Category Archives: Community Questions

On Building a “New Portsmouth”

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Portsmouth has recently completed a round of Budget Community Engagement Meetings, which presented useful information on the city’s various programs. In gathering attendees’ responses to budgetary questions, the City took an important first step towards becoming more open and responsive to Portsmouth’s citizenry. The more citizens feel engaged in and important to the process, the more likely they will support the city’s efforts on their behalf.

However, spending for all these programs requires funding and there was little discussion of the City’s ongoing economic development plans. It seems evident that an overriding priority must be creative and continuing economic development, shared regularly, and as fully as possible, with the public. Without courageous and tenacious efforts to revitalizing business in the city, Portsmouth will never have sufficient funds to meet its obligations laid out in recent meetings. Such efforts will help preserve our current population of residents, and bring new residents to live, work and spend in our city. Following are some important ways to keep us moving forward. Continue reading →

Publisher’s Notebook: Of Wars, Hot and Cold

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As I belatedly watched the PBS tribute commemorating the twenty-fifth anniversary of Ken Burns’s documentary, “The Civil War”, one particularly insightful observation struck both a nerve and a chord. Discussing why he found the subject so compelling that he would devote the effort to making an eleven-hour series about it, Burns said, “[Everything] in American history led up to it, and everything since has been a consequence of it. . . . [T]he centrality of the Civil War in our lives, and [how it shaped] the meaning of who we are as Americans [makes this event] the subject in American history.” Continue reading →

Open Letter on the Confederate Memorial

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Mr. Mayor and Honorable Members of Council:
Because the proposal to remove the Confederate Memorial at Court and High Streets appears to have ignited public passions across our community, I write to you in greater haste and with less explication than is my custom. I hope to readdress this matter at more length at a later date. For the moment, though, I wish to counsel proceeding slowly, carefully, and inclusively. With respect to the last of the three, you have an obligation to afford the public opportunities to express their views on the matter in formal council proceedings. Whatever other symbolism people may attach to the physical structure occupying that small patch of land in our downtown, it does have cultural and historical significance and has been a part of the fabric of Portsmouth history for better than half of our community’s existence. Fundamentally, it is a remembrance of men who gave their lives fighting for Virginia, albeit for a cause of dubious merit. Many, if not most, wars have been “causes of dubious merit”; yet, we in America have, nonetheless,  honored those who fell in battle, or because of it, since the earliest days of our republic. The dead soldiers commemorated were the fellow countrymen, and even family members, in some instances, of those who fought against them. Whatever we ultimately end up doing about this memorial, then, we need to proceed in a way that respects the sacrifice of those honored and the sensibilities of the community as a whole.
Please let me know if you need additional information.
Yours truly,
Mark Geduldig-Yatrofsky

Recall Was not the Only Topic

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For those who did not attend the “called meeting” of citizens at the Sheriff’s Department training facility last evening, reading the Virginian-Pilot lead story today gives an incomplete understanding of what transpired. In the first place, the meeting notice that came to us through “a friend of a friend” did not refer to a recall campaign but rather to addressing a crisis of leadership in the city. The first portion of the gathering, in fact, concerned establishing a political action committee — working title, “People for Portsmouth PAC” — to recruit, vet, and elect to local office candidates who take “the long view” of resolving the perennial fiscal, social, and economic challenges that face our city. Continue reading →

Coming Together to Move Forward

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With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

from President Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address delivered March 4, 1865

Once the results of yesterday’s election receive official certification, Ms. Stephanie Morales will become the Commonwealth’s Attorney for Portsmouth. The process that led to this outcome has much room for improvement, but it certainly is preferable to the chaos and violence that mark succession struggles in many other parts of the world. Still, it has left emotional  bruises and scars on the civic psyche which, though not necessarily visible to all, can impair our ability to work across demographic divisions in our community.

Reflection on the past, therefore, may offer us valuable insight into how “the road not taken” at an earlier critical juncture could prove our path to wholeness at this one. President Lincoln spoke of a much larger struggle than the one from which we are emerging, the American Civil War. Real blood spilled by the gallon; real lives, in the tens of thousands, ended prematurely. Yet, as the war ground down, he urged the divided country, both North and South, to “bind up the nation’s wounds” and “to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace”. The war would conclude the following month with the April 9 surrender of General Robert E. Lee, but the author of these words of consolation would die only a few days later without seeing his dream of peaceful reunification achieved.

Had Lincoln lived, our country might not have wrestled so long with the still unrealized quest to bring “liberty and justice” to all. Our past failures, however, do not preclude our achieving it now, even in the limited time remaining to us senior citizens. It requires the vision of a Lincoln or a Dr. King but also the energy and commitment of the millions of everyday people who inhabit this nation. We in Portsmouth, working together as good neighbors rather than mortal rivals can set an example for the rest of the commonwealth and the nation. The effort begins today and must continue every day.

Let us, then, congratulate Ms. Stephanie Morales and her many supporters on her election as Portsmouth Commonwealth’s Attorney. In addition, let us thank Candidates Michael “Mike” Rosenberg, Ali T. Sprinkle, and all those who worked for them for conducting positive, issue-oriented campaigns. We would be remiss not to remember with gratitude all our fellow citizens who, having informed themselves in advance of the election, braved the elements yesterday to cast ballots for those seeking this important office. Lastly, we need to express appreciation to all the election officials who invested many hours in ensuring the integrity and fairness of the voting process. Moving forward, may we all, in President Lincoln’s words, “be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us”, that of ensuring “government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Tunnel Numbers Can’t Be Ignored — The Full Version

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The Virginian-Pilot ran a greatly condensed version of the following “Letter to the Editor” in its Wednesday, March 5, 2014, edition. With permission of the author, the original is posted here.

First some background: I am a 55-year native of the area and have driven just about every road there is, and have commuted in many directions over the years, and have a good idea of where the majority of drivers are going and when. In addition, I have been been reporting news in various forms since 1973, and have provided weekday traffic reports since 2007. For the past three years I have been reporting traffic conditions between 5:00 AM and 3:00 pm weekdays for WHKT and WWIP. Therefor, I believe I am equipped with the knowledge and insight to provide some clarification on the traffic pattern change since the implementation of tolls at the Downtown and Midtown tunnels a month ago.

Continue reading →

Litmus Test: Is It a Question of Process or Something Else?

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The PilotOnline article about Council Member Meeks’s robocalls has attracted a lot of commentary. It has piqued my curiousity, as well, about how different segments of our community see this issue. To allow for a more in depth discussion, I’m reposting my original question here.

The premise is: a European American majority council contemplates making “permanent” the interim appointments of an African American city manager and attorney with identical experience and qualifications to those of Messrs. Rowe and Willson. A “supermajority” of the council members have agreed in closed session to offer the jobs to the incumbents, but the final public vote lies ahead. A few days beforehand, a prominent tea party-affiliated constituent urges council to open up the process and broaden the search. Do you see a difference between the actual and the hypothetical scenarios? Please explain your answer. (I will defer sharing my own opinion until later.)