Mayor criticizes security talks for rally

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA. » Charlottesville officials met privately Thursday to discuss “personnel matters” in the wake of a deadly white nationalist rally, the city’s mayor said in a statement in which he also asserted he’d been largely shut out of security preparations for the event.

In a lengthy statement on Facebook posted ahead of the meeting, Mayor Mike Signer wrote that under Charlottesville’s form of government, the city manager “has total operational authority” over events like the Aug. 12 rally.

Signer, who has a spot on the five-person City Council, said the group was not given the security plan for the rally. He also wrote that when he asked during a briefing days before the event what he could do to be helpful, Police Chief Al Thomas responded, “Stay out of my way.”

The statement comes as city leaders face scrutiny over their response to the event, believed to be the largest gathering of white nationalists in at least a decade. Crowds fought violently in the streets, one woman was killed when a car plowed into a group of counter-protesters, and two state troopers died when their helicopter crashed.

Charlottesville residents, rally organizers and law enforcement experts are among those who have criticized the city’s handling of the lead-up to the rally and the chaos that ensued. Anger boiled over at a city council meeting this week.

The council met behind closed doors Thursday. Signer and Vice Mayor Wes Bellamy told reporters as they exited that Thomas and City Manager Maurice Jones still were employed.

The council has called for an independent review. In related matters: • In York, South Carolina, a judge dismissed a lawsuit challenging the de- cision to remove a Confederate flag from a South Carolina courtroom.

• Police in are investigating vandalism of a monument to Confederate soldiers in a northern Virginia cemetery in Fairfax, Virginia. City officials said the base of a monument in the city- owned cemetery was splashed with white paint. The paint was removed.

• A century- old Confederate monument might be moved from a city hall in McComb, Mississippi. Black members of the McComb city board say the monument should be moved elsewhere. The mayor, who is white, said he agrees.