Category Archives: Accountable Government

Open Letter on Records Handling and Retention — Updated

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City Manager Patton, Mayor Wright, and Members of City Council:

If substantiated, the article in today’s edition of the Virginian-Pilot, “Portsmouth Has Been Shredding without Following State Law“, should be a matter of gravest concern to all of you, as well as to our citizenry. I, therefore, call upon you, Dr. Patton, to impose an immediate moratorium on document destruction until you can unequivocally deny the assertions made in the referenced article. Mr. Mayor and Members of Council, I ask you at your next meeting to establish a task force to review current policies on document handling and retention within the city for compliance with state code, particularly requirements of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, and for adherence to best practices for business continuation. I suggest that City Clerk Debra White be appointed as chair of the task force and that city staff and citizens with experience and expertise in this area be solicited as participants. With thirty years of professional background in banking and information technology, as well as academic training in the field of history, I also would be willing to serve as a citizen participant.

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Council Candidate 2016: Donna Biggs Sayegh (updated)

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[Ms. Donna Biggs Sayegh is one of the certified candidates for Portsmouth City Council. She provided the following platform to help acquaint the Portsmouth electorate with her program as an elected official.]

Platform

I promise if I am elected to City Council, I will make an effort to:

  •  see that all public safety positions are filled in a timely fashion. This includes all public safety offices: sheriff, police, fire, and medics.
  • establish a finance commission; and
  • provide proper funding for the public safety retirement plans.

Rationale:  We the people must support our public safety personnel by providing them with a living wage and help them maintain a standard of living when they retire.

Publisher’s Note: The Retirement Conundrum

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An article in the Virginian-Pilot (see Rowe May Have Improperly Received Retirement Benefits) explaining a controversy involving former City Manager John Rowe has raised questions for me about the salary and benefit costs for the current manager, as well. In the case of Mr. Rowe, when he was most recently employed by the city, he appears simultaneously to have collected Virginia Retirement System benefits, something not permitted under IRS regulations. A decision by VRS officials on what needs to happen to square the ledger is pending.

To the best of my knowledge, City Manager Patton is not drawing VRS benefits at this time. Based on the Virginian-Pilot story on Dr. Patton’s compensation package from last fall (see New Portsmouth Officials Receiving More Benefits), though, I am concerned about whether or not the manager and the city are currently paying into the Virginia Retirement System on her behalf. Her compensation package includes “a base salary of $150,000, a city-provided vehicle or $9,600 annual car allowance, up to $3,600 in general expenses and a $50,000 annual lump payment into a defined contribution retirement plan.” The Rowe article, though, refers to the Portsmouth city manager position as a “full-time VRS-covered position” — a crucial factor in the determination of whether Mr. Rowe’s dual payments during his tenure in the position were permissible. If the VRS determines that Portsmouth is liable for unpaid contributions on Mr. Rowe’s behalf, would the city not also have to make payments on Dr. Patton’s, the defined contribution plan notwithstanding? Perhaps it is already making those payments, in which case the citizens should be apprised of how much that adds to the manager’s compensation package. Otherwise, someone needs to take ownership of having missed the boat for a second time.

Council Candidate 2016: Cathy Revell

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[Ms. Cathy Revell is one of the announced candidates for Portsmouth City Council. She provided the following biographical information to help acquaint the Portsmouth electorate with what she has to offer.]

I was born in Portsmouth and have lived here most of my life. I am married to David Ratcliff, a local photographer, artist and inventor. We have two grown children, who live locally.

Professional Experience

My professional health care experience includes positions at Portsmouth Psychiatric Hospital, Portsmouth General Hospital, Bon Secours Maryview, and Portsmouth Community Health Center, now Hampton Roads Community Health Center. At Chesapeake Care, Inc., a charitable medical and dental clinic serving low-income, uninsured residents of Chesapeake and Hampton Roads, I was the executive director. I am a partner of the Little Shoppes on High, LLC and president of The Revell Group, providing grant writing and consulting services to non-profit organizations throughout Virginia. Continue reading →

“There You Go Again”

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The new, responsive Mayor Wright, unveiled during the February 9, 2016, city council meeting — check the video of him making a show of taking notes during some citizen addresses to council — recently threw out this question to his social media following:
“‘Your Thoughts’
 “Norfolk and Virginia Beach don’t air the ‘public comment’ portion of their council meeting, meaning the citizen’s concerns are not shown to the public. Should Portsmouth do the same? Does being on TV make matters better, or worse? If you have a concern for council to address, should that be televised? Are we our own worse enemy? Please be honest!
“-Mayor Wright-“

His post then linked to an article in The Virginian-Pilot — “In videos, some cities take the ‘public’ out of public meetings“.

That he is posing these question is some, albeit slight, consolation. Citizens with memories longer than the six months many public officials ascribe to us will have a sense of “déjà vu all over again”, though. For the sake of those who weren’t paying attention last time around, we had this “conversation” with Portsmouth elected officials in 2013. Just before the new year, a council reshaped by the November 2012 election decided that the cameras did not need to roll during the non-agenda speakers portion of the meeting. Preempting any opportunity for  the public to weigh in on dispensing with the longstanding practice, a council consensus developed, out of public sight or hearing, to pull the plug. Signs went up on the council chamber doors before the first meeting in January, and it was the proverbial “done deal”. Except for one sticky detail: the citizens protested — in letters to the newspaper; in eMail messages and telephone calls to “the Honorables” (a courtesy term); in face-to-face encounters with council members; and in speeches from the podium in the council chamber.

During the “lights out” period for the taxpayer-funded city cameras, PortsmouthCityWatch.org stepped into the breach, recording and posting the moment-by-moment sights and sounds of the “censored” proceedings on YouTube. (They  remain accessible in the PCW video archive and might prove interesting to revisit in light of this renewed threat to the public’s right to know.) Two months later, without acknowledging the public’s role in the process, council reversed itself. Council did so, however, with the assertion that if the citizenry did not comport itself as “the Honorables” desired, the “privilege” of having their remarks recorded could again be withheld.

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Portsmouth Taxpayer Alliance Brings FOIA Executive Director to Town

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At the invitation of Portsmouth Taxpayer Alliance Co-chair Jennifer Lee, Maria J. K. Everett, Executive Director and Senior Attorney for the Virginia Freedom of Information (FOIA) Advisory Council, spent the better part of an hour discussing her job with Alliance members. Her frank and free-ranging talk at the November Alliance meeting covered the the purpose, legal basis, access procedures, and cost considerations of the FOIA, as well as responses to questions posed by those in attendance. The video recording of the session is available on the PortsmouthCityWatch.org YouTube Channel at https://youtu.be/hnvcAIJo-F8. Additionally, a PDF containing four handouts Ms. Everett made available to those present are accessible for download at from the PCW document archive. Our thanks to the Portsmouth Taxpayer Alliance and Ms. Everett for helping to inform the public about an important citizen access tool.

Open Letter on School Board Reorganization (updated 07/02/2015)

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Mr. Chair and Honorable School Board Members:

In advance of your annual reorganization meeting on Thursday, July 2, I write to encourage a change of chairperson. Although I have warm personal feelings toward Chair Bridgeford and consider him an exemplary human being in many respects, for the following reasons I believe he should step down as chair: 1) rotation of elected leadership is healthy for elected bodies; and 2) taking responsibility for leadership failure is essential to maintaining a credible public entity. Continue reading →

Recall Was not the Only Topic

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For those who did not attend the “called meeting” of citizens at the Sheriff’s Department training facility last evening, reading the Virginian-Pilot lead story today gives an incomplete understanding of what transpired. In the first place, the meeting notice that came to us through “a friend of a friend” did not refer to a recall campaign but rather to addressing a crisis of leadership in the city. The first portion of the gathering, in fact, concerned establishing a political action committee — working title, “People for Portsmouth PAC” — to recruit, vet, and elect to local office candidates who take “the long view” of resolving the perennial fiscal, social, and economic challenges that face our city. Continue reading →

An Open Letter on the FY 2016 Budget

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Mr. Mayor and Honorable Members of Council:

Watching all of you cut and paste the budget for the next fiscal year has been like observing politicians make sausage. It is definitely the worst of both politics and pork processing. On the positive side, keeping school funding at the level requested by the school board demonstrates some degree of leadership. You could be doing better with the rest of it, though.

First, Council Member Meeks was onto something when he questioned the lockstep raises for current and retired city employees. One group of retirees came into an enormous windfall last fiscal year with the elimination, at a major cost to taxpayers, of the Social Security offset. The participants in the Portsmouth Supplemental Retirement System plan should be able to get along on what amounted to a 100% increase in net benefits for the remainder of their lives without panhandling the citizenry for more. Additionally, shoring up the PSRS with $173 million in pension obligation bonds and making the actuarially appropriate annual required contributions should allow that plan to provide its own benefit increases from earnings on investments. That is the way private sector plans work and should be the model the city follows. Continue reading →

When Inexperience Is a Positive Attribute

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Reposting of a Facebook commentary by De’Andre Barnes used with permission of the author

When people talk about your inexperience, you talk about their experience.

I’m voting for Stephanie N. Morales because she hasn’t prosecuted a murder case and is young and inexperienced. I’m voting for Stephanie because I want her to create programs that prevent murders from happening; I don’t want her to gain experience in convicting murderers. If she does gain that experience, then that just means we have failed as a city. I’m voting for her because she’s young, and she understands that it’s difficult being young in a city with a lack of resources and opportunities. This will help her to create sound programs that will help our young men, women, girls and boys from getting in trouble and to stay out of it as well. Lastly, I’m voting for her because she’s inexperienced… not in the sense of knowing her job, but inexperienced in the old policies that have locked up more people in this country than any other country in this world. This is why I’m voting for Stephanie, and this is why my friend will be elected on Tuesday. If you want to vote for the candidates who have prosecuted a murder, who are older and more experienced, then you go right ahead, but I will take Stephanie as my Commonwealth Attorney and chief prosecutor for the kids I fight to have opportunities any day. Please remember to vote Tuesday so we can make history for the most qualified and the first elected black woman Commonwealth Attorney in the city of Portsmouth who just happens to be from Truxtun!