PORTSMOUTH, Va. — Portsmouth is bringing in familiar faces as the city continues to deal with leadership turnover.
In the Portsmouth Police Department, former Chief Renado Prince will start in his new role as assistant chief on Monday.
His re-hiring isn't the only leadership change we're following in Portsmouth.
The city still needs to hire a new city manager, but council members can't seem to agree on who should take over the position or how they should hire them.
This particular story has been playing out for the last year in Portsmouth, since about this time last summer.
Between the leadership changes and disagreements on how the city is hiring people, folks living in Portsmouth say they are tired of it.
When former City Manager Tonya Chapman was hired abruptly last summer, one of her first acts was to fire then-Chief Prince.
He claims it was over a text message.
The city paid a $77,000 severance to the former Chief in a one-time payment last July.
Now, the city has hired him back as the assistant chief, working under his own former Assistant Chief Stephen Jenkins. Jenkins was hired to replace Prince earlier this year.
City leaders have since fired Chapman and Interim City Manager Mimi Terry has been guiding the city forward for the last 6 months.
"I’m Team Mimi," said one speaker.
Wednesday night, five of the seven council members came together to discuss hiring Terry as the full-time city manager.
"In the past four years, we have had three city managers," said Mayor Shannon Glover. "The consequences of this instability to the community are the following: damaging to the city image, dividing the council and city employees and community, it harms the city's ability to attract and retain other city administrative positions and with that, we have a loss of institutional knowledge."
He said with Terry, now is not the time to start over.
When four city council members voted to fire former City Manager Angel Jones and hire Chapman last year, other councilmembers and citizens raised concerns about the process saying there should have been a nationwide search.
Now, the tables have turned as some of those same councilmembers who raised concerns want to hire Terry without what they say would be a $20,000 search.
"She’s proven herself for the last six months. This has been her open-book interview. For us to have to go in and do a national search, and pool through candidates that we don’t know... to have to put her in that pool with them is a slap in her face," said Councilwoman Lisa Lucas-Burke.
Councilman Bill Moody agrees. He said between guiding them through their most recent budget to connecting with people in the city, she's the right person for the job. He questioned why anyone would want to spend thousands in taxpayer money on a search when they have Terry right in front of them.
"She's also had a tremendous presence in our community. She's connected well with our citizens and she's not beyond to tackle problems. Problems we have, she's not a person to run from those problems," Moody said.
Councilman Vernon Tillage, who was not on council when Chapman was hired, said he thinks holding a search is the right thing to do and it's a campaign promise he intends to keep.
"We owe it to the citizens who said there should have been a search," he said.
Councilman Mark Hugel, who also was elected after Chapman was hired, agrees, saying there needs to be a protocol.
"Despite the good job that I think Ms. Terry has done, and I've told her if we decide to search, I surely hope that she would apply for the opportunity because I think she would be the leading candidate for the opportunity," he said. "All that said, I think the right thing to do is conduct a search."
Speaker Sharon Anderson asked council to follow the process.
"All we're asking is that you keep your word," Anderson said.
However, most of the citizens who spoke said because they have already seen Terry in action, they want her in the role as soon as possible.
"The people of Portsmouth are fatigued with the leadership loss that we have seen over the last several years," said one speaker.
"The citizens are sick of the revolving door," echoed another.
One man said they need to stop calling Terry in only when they get in trouble and need someone to fill a seat.
"It seems like we treat her like a substitute teacher whenever the teacher we hired ain’t working."
Darrell Redmond credits Terry with helping cut down on crime in the city.
Speaker Darlene Washington asked the council members who support a search to look at the different contexts between the two situations of how Chapman was hired.
"We need stability," she pleaded.
Ultimately, council decided to defer the vote to June 12 when all council members are present.
Councilmen D’Andre Barnes and Mark Whitaker said they had prior engagements Wednesday night.