Category Archives: Accountable Government

Survey Time in the 80th HOD District

Posted on by
Reply

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”!

The Moody File: Money Matters

Posted on by
5

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.

Continue reading →

Portsmouth 2014 Candidate Forums

Posted on by
2

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

Posted on by
Reply

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 →

Open Letter to Portsmouth Economic Development Authority

Posted on by
1

Commissioners Aaron J. Kelley, Chair; Lisa Lucas-Burke, Vice Chair; Charles “Brad” Hunter, Treasurer; Robert P. Beaman; Dean A. Thomasson; and Junius L. Thompson
Portsmouth Economic Development Authority
200 High Street
Portsmouth, VA 23704

Dear Commissioners:

At your previous meeting in January, the secretary of the EDA introduced a last-minute addition to your agenda.  It was not only dropped into your laps without prior notice, but you did not even receive a written copy of what he asked you to approve.  Instead, he read the text from the screen of his Blackberry.  Had I sat in your place at the boardroom table, I would have been unwilling to accept that mode and timing of presentation. I consider it disrespectful to you and to the citizens you serve. Continue reading →