
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