Transparency

Hampton Roads, Local, Norfolk, Politics 1 Minute

Or not.

Norfolk hired a new city manager just two weeks after the current manager announced her retirement and without any interviews of other candidates or input from the public.

Portsmouth appointed a new council member just a week after the special election for mayor, also without interviews of other candidates or input from the public.

So much for transparency.

Published

9 thoughts on “Transparency”

  1. Agree regarding Portsmouth. Council was picking a representative and should have involved the folks being represented.

    Don’t agree with you on Mr.Jones. The stockholders in Norfolk chose its board of directors, whether or not I agree with the choices made, once chosen the board does the hiring. Mr. Jones had a history with the city. He apparently did a good job in his interview and brought over Tommy and Andy to the way of thinking that he was a good choice. He apparently has the skill set folks were most afraid of losing with Mrs. Williams leaving in January. It is not exactly hiring from within, but closer than this city has done in the past, so I approve of that facet.

    I hope he has a greater skill set than she, time will tell.

    If you don’t like the decisions your board is making, in a year and a half we will be able to replace a quarter of them.

    1. Norfolk is not a corporation where the stockholders choose the board. Whenever public money is spent, there should be sunshine in the process. There was no sunshine here.

      1. I agree, if additional money is being spent or a new program is being implemented or Waterside is being torn down.

        This is a personnel matter, hiring someone who serves at the pleasure of the council. It’s their call.

        Glad we can disagree without being disagreeable.

        1. If it was their money, it would be their call. But it’s our money.

          Business analogies are not always appropriate to government.

          And no one has even noticed that the new city manager – who has not previously been a city manager – is getting paid almost as much as the outgoing city manager, who served here for 12 years.

          That bothers me almost as much as the lack of sunshine on this selection process.

          1. I noticed the pay, and a poster on the Pilot site mentioned Jones was being paid in the $170K range, in Richmond, so a very nice increase. I wondered about that, but I ain’t in charge of negotiating salaries. I don’t know what the going rate is for City Managers, etc.

            While I understand your comments about transparency and sunshine, that is different than how Council choses who to interview or not.

            I won’t put words in your mouth, but if the Council had been tranparent in the past, this action may not be so disconcerting.

  2. “firmer Councilwoman Elizabeth Psimas’ vacant seat”

    I’ve been reading quite a bit of news today from papers all over the place and this is literally the 6th typo I’ve seen so far.

    What is going with journalists today? Government can’t be transparent and newspapers can’t afford proof readers?

    1. The first LTE I ever had published in the Pilot was in response to a 1998 Steve Chapman column on Rudy Giuliani’s presidential prospects. Some enterprising Pilot editor had gone through the whole thing, changing the spelling to “Guiliani”.

      It’s not just the Pilot, though. Typos are a tradition in all Hampton Roads media. My second favorite was during the 2000 Summer Olympics, when WAVY-10 ran a live report from “Bruce Radar” in Sydney.

      However, the Pilot did top them all in the paper’s greatest scoop ever. Years before I moved to Norfolk, I read a biography of the Wright brothers. It included a couple of pages on how the Pilot landed the story, and included a copy of their actual report. They misspelled Wilbur.

  3. I was quite surprised by this. I’m can only assume there is more to the story that meets the eye.
    Still, it smells fishy.
    What concerned me is that the new councilmember was able to sit in the interview before being sworn in.
    If that was the case, shouldn’t other citizens be afforded the same opportunity?
    I don’t remember councilmember-elects being able to sit in closed door sessions before.
    I have to say I didn’t take note on what happened in Portsmouth. There seems to be enough craziness in Norfolk that it’s easy to not pay as much attention to surrounding cities.

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