PORTSMOUTH, Va. — We have more insight into the big leadership shake-ups that have rocked the City of Portsmouth.
13News Now reached out to every Portsmouth city council member. Elizabeth Psimas is the only council member who would interview. She’s served in her position on council for the past 16 years.
“We did what we had to do to stabilize the city government,” Psimas explained.
Psimas said communication issues between council members, the city manager, and city attorney caused a loss of confidence. It had nothing to do with Police Chief Angela Greene being placed on paid administrative leave on Friday.
Psimas explained, “As a member of council, I should never read about something that happened in my city on the news or in a newspaper.”
One example she gave is when the FBI investigated allegations of racism within the Portsmouth Police Department in 2019.
“It was like, 'Oh my gosh, how come we didn’t know that this set of attorneys have been hired during an FBI investigation that we always kind of thought was happening but never really knew back when [former police chief Tonya] Chapman was terminated?'” she said.
On Tuesday, council held a special meeting to discuss personnel matters. Hours before, city manager Dr. Lydia Pettis Patton resigned, effective immediately. The council members then fired city attorney Solomon Ashby.
“We were set to terminate both. I can confirm that,” Psimas stated.
Council members' votes were split along racial lines to accept the resignation and termination, with three Black council members voting no and four White council members voting yes.
Mayor John Rowe -- who is White and voted to remove Ashby and accept Pettis Patton's resignation -- said that did not affect the leadership change.
“Race had nothing to do with this and retaliation had nothing to do with this,” Rowe previously told 13News Now.
An outside firm is searching for two people to permanently take over those leadership roles. For now, LaVoris Pace will serve as interim city manager and Burle Stromberg is now the interim city attorney.