Portsmouth City Council Meeting Summary: October 28, 2025
Portsmouth City Council Meeting Summary: October 28, 2025
The Portsmouth City Council convened on October 28, 2025, for a work session followed by a regular meeting. The evening began with emergency management updates regarding Hurricane Melissa and a presentation on the city's Basic Emergency Operations Plan. The Council also considered zoning changes for the Innovation (Link) District, adopted a new interim City Attorney following the departure of City Attorney Lavonda Graham Williams to the bench, and approved several grants and resolutions. Public comments focused on the distribution of gift cards, pending contract reimbursements, and unresolved property maintenance issues.
Consent Calendar
- Minutes Approval: Approved minutes from special meetings on September 23, 2025, and regular meetings on September 23, 2025, and October 3-4, 2025 (Vote: 7-0).
- City Manager Report: Adopted City Manager Report items 25-300 through 25-317 via a single motion and one vote, including acceptance of various grants for social services, emergency management, and behavioral health (Vote: 7-0).
- Use Permit Approval: Granted Use Permit UP-25-10 to G. Palmer to operate a drug and alcohol treatment facility at 901 Enterprise Way (Vote: 7-0).
- Ordinance Adoption (Subdivisions): Adopted ordinances amending Chapter 33.1 to align with recent Virginia Code changes regarding subdivision reviews (Vote: 7-0).
- Interim Attorney Appointment: Appointed Derek Challenger as Interim City Attorney, effective November 7, 2025, at a salary of $192,500 (Vote: 7-0).
Public Comments & Testimony
- Leon Hammonds: Expressed strong opposition and disappointment regarding the city's gift card program, citing a significant financial loss due to monthly maintenance fees and poor communication on remaining balances; positioned that the city is wasting funds and needs to reevaluate the distribution strategy.
- Donna Biggs: expressed concern and a sense of exclusion regarding the legislative affairs presentation, arguing that residents were not informed or involved in decision-making processes affecting their civil rights and community needs.
- William Richardson (Bink Richardson): stated that a contract agreement from May 2021 regarding a voluntary cleanup was not fulfilled, resulting in unmet reimbursement for his small business; maintained that the city should not force small businesses to sue for compensation and argued that the city benefited from the work performed.
- David House: expressed frustration regarding the City Manager's failure to meet promised timeframes for addressing blighted properties at Harding and Progress Avenue; positioned that the City Manager dropped the ball on specific agenda items and violated a verbal agreement, though he was asked to refrain from debating the character of staff members.
Discussion Items
- Emergency Management Plan: Anna McCray, Deputy Emergency Management Coordinator, presented the Basic Emergency Operations Plan (EOP) required by state code every four years. She explained that the plan covers general guidance for all-hazards incidents, including coordination, community lifelines, and threat hazard identification risk analysis (THIRA). McCray stated that hurricanes are the most likely major event, despite thunderstorms and flooding being more frequent. She outlined a three-year exercise cycle starting in January to include EOC level training and school drills. When asked about the Citizens Emergency Response Team (CERT), she stated plans to relaunch the program in the new calendar year to engage the business community and higher education partners.
- Link District Zoning: Dr. Russell, Planning Director, presented Option A (adopting current use/prohibition language for the Link District) and Option B (a subsequent phase for design refinement based on Greenville, SC models). She explained that Option A restricts prohibited uses for vacant properties immediately, while design standards like parking and uniform facades would be finalized later via public engagement. Councilman Dodson expressed concern that the five-foot building setback might not support a walkable area and requested clarification on how right-of-way improvements will align with pedestrian goals.
- Fire Boat Acquisition: The Mayor announced that the city received a fire boat as a gift from Norfolk and is currently in the process of refurbishing it. The Mayor stated the goal is to have the vessel operational by spring 2026 to support waterfront development and fire protection.
- City Attorney Transition: The Mayor expressed pride and offered farewell to City Attorney Lavonda Graham Williams, who is transitioning to the bench. She stated that returning to serve Portsmouth was her greatest career accomplishment. Council members praised her authority, legal guidance, and dedication to justice.
Key Outcomes
- Approved: The Basic Emergency Operations Plan was accepted for consideration at the next meeting for formal adoption (Vote was not recorded in the transcript as the vote was slated for the regular session, but the work session presentation was completed).
- Adopted: The Link District zoning changes (Option A) were approved to proceed to the Planning Commission for a public hearing in December and Council consideration in January.
- Actioned: A resolution authorizing employees to analyze proposals under the Public-Private Education Facilities and Infrastructure Act was adopted (Item 25-316).
- Directives: The Council directed City Management to create an online sign-up system for utility payment deferrals regarding the potential government shutdown and SNAP impact, with a timeline to be provided. The Council requested a specific timeline for fixing manholes on Cedar Lane and addressing sidewalk alignment issues on Court Street.
- Grant Funding: The Council accepted multiple grants, including $180,000 for rescue squad assistance, $11,644 for traffic safety, and over $1.2 million for behavioral health and crisis intervention services.
Meeting Transcript
Miss Bryant, presentation. Miss Thomas, Mr. Tillich. Here. And Mary Glavery is a second. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Yes, sir. And like to welcome everyone to our five o'clock work session. Actually, our five oh five work session. Okay, exactly. Good afternoon. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Uh members of council. And the first one will be from Anna McCray, who's our Deputy Emergency Management Coordinator. And she'll be speaking about the basic emergency operation plan. And then the second will be from uh Dr. Russell, our director of planning, who uh will speak on zoning changes for the innovation district with late. Um ready? Yes, sir. Come on down, as Bob Barker used to say. Coleman, and other distinguished members. I'll start off by first saying I would love to come talk to you at some point when it's sunny outside and not about hurricanes and disaster preparedness. But I did just pull the 5 p.m. briefing for Hurricane Melissa as she's impacting Jamaica and wanted to share her center is emerging from the northern coast of western Jamaica. She's still a category four storm, but she has started that forward motion now. So she's moving along at a clipping eight miles an hour, which is better than the three miles an hour she was moving this morning when she made landfall. She's a compact storm, but you know, her hurricane force winds extend about 30 miles out from the center of the storm. So all of Jamaica won't see those huge hurricane wind impacts, but the tropical storm winds do extend close to 195 miles out. So the uh the the country will take a pretty decent uh hit. There's uh 12 to 24 inches of rain expected with that storm, 30 inches or more in the mountains of Jamaica. And the storm surge as the storm moves towards Cuba is expected to approach 12 feet. So she still will be a very uh intense storm and have uh catastrophic damage as she continues her way towards the Bahamas and eventually towards Bermuda and then off to the North Atlantic on a much quicker pace tomorrow. So certainly are sending our thoughts and prayers and put picking up lessons learned from the uh the country of Jamaica as they work through this. That being said, uh, thank you for the opportunity to come speak to you tonight about our city's basic emergency operations plan. If this is on your agenda for consideration at your next meeting, what the basic emergency operations plan covers is general guidance for city departments and agencies, all of our external stakeholders, other internal stakeholders to help us better prepare for, respond to, recover from, and mitigate the damages from various threats and hazards. We are required by state code to under uh section 44-146.19, letter E, which outlines the authorities of the localities to have a basic emergency operations plan that is adopted by the local council. This plan has to be adopted every four years. We review it annually and make updates as we work incidents and have incidents occur. But it will come to you all for adoption every four years. The plan overall is made up of four volumes, and the one volume that you'll be looking at to for your approval is the basic emergency operations plan. This is written from an all-hazards perspective and is designed to guide all of the city agencies through what their roles are when we have a large-scale incidents. We'll have minor changes uh throughout the course of time, but it again will only come to you every four years for adoption unless there are major or significant changes that we need to make to the document. Some of the uh sections of the emergency operations plan are outlined, and you have a copy of our operational summary for a senior leadership that go a little bit more uh in depth on what these individual pieces are. But with the introduction, that's just simply the table of contents, the uh the information about community lifelines, uh, samples of the uh declaration process, resources that we would want to have at the go and ready for for you all. The purpose section outlines the uh overall objectives of the emergency operations plan, what the scope is, population demographics, and other basic information and limitations of the plan. Our concept of operations goes over the overall intention of the entirety of the emergency operations plan, uh, what should happen, who should do it, when it should happen, who provides direction. The direction organization and coordination section talks about how we set up emergency management in the city of Portsmouth and how we coordinate with all of the stakeholders to include our community members. Assignment of responsibility provides an overview of the key organizations that are tied into our emergency operations plan, what they need to do on blue sky days, and how they need to activate and how they need to react to incidents as we have them occur. The plan development and maintenance section of the plan talks about our planning process, how we adopt a whole community perspective and desire input and feedback from all of our constituents and stakeholders, and talks about uh who is responsible for maintaining the plan, training to the plan, and exercising the plan. And then we provide a list of authorities and references, which covers everything from local ordinance to FEMA FEMA direction of you know Stafford Act and things like that.
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