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Their
city is crumbling, or so they believe, Mayor Kenny Wright, facing a
possible recall, is hiding, and on July 1, the city's property tax,
already the highest in the Tidewater region, jumps three cents, to
$1.27 per $100 of the assessed vale of a property, beginning July 1.
By contrast, Norfolk's
property tax rate is $115 per $100; the business district tax, $1.31
per $100 of the assessed value, is charged property owners within a
48-block area of downtown Norfolk.
April and May were two of the bloodiest months for Portsmouth.
City manager, John Rowe, and city attorney, George Wilson, were fired. Chief of Police Ed Hargis, who announced his retirement in April, retired June 1. Finance director Carol Swindell resigned May 1. And Chuck Rigney, hailed as Portsmouth's savior, skedaddled, returning to Norfolk for a plum job as the city's development director, where he was the former assistant director of development and the interim director of development.
Yet the agony lingered.
In a fit of anger, a group of citizens led by Bob Marcus, who owns Bob's Gun Shop in Norfolk, agitated for the recall of Mayor Kenny Wright.
People for Portsmouth, or PfP, has filed paperwork with the Virginia Secretary of the Commonwealth to form a political action committee to support local and state candidates, according to Pam Kloeppel, the organizer. Approval is pending.
Koeppel said PfP would support candidates at the local level and not candidates for the Virginia legislature.
Kloeppel said the group's board of directors is being organized. Ten have been chosen so far, but she preferred to announce the names of the board members at the group's June 11 meeting. Kloeppel and other residents are disgusted with the management of the city., from the mayor and city council to the school board, and pressing for political change.
The group aims to increase voter turnout and support City Council candidates and School Board members who will make decisions based upon a viable future for the city, Kloeppel said.
The group wants more people to live in Portsmouth, more investment and city officials who will remain on the job.
This is a tall order for a city riven by the sound bites of race, political partisanship and constant sniping. Is it a crisis of leadership?
Or are Portsmouth's woes a tug of war between conservatives and liberals, between Democrats and Republicans and between a liberal black majority, solidly in power, and a conservative white minority struggling to gain a foothold in the city's power hierarchy?
Will a regime change in 2016 unseat incumbents and replace them with officials who will be so encumbered that they will fight change, as well?
The latest fracas masks a lingering malaise in Portsmouth. Though aspects of Portsmouth have improved, the city has slid into discontent.
Perhaps PfP will answer these questions.
Perhaps they won't.
Perhaps others in the community will.