Open Letter to Mayor and Council: Let the Public in Again

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The high-water mark for local government transparency was set five years ago this month. Our former city manager, Dr. L. Pettis Patton, opened up the police chief interview session for three finalists to the community as a whole. In the auditorium of “The” I. C. Norcom High School, on a chilly January afternoon, the applicants made their cases to the management team with several city council members and many interested citizens present.

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Guest Opinion: Open Letter to Council on City Manager Selection

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Dear Mayor Glover and Members of Council,

Many of us who who watched last week’s city council meeting were distressed to have witnessed what transpired: a person with no governmental management experience, no postsecondary education, and who had never shown interest publicly in the job, was proposed for appointment as our new city manager! How do we list the number of reasons we oppose Mr. Meeks for the position and reject the way Council handled this?  We wrote to each of you before last week’s meeting, outlining some of the myriad problems with his appointment. But then to see council members move forward nonetheless and all but hire this individual, totally ignoring the multitude of applications for the job already received AND the detailed published job requirements AND the fact that this person is singularly unqualified to run the city was very disturbing. How could council justify ignoring the many legitimate applicants who had shown interest and capabilities?  How could council simply refuse to honor their contractual arrangement with the consultants paid by Portsmouth citizens to assure precisely what you wanted to eliminate: an open and transparent process for hiring the best individual for the highest position in the city government? Continue reading →

Guest Opinion: Putting the Residents First

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So, we call a communitywide meeting [in Cavalier Manor], the first in over 10 months…. not for COVID preparations… not for food distribution… not for severe weather impact instructions… not to ensure a continued high quality education for our youth…not to address the crime issues.. not to check on resident welfare… not for vaccine instructions… not to announce Sustainable Wage Jobs… not to deliver PPE and hand sanitizer… not to get mentors for our students… not to check on our seniors… not participate in the early phase if the planning process… not to talk about Development Induced Displacement… not to comfort the community in a time of crisis… not to mitigate health disparities… not to ensure households who don’t have internet in these times have access… not to mitigate pollution caused by excess truck traffic…not to give people rides to the polls to vote… not to talk about moving renters to homeowners to create black wealth….We call our FIRST meeting in ten months to talk about a developer who wants to take our land from the community and build tiny low income apartments..no wealth building capacity… workforce housing… providing NO direct benefit to the community….take our land we could use for a park, amphitheater, compost area, walking trails, a mini client, farmers market., pop up venues. something that provides social welfare with a direct and measurable benefit…the community must be self determined such that its needs and wants are not dictated…it’s called Participatory Planning… that’s how it works in a democracy… with all these issues facing the community.. our FIRST meeting in ten months and we host a gentrifying developer instead of addressing real issues Shame, shame, shame!
We must not be afraid to speak truth to power.
Garry Harris, Community Activist

Coming Together on the Right Path

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Updated January 13, 2021. A majority of council, Members Barnes, Battle, Moody, and Woodard, voted to appoint Danny Meeks City Manager. They went into closed meeting to consider a compensation package but, on emerging into public session, voted to reconsider the previous vote. Rather than sustaining the prior appointment, they voted to extend the candidate search until January 20. (For additional details, see Portsmouth City Council voted to hire Danny Meeks as city manager. He still needs to apply for the job. – Daily Press.)

If the rumors that began circulating on social media last Friday are true, a coalition of disgruntled council members and their junior partners may have stumbled onto a way to bridge the racial political divide that has plagued our city for decades. Unfortunately, hard evidence of what, if confirmed, would be a real conspiracy has not yet surfaced. Consequently, as a responsible voice of the community, PortsmouthCityWatch.org will address this as a hypothetical situation rather than a matter of established fact. Continue reading →

From Senator Tim Kaine: Thoughts on January 6th, 2021

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Publisher’s Note: I received the following message by eMail directed to me as a constituent. Although it is not specific to Portsmouth, it is a thoughtful treatment of issues that affect all of us as citizens of the United States of America. I share it here, therefore, in the interests of stimulating reflection and dialogue.

So many of you have reached out — while the Capitol attack was going on and in the days since — to ask how I am and express your deep concern over what you saw happening. Rather than respond briefly to each, I thought I would write up my thoughts to share with you all. Continue reading →

Open Letter to City Council: Vice Mayor Selection Criteria

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Mr. Mayor and Honorable Members of City Council:

In the twenty-four years I have lived in Portsmouth, city council has selected a vice mayor in accordance with certain unwritten rules. All else being equal, a tradition of fostering a sense of unity through representational diversity has evolved. Consequently, when the mayor has been an African American, a European American would be selected as vice mayor and vice versa. This has not been an ironclad practice but rather a general tendency. Continue reading →

Open Letters to Council and School Board: The People’s Will

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In these times of intense political division, one point of agreement appears to transcend ideological differences. Whether they lean right or left or stand somewhere in the middle, most Americans concur with the notion that elections have consequences. The most apparent of these, of course, is which individual will occupy the seat that was in play. A secondary consequence of some races, though, is that new vacancies may have resulted from an incumbent officeholder getting elected to a different position. Continue reading →

Open Letter to City Council: Defer Meals Tax/Parking Fee Hikes

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Mr. Mayor, Members of Council, and Members of Council-Elect:

With only two regular meetings left on the docket for this calendar year and pending parking fee and meals tax increases set to take effect on January 1, 2021, I ask you to reconsider the timing of those increases. Admittedly, the impact to the taxpayers’ pocketbooks from the meals tax hike is minimal, but in terms of the morale blow to restaurateurs already battered by the pandemic and likely in for still more battering as Trump Virus cases continue to rise globally, nationally, and locally, the prospect of the increase looms larger in their perceptions than the actuality. Similarly, the deferred parking rate increases could be a significant deterrent to patrons of downtown businesses generally, falling on customers who have been long accustomed to free night, weekend, and holiday parking in city garages and at meters. I would argue, as well, that the costs of enforcing the new parking levies could offset much of the anticipated revenue gain from their imposition. I would advise you to obtain an objective cost/benefit analysis before making this change. Again, in the context of the economic disruption this virus has wrought to date, imposing those fee increases now would be completely tone deaf. I urge you shelve them for reconsideration when we return to what we thought of as normalcy.

Please let me know if you need additional information.

Yours truly,
Mark Geduldig-Yatrofsky