Paroled Felon Helped Police, Fire Unions Collect Signatures

On April 27, Cheryl Simmons walked out of the Arlington County Detention Facility, having served 23 days in jail for a probation violation. About a month later, while still on parole, she became one of the top signature collectors for the Committee for a Better Arlington, the group formed by the police and fire unions to get a proposed change to Arlington’s form of government on the November ballot.

Simmons, who was hired by a contractor that specializes in collecting petition signatures, should have been well-known to local law enforcement, had they seen her collecting signatures on their behalf.

In 2006, Simmons was arrested for shoplifting and giving her family unauthorized discounts at the Arlington Hecht’s department store, where she worked, according to Arlington Police spokesperson Crystal Nosal. Court records show she plead guilty to felony embezzlement — a more serious charge since it was her third offense — and was sentenced to three years probation.

Late last year she was in trouble again, for passing a bad check at a check cashing store on Columbia Pike, police said. She served jail time between January and February for the charge, and in April for the probation violation, according to the Arlington County Sheriff’s Office.

Despite the rap sheet, Simmons was able to get hired by the contractor a month after her release, and apparently found the motivation to collect the third-highest number of signatures for the petition effort, with 2,916.

“That would be a shock to me,” said police union president Ken Dennis, upon learning of Simmons’ criminal background last night. “We just hired a company that had good references… I’m disappointed that they had this person on their staff.”

Dennis said he had never met Simmons nor heard her name mentioned.

Late Wednesday, after a “concerned citizen” brought the felony charge to the attention of election officials, Arlington County Registrar Linda Lindberg disqualified the 2,214 otherwise valid signatures submitted by Simmons, according to a person familiar with the situation. Only registered Arlington voters (correction: only individuals eligible to register to vote) are permitted to collect signatures for initiatives in the county, and as a felon Simmons would have been ineligible to vote.

Earlier this week, the anti-petition Coalition for Arlington Good Government alleged that Simmons may not have collected the now-disqualified signatures herself. Instead, CAGG said, the Arlington resident and another top signature collector, Natasha Robinson, may have signed off on petition sheets collected by out-of-town signature collectors brought in by the contractor. So far, there has only been circumstantial evidence to support the claim.

Little is known about Robinson, who collected 3,517 signatures for the petition. The address she listed on petition forms traces back to Samaritan Ministry, a non-profit on Columbia Pike “dedicated to helping people who are homeless or in need of help themselves.”

With the 2,214 signatures disqualified, the number of signatures validated by county election personnel now stands at 10,818, well short of the 14,350 mark required to get the change-of-government proposal on the November ballot.

“I think this was a great learning experience for the next time,” Dennis said of the petition process. “We saw this as an opportunity to let citizens have a choice in how their government is run. If we or someone else were to do this again, we certainly have a good idea of what it would take to suceed.

“If anything, maybe people will be a little more aware of how things happen around Arlington,” Dennis said. “Even in our failure, we succeeded.”