An excerpt from Richmond Magazine article (click here for full article):

Richmond City Council’s first meeting of the new year typically is one filled with little more than a vote to select its president and vice president for the next two years. Instead, tonight’s meeting was a political faceoff between Council President Kathy Graziano and City Councilman Marty Jewell, who promised on Jan. 2 to ask for an investigation into e-mails that outlined alleged inappropriate behavior by Graziano’s Council liaison and close political advisor, David Hathcock, at the meeting. He accused Graziano of mishandling the situation.

Jewell followed through on his promise, making a motion to defer voting on a new president until an investigation could be conducted by the city’s office of the inspector general, referring to an alleged incident in which Councilman Bruce Tyler’s liaison, Jennifer Walle, was allegedly inappropriately touched on April 21 by Hathcock. The alleged incident was detailed and acknowledged in an e-mail exchange between Walle and Hathcock on May 6.

“When I asked Graziano, she said that issue was done with — over,” Jewell said, referencing conversations that he had with her in December.

Despite Jewell’s motion calling for an investigation, which failed, and despite his nomination of Tyler for the presidency, Graziano carried the vote five to three (Trammell, Tyler and Jewell voted against her, and Councilman Doug Conner was absent).

But Jewell, Trammell and Tyler each said that the matter of Hathcock’s alleged behavior was far from over. They all said that the unofficial inquiry that was conducted, overseen by Graziano herself, was flawed.