PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY) — Bickering, blaming and what one resident in attendance described as “blasphemy,” consumed the Portsmouth City Council meeting for the second time this week.
Thursday’s meeting was a special meeting called by Vice Mayor De’Andre Barnes and council members Mark Whitaker and Paul Battle. The purpose was to discuss incoming City Manager Tonya Chapman’s contract — who a majority of City Council voted to appoint Tuesday.
The meeting was also called to allow for citizen comment. The citizen comment portion of Tuesday’s meeting never occurred after a majority of City Council moved to adjourn the meeting early.
While both those objectives were met Thursday evening, more time than any other was taken up by City Council members arguing with each other, airing grievances and finger pointing.
Tempers have been flaring in the city for several weeks.
On May 24, Whitaker moved to terminate City Manager Angel Jones after only a little more than a year on the job. He was joined by Councilman Chris Woodard, Barnes and Battle.
Mayor Shannon Glover and council members Lisa Lucas-Burke and Bill Moody said they were blindsided by the move and characterized it as “egregious injustice.”
Tuesday, the same three voted against the appointment of former police chief Chapman. It was argued she is unqualified for the job and was previously fired from the city.
However Whitaker maintained she could be a unifying force and Woodard said she has experience to help solve Portsmouth’s crime problem.
Thursday, at the urging of the mayor, City Council unanimously agreed to delay Chapman’s start date to June 28 in order to conduct a background check on her.
That was the only brief portion of unity seen in the meeting.
After refusing to give his reasons for terminating Jones for several weeks, Whitaker launched into a lengthy statement outlining his reasons. He listed off several instances in which he believed Jones should have communicated better with council members.
Glover contended not all of Whitaker’s accusations were factual and said that at no time any council member proposed even putting the city manager on a corrective action plan.
After nearly an hour of back and forth, in which council members began digging into past decisions of previous City Council’s, citizens were able to take the mic.
“Welcome to the latest edition of as the Portsmouth turns,” Sergio Neal said as he began his five minutes of comments. He was one of several citizens to place blame on the City Council for not being able to move the city forward.
“I am ashamed to be a citizen of the city of Portsmouth,” Audrey Pryor Mouizi said. “I voted for a mayor that I thought would lead. But what I am not seeing is leadership.”
Following the meeting 10 On Your Side asked Glover what he plans to do to get the City Council together.
“One of the strategies I think that’s effective is to continue to try to build the relationships right?” Glover said. “So what that requires is, I am going to be reaching out to some of my colleagues on council to continue to build the relationship so that we can work collaboratively and I always have done that. My door is always open.”