Portsmouth City Manager Tonya Chapman fired by new council
A new majority on the Portsmouth City Council voted to fire City Manager Tonya Chapman Tuesday in its first meeting of the new year.
Chapman was at City Hall earlier in the morning, but did not attend the meeting for the council’s 5-2 vote to fire her after only six months on the job.
It’s no surprise the council made firing Chapman its first order of business. The four-member alliance that largely controlled council last year abruptly fired the previous city manager, Angel Jones, and quickly hired Chapman while keeping other council members in the dark.
Jones has since filed a lawsuit against the city alleging wrongful termination and political corruption involving the council members who voted to terminate her.
New council members Vernon Tillage Jr. and Mark Hugel joined Mayor Shannon Glover, councilman Bill Moody and newly appointed Vice Mayor Lisa Lucas-Burke in the vote to fire Chapman, signaling a shift in the council majority.
Chapman could not be reached for comment Tuesday. She attended a council meeting earlier Tuesday, in which the council went into closed session and discussed firing her. Once the council returned from the closed-door meeting, Chapman was gone.
She was hired with a $200,000 annual salary, and her contract included a $400,000 severance payment if fired within the first year without cause. Moody, who made the motion to fire Chapman, said it was for “willfully engaging in conduct” that has damaged the city financially.
Lucas-Burke later told The Virginian-Pilot that an example of such conduct is Chapman’s request to spend $300,000 on a forensic audit to investigate a potential loss of $80,000 in gift cards with the city’s pandemic relief funds.
Lucas-Burke said she initially intended to vote against Chapman’s termination and suggested a six-month grace period during the closed session to rectify council members’ concerns, but decided that “we don’t have six months” and vowed to work with the new council.
“We have a super-majority and I think that’s what we need because that’s what the citizens want,” Lucas-Burke told The Virginian-Pilot. “They voted in November. This is what they wanted.”
Lucas-Burke also said Chapman offered to resign due to her belief she wouldn’t be able to get much done with the new council but declined to do so once she learned she wouldn’t be receiving any severance.
Councilman Mark Whitaker, who helped orchestrate Jones’ firing and Chapman’s hiring, said during the meeting he didn’t support the termination because the issues raised and documents provided by the mayor during the closed session weren’t substantiated and were anonymously sourced.
Councilman De’Andre Barnes, also a member of the alliance that fired Jones and hired Chapman, voted against her termination for the same reason. But Barnes added that he wasn’t mad at the decision since a majority also fired Chapman’s predecessor last summer.
“(This) council isn’t doing anything that the previous council didn’t do,” Barnes said. “They have the majority and this is what happens.”
Hugel told The Pilot that enough information was shared with the council during the closed session that showed issues with Chapman’s performance, though he declined to provide additional details.
Chapman previously resigned as the city’s police chief in March 2019, saying later that her departure was forced and stemmed from her efforts to change a culture of racism within the department. Since taking over as city manager, several top officials have been fired or parted ways with the city, including former Police Chief Renado Prince and former Deputy City Manager Mimi Terry, who later pushed back against Chapman’s allegation that the city’s pandemic relief funds weren’t properly managed.
Terry was appointed the interim city manager beginning immediately with a salary of $210,000. She also served as interim following Jones’ termination. Barnes told The Pilot he was concerned that Terry would be in charge of an audit in which she’s one of the subjects.
Chapman also hired and then terminated a deputy city manager who previously pleaded guilty to welfare fraud charges and was named in connection with Jones’ allegations of political corruption among council members.
Natalie Anderson, 757-732-1133, natalie.anderson@virginiamedia.com
