Loudoun County Board of Supervisors are asked to provide evidence of how their recent taxpayer-funded trips to sister cities benefited Loudoun County. In a July interview with News7, Board Chair Phyllis Randall claimed the most recent sister city trips to Ghana and Uruguay had enormous financial benefit for her county, but FOIA documents say otherwise.
Stephen Karbelk has called for Randall and the rest of the board of supervisors to produce evidence to support Randall’s claim that these sister city relationships have resulted in a $1.37 billion revenue windfall for Loudoun.
“Now we know why they haven’t defended their $1.37 billion claim,” stated Karbelk said in a press statement, because “It’s not true.”
The Loudoun board of supervisors voted to develop the sister city relationship with Tema, Ghana, Greater Noida in India, and Canelones in Uruguay at a February 21 board meeting.
Karbelk is the candidate for Chair At Large, Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, and challenging Randall in the November elections, told The Epoch Times that because of what’s happened with the sister city travel, if he is elected this year, he would create an office inspector general that would act as an internal check on how “budgeting is being allocated and how the money is being spent.”
Karbelk said instead of high-price overseas trips, the board of supervisors should focus on bringing the county’s billion-dollar debt down.
He thinks the sister-city relationships, particularly with Ghana, do not make good business sense because “It’s an economy that is doing extremely poorly,” and equally troubling is that they use child labor and violate LGBT rights, said Karbelk.
Loudoun County Chair Phyllis Randall and several Supervisors are currently caught in this controversy because they used county dollars for things like first-class airline tickets while traveling overseas to sign sister-city agreements. Documents obtained by News7 through FOIA requests showed close to $90,000 on luxury travel expenses to Ghana and Uruguay in early 2023.
Among the sister city documents were photos and receipts that showed a questionable use of the county’s money, including a visit by Randall and another supervisor Juli Briskman, to an equestrian center for cocktails in Uruguay.
7News first reported on the lavish trip in late July and asked Randall about her decision to fly first class and stay at a five-star hotel.
Part of Randall’s response about the first-class tickets for her and two other supervisors (Koran Saines and Sylvia Glass), was that they needed to rest to be ready to work as soon as they touched down.
During that July interview with News7’s Nick Minock, Randall touted a nearly $1.37 billion commercial investment and 2,500 job benefits for Loudoun from the sister city relationships.
During the June visit to Tema, the mayor of Tema, Ghana Yohane Amarh Ashitey, said his city is the “heartbeat of the nation in terms of mobilization, manufacturing and export-import businesses,” said Ashitey.
Randall defended her many trips to sign sister-city agreements, claiming benefits for Loudoun.
In a letter to the editor for Loudoun Times Mirror, supervisor Mike Turner called the sister-city issue a “faux controversy” and repeated Randall’s claim that the sister-city trips helped generate billions in revenue over the 20-year-life of the sister-city programs.
Included in the FOIA documents 7News acquired, was a list of companies in Loudoun County and which countries they represent. According to the list, the two sister cities from Ghana and Uruguay are not included in that list of businesses. However, Countries including France, South Africa, Ireland, Switzerland, Spain, and a few others are on the list of businesses but have no sister city relationship with Loudoun.
“Zero dollars and zero jobs. That’s what the Sister City program has generated for Loudoun County,” Karbelk said in a press statement. “There are seven international cities in six countries and one US-based county that Loudoun County has these ceremonial relationships with and based on the economic report provided by Loudoun County, none of those cities or counties have any companies that provide any tax revenue or jobs for Loudoun County.”
Supervisor Kristen Umstattd is trying to tighten travel restrictions, saying that the sister city trips are non-essential and too expensive.
“I would be happy to go back and look at that. I think that’s a fair question. And this was taxpayer money. I take taxpayer money very, very seriously,” Randall said during the July interview with News7 when asked about the cost of the sister city trips.
The Epoch Times reached out to Randall’s office for additional comment.
