RPCV Ralph White, accused of insubordination for unlocking park gates to allow paddlers and dog walkers in after hours, will be suspended for two weeks without pay
City suspends park manager
He won't be paid for the two weeks; he had opened gates at night
BY REX SPRINGSTON
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Apr 1, 2005
RELATED
Gate debate is on the fence
City suspends park manager
James River Park manager Ralph White, accused of insubordination for unlocking park gates to allow paddlers and dog walkers in after hours, will be suspended for two weeks without pay.
White learned his punishment yesterday afternoon during a 90-minute session with superiors at City Hall.
The suspension begins Tuesday, White said. When he returns, he said, he will continue managing the sprawling park along the James.
"I still have a job, and it's a good job," said White, 60.
A former Peace Corps worker and Arizona park ranger, White is considering using the two weeks off to visit the Southwest desert, where heavy rains are producing a rare bounty of wildflowers.
"This is a unique opportunity to catch a once-in-a-lifetime blooming," White said. "It would behoove my own mental health to not be here by the park but to go somewhere."
City parks spokeswoman Christy Everson said the department had no comment on the personnel issue.
White, an award-winning conservationist, got in trouble for twice unlocking gates, against orders, at two sections of the park -- Pony Pasture Rapids and Huguenot Flatwater in South Richmond.
With the support of city parks officials, police locked the gates at night to ward off crime. But White, and several residents in that area, said crime was not a problem there. They said the lockouts barred law-abiding visitors, such as early-morning bird-watchers and evening dog-walkers and kayakers.
White said his main disappointment is that those gates remain locked at night. "It would be worth my taking the financial hit if that problem had been resolved."
He said he would continue -- within the system -- to lobby for change.
John Coe, former president of the Richmond Aububon Society, said White's punishment was tougher than he expected. Coe said he would like to see bird-watchers and other park lovers discuss the gate-locking policy with parks officials.
"I think it's important we not get crazy here but just talk."
James River Park is more than 500 acres of forested lowlands, meadows and islands. White, who earns $49,000, manages it with a staff of two.
White has been a colorful and popular figure in the park since 1980. One of the few city employees to put his home phone number on his office voice-mail message, White is widely seen as almost single-handedly restoring the park from a haven for bottle-breaking roughnecks to an urban oasis for people and wildlife.
For opening the gates, White was put on paid administrative leave March 16 and called into a 90-minute disciplinary hearing March 24. He returned to work Wednesday.
White's treatment unleashed a fury of letter and e-mail writing by supporters across the region. By one account, City Hall received more than 200 letters.
Supporters included the 2,400-family Southampton Citizens Association, whose members live near Pony Pasture Rapids and Huguenot Flatwater -- the area White sought to keep open.
Events leading to White's troubles began harmoniously a month ago when police started locking the gates at night at three South Richmond parking lots, serving Forest Hill Park and the Reedy Creek and 42nd Street entrances to James River Park.
White, 4th District Councilwoman Kathy C. Graziano and residents in that area agreed on those lockouts as a way to combat nighttime drug use, sex cruising and petty crime in the lots.
But in a surprise to White and others, police soon began locking the gates at night at Pony Pasture and Huguenot Flatwater, about 3 miles northwest of the three trouble spots.
Graziano said she had received few complaints about crime at Pony Pasture and none for Huguenot Flatwater.
Not only did White twice unlock the gates at Pony Pasture and Huguenot, he once locked the gates open with locks for which only he had keys. A city worker had to cut those locks off a couple of days later.
White has bumped heads with City Hall before. Years ago, according to White, he let meadow wildflowers grow over the objections of city officials who considered the plants to be violations of the city's weed ordinance. But this was the hottest water he had gotten into.
Among his honors, White has received the Governor's Environmental Excellence Award in 1993 -- from then Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, now Richmond's mayor.
Wilder at the time called White "an outstanding example of the impact one dedicated person can make."
Contact Rex Springston at (804) 649-6453 or rspringston@timesdispatch.com
