Author Archives: webadmin

Commonwealth’s Attorney Election Resources

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For online information regarding the Commonwealth’s Attorney Special Election on Tuesday, February 10, including what the candidates say on their own behalf, visit the link below:

Voter Information, including Key Dates

Note: the in-person absentee voting deadline is 5 PM, Saturday, February 7.

Candidate Web / Social Media Sites (alphabetical order)

Candidate Forum / Interview Videos

(Note:  Despite repeated requests for an interview, Candidate Stephanie Morales has not set an appointment with PortsmouthCityWatch.org. We remain open to the possibility should she choose to exercise that option.)

Scheduled Candidate Forum

  • Wise Beach Civic League, 7 PM, Monday, February 9, at Centenary Methodist Church on Cedar Lane at the intersection with Hatton Point Road.

Mainstream Media Coverage

Survey Time in the 80th HOD District

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If you are a resident of the 80th House of Delegates District, Delegate Matthew James is interested in your perspectives on issues that will come before the General Assembly this session. In case you didn’t receive or misplaced your paper survey, you can register your concerns at http://survey.house.virginia.gov/Survey.aspx?s=4441ff08782146e181b4e303591c4278. At the end of the online form is a comment box you can use to pass along your recommendations on topics not covered elsewhere. A note of caution: don’t press the “enter” key until you are done. Otherwise, you will have to start over. Take it from the “voice of experience”!

Building a Better Commonwealth’s Attorney

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The City of Portsmouth has a constitutional officer vacancy to fill in a special election set to occur on Tuesday, February 10, 2015. The former occupant of the position, the Honorable Earle Mobley, moved into a judgeship for the Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court on December 1 of last year. (See the Mobley profile from Pilotonline for more information.) With three years left on his term of office, the judges of the Portsmouth Circuit Court issued a Writ of Election late last month to enable the citizenry to select a replacement. Continue reading →

An Even Less Funny Forum

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I could see this coming, but I had hoped it wouldn’t. Prepared to make yet another video recording of candidate speeches on the school board and city council campaign trails, PortsmouthCityWatch.org found a virtual “STOP” sign barring the door yesterday morning. The president of the Portsmouth Taxpayer Alliance asked me not to shoot a video of the event. I reminded her that she had advertised it as being open to the public (see the eMail announcement here). She stood her ground without providing either a reason for the request or the name of a requester. I argued that the nature of this event made it a matter of public interest, but she would not relent. That led to choice of either being an obnoxious guest or complying under protest. (The commitment of PortsmouthCityWatch.org to fair play and openness precluded my exercising the Moody Option – i. e., making a surreptitious recording as he did of the September 22 closed council meeting.) My mom would be happy to know that her many hours devoted to instruction in good manners did not go to waste, at least not completely. I decided I would head home. Continue reading →

Consultants Report Survey Results

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At the Portsmouth School Board work session on Thursday, October 9, 2014, the executive search consultants assisting in recruiting a new superintendent delivered a progress report. Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates (HYA) walked the board members through a PowerPoint Presentation (a copy of which is available here as a PDF download) identifying the stakeholder subgroups participating in interviews, focus groups, or online survey; strengths of the school system; challenges, concerns, and issues facing the schools; and desired characteristics of a new superintendent. A three-page matrix organizes the characteristic list by participant ranking across six subgroups: administrators, local businesses, community members, parents, students, and teachers/support staff. The highest ranked attribute was “listen to and effectively represent the interests and concerns of students, staff, parents, and community members”. (To see the meeting and hear the explanations from the HYA presenters, tune to PSET — Cox Channel 47 / FIOS 38 and 40 — or on demand from the PPS video stream.)

A Not-so-Funny Thing at the Forum

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As regular PortsmouthCityWatch.org followers are aware, PCW has been diligently following city council and school board candidates from one public forum to another with a video camera. Thanks to YouTube, we have been providing information from such gatherings to the public in C-SPAN style — i. e., just as it happened. At the most recent forum, though, I received an unexpected request. Shortly, before the meeting began, the moderator asked me, on behalf of an unnamed individual or individuals, not to record it. I inquired as to who the person submitting the request might be, but the moderator declined to provide a name. As the forum was a public proceeding, I rejected his request. Continue reading →

The Moody File: Money Matters

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In the best of all possible worlds, this year’s city council election would have been a functional replay of 2004. A decade ago, popular Council Member Bernard Griffin chose not to seek reelection, leaving fellow incumbents Thomas Benn and Cameron Pitts with no African-American teammate to help them win that important constituency. Portsmouth began the new fiscal year with three fresh faces on council. This year, the retirement of Council Member Marlene Randall, the league leader in 2006 and the second-place finisher for council in 2010, could have been the catalyst for a wholesale housecleaning. The current field of challengers, however, is nowhere nearly strong or wide as it was ten years ago. Our best hope for improvement on city council, then, is replacing one of the two remaining incumbents seeking reelection.

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Portsmouth 2014 Candidate Forums

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The mission of PortsmouthCityWatch.org is to inform our citizens about local government actions and actors that may affect our pocketbooks and quality of life. In that vein, we have made an effort to attend and record public forums to which school board and city council candidates have received invitations. As of this moment, we have the following recordings available:

Portsmouth Taxpayer Alliance School Board Candidate Forum of August 9, 2014

Martin Luther King, Jr., Leadership Steering Committee City Council Candidate Forum of August 18, 2014

Portsmouth Taxpayer Alliance City Council Candidate Forum of September 13, 2014

Martin Luther King, Jr., Leadership Steering Committee City Council Candidate Forum of September 30, 2014 and Forum conclusion (This video has a couple of breaks toward the end due to battery depletion and a two-hour limit on YouTube uploads.)

Port Norfolk Civic League City Council Candidate Forum of October 2, 2014

Waterview Civic League Joint City Council and School Board Forum of October 6, 2014

Portsmouth Chamber of Commerce / Lefcoe Alumni City Council Forum of October 15, 2014

Pickpocket Sighting at City Hall

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Although the perpetrator in question is a familiar personage in our city, calling 1-800-Lock-U-Up, the Portsmouth Crime Line number, will not get him off the streets. What he is doing is not a violation of the criminal code. No, it is a time-honored political tradition: robbing Peter to pay Paul. Vice Mayor Paige Cherry’s job description allows him to lighten all of our wallets as long as he does so by city ordinance. Assuming at least three of his council colleagues vote with him this Tuesday evening, that ordinance will result in the imposition of higher vehicle registration fees in our city starting July 1, 2014. Continue reading →

Tunnel Numbers Can’t Be Ignored — The Full Version

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The Virginian-Pilot ran a greatly condensed version of the following “Letter to the Editor” in its Wednesday, March 5, 2014, edition. With permission of the author, the original is posted here.

First some background: I am a 55-year native of the area and have driven just about every road there is, and have commuted in many directions over the years, and have a good idea of where the majority of drivers are going and when. In addition, I have been been reporting news in various forms since 1973, and have provided weekday traffic reports since 2007. For the past three years I have been reporting traffic conditions between 5:00 AM and 3:00 pm weekdays for WHKT and WWIP. Therefor, I believe I am equipped with the knowledge and insight to provide some clarification on the traffic pattern change since the implementation of tolls at the Downtown and Midtown tunnels a month ago.

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