Hopewell council takes the wind out of sails to revamp city marina for now

HOPEWELL – City Council sank any plans for a refurbished marina Tuesday night, at least for the foreseeable future.

Through a series of votes and numerous questions about parliamentary procedures, a majority of councilors decided now was not the time to spend as much as $1.4 million on redoing the marina along the Appomattox River. The decision council eventually reached was to hold off applying for a federal matching grant to develop more recreational space on the marina site, but spend $20,000 on an environmental study that would have been needed regardless of what the future holds for the marina.

Council’s action essentially erased a vote last year to authorize the Recreation and Parks Department to pursue the grant through the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund, and that was at the crux of much of the 30-minute discussion.

The condition of the half-century old marina has been a concern as Hopewell works to spruce up its waterfront area. The marina is made up of three separate docks, all in various stages of deterioration. Two of those docks are covered with a roof and one is open to the elements.

Some citizens expressed concerns over the anticipated high cost of completely replacing the marina instead of paying for upgrades to slips and other amenities.

Vice Mayor Jasmine Gore, who participated in the meeting electronically, objected repeatedly to attempts to reverse the earlier decision. Gore said the only way the matter could be reconsidered would be for someone on the prevailing side of the 2022 vote to go ahead with the grant application to ask for the change. With the changing of three council seats from the November election, that meant only Gore or Councilor Brenda Pelham – who also participated electronically – could make that motion, and neither of them seemed eager to do so.

Their colleagues, on the other hand, were all in agreement that Hopewell shouldn’t pony up the $1.4 million because none of them liked the plan that had been submitted for the revamping. Several of them argued against essentially “giving away the land” to the feds because in their minds, that took away the city’s right to have a say in how the project would be developed.

Councilor Rita Joyner cited what she claimed was the National Park Service’s neglect of the City Point Unit of the Petersburg National Battlefield as one of the reasons she was against the grant. By applying for the grant, she said, that essentially gives the control of the land to the same agency that she said had made a lot of unkept promises over the operation of the City Point Unit.

“That gives me pause,” Joyner said.

Mayor Johnny Partin also was not a fan of the project, saying he just did not like the plans that were drawn up for the grant because it doesn’t ”fully capture everything the city is trying to do” with the marina.

The first vote taken to deny funding for the grant passed on a 5-2 vote, with Gore and Pelham dissenting. Councilor Dominic Holloway then pushed for a vote to ask city staff to solicit more plans for the project and bring them back for council consideration to reapply for the grant as early as January 2024. That vote was unanimous.

Gore then tried to get the original vote to deny the grant tabled until the city attorney, who was not present at the meeting, could issue an opinion on the legality of someone other than her or Pelham calling for the action to be reversed. That failed on a 5-2 vote.

Holloway then made a motion to waive the council rules for reconsidering an earlier vote. Again, the count was 5-2 with Gore and Pelham voting against it.

The final vote taken to deny the grant funding was 6-1, with Gore the lone dissenter.

The marina issue is far from dead, however. Council reached a consensus to ask city staff to solicit new plans for the marina design and left the door open for a future reapplication if an agreement is reached on what it would look like.

Bill Atkinson (he/him/his) is an award-winning journalist who covers breaking news, government and politics. Reach him at batkinson@progress-index.com or on Twitter at @BAtkinson_PI.

This article originally appeared on The Progress-Index: Hopewell holds off on applying for grant to refurbish city marina