De’Andre Barnes
♫Smooth operator, He's a smooth operator ♪
Brother too busy trying to chase down his next conquest. Work? Nobody got time for that !
Posted on 10/15/2019 3:41:59 PM PDT by csvset
A member of the Portsmouth school board repeatedly asked the court earlier this year to reduce his child support obligations, according to court documents.
Part of De’Andre Barnes’ reasoning: His position on the board prevents him from landing some good-paying jobs.
“I never said I can’t get a job,” Barnes, 33, explained Friday in Portsmouth Juvenile Domestic Relations Court. “I said it precludes me from certain opportunities.”
When asked outside the courtroom how long he’d been unemployed, Barnes said he “wasn’t 100 percent sure.” During a subsequent interview Monday, he said he left the For Our Future Political Action Committee in November 2018 — the same month he was elected.
Previously, Barnes worked as a legislative assistant for U.S. Congressman Bobby Scott and as a youth service coordinator with Portsmouth Redevelopment and Housing Authority, according to court documents and Barnes’ profile on the school system’s website.
The profile says he “runs a successful nonprofit organization” called Portsmouth City Sports Club, Incorporated. In an interview Monday, he said his group — also known as Portsmouth City Cowboys Sports Club — was different from Portsmouth Sports Club Inc., which provides support for the Portsmouth Sports Foundation and the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame, Inc.
Barnes’ group reported no assets in its latest filing with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, according to Guidestar.
“It’s not anything I get paid for,” Barnes said.
In general, Barnes told The Pilot he has had difficulty finding an employer willing to work around his school board obligations.
“Because of the time I have to dedicate to being on the school board. They understand I need certain times off," said Barnes, who says he graduated from Virginia State University with a bachelors in Political Science and from Norfolk State University with a masters in Urban Affairs.
He added that he also is concerned about conflict of interests that could arise between his position on the school board and some potential jobs.
Barnes stressed he is trying to find work, adding that he recently had an interview for an unspecified job and was waiting to hear back.
“The reason I’m not working is no one is hiring me,” he said.
The Portsmouth school board generally meets twice a month, with meetings and work sessions occurring every other Thursday, usually in the evening. Some board members are retirees, but others work for area churches, schools and the Portsmouth Commonwealth’s Attorney Office, among other things.
“We have two meetings a month,” said School Board Chairman Claude Parent, a former school administrator who now works at a Norfolk church.
Parent said he sometimes takes leave to visit schools and sometimes school board members will travel for conventions.
“I don’t know his situation,” he said. "That’s all I can tell you.”
Barnes portrayed himself as more involved in Portsmouth schools than some of his colleagues on the board. He noted that he routinely visits schools and meets with parents and children.
“There’s a reason I am invited to speak at schools and other places and others are not,” Barnes said. “You must be knowledgeable of what is happening if you are to govern effectively.”
Records relating to child support are generally sealed in Virginia, but The Pilot successfully petitioned the court last week for access to Barnes’ files. State law allows people with “legitimate interest in such case files” to inspect them with a court order.
Circuit Judge Kenneth Melvin granted access Thursday to the limited proceedings that occurred in his court. Over the objections of Barnes. Juvenile and Domestic Relations Judge Diane Griffin followed suit on Friday.
The records revealed Barnes was initially ordered by the court in 2005 to pay $236.07 a month in support for a child born earlier that year. He was subsequently ordered in April to pay $193.25 in support of another child, born in 2011, to another woman.
Over the years, Barnes has fallen thousands of dollars behind on his obligations in the first case, leading to the issuance of multiple show cause orders. In 2007, a judge sentenced him to six months in jail for failure to pay but suspended it on the grounds he make good on the money he owed.
In April, Barnes asked Griffin to reduce his child support payments in the first case, which involves his oldest child. He told the court his income was “significantly low” and that he could not meet his current obligations. He noted that he had more children than when the initial order was signed, stating that he now had six in all. Barnes told The Pilot on Tuesday he only had five children and that the court filing, in which he spelled out the word “six,” “must’ve been an error.”
Griffin ultimately cut Barnes’ obligation from $236.07 a month to $169.15 a month. While Barnes told the court his only income was the $5,500 he makes from being a school board member, the judge ruled he should at least be able to land a 35-hour a week job paying minimum wage.
When contacted by The Pilot, the mother of Barnes’ oldest child said she was “floored” by Barnes’ reasoning for needing to pay less in child support.
The mother, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of concern for her daughter’s privacy, called Barnes “a very smart guy.”
“His responsibility as a man and as a parent should not be minimized because he is on school board,” she said. “I think he should be held to a higher standard, not lower.”
Similarly, Barnes appealed an order in the second case to Circuit Court in an attempt to reduce his payments.
Following the presentation of evidence, however, Barnes withdrew the appeal and agreed to pay the mother’s lawyer $400 in attorney fees. In the process, he also made good on $566.25 he owed in back child support.
Barnes said he is currently up to date on his child support.
Staff writers Margaret Matray and Sara Gregory contributed to this report.
♫Smooth operator, He's a smooth operator ♪
Brother too busy trying to chase down his next conquest. Work? Nobody got time for that !
I doe wanna woik. Jes wanna bang onna drum all day...
Member of the school board.
Soooooo, he’s a Democrat, right?
He’s dressed like an undertaker.
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