It appears that someone somewhere decided to look for the cause of the degradation of the City of Portsmouth 800 Mhz Trunked Radio System and they might have found it. From what I have been able to learn the City has done some work on the antenna’s at the main radio site. It appears to have had significant improvements in the operation of the system especially in the Churchland area. I can attest to it first hand. I am actually impressed, their are still some issues but this is definitely a step in the right direction.

Hats off to whoever decided to do some troubleshooting before the city went forward with a multi-million dollar simulcast site in Churchland. I understand the city’s financial issues and as someone who has a contract on a house in Portsmouth and a future resident I don’t want the City of Portsmouth to needlessly waste money. Especially money they don’t have. I think improvements in the operation of the main site are a great step forward but the coverage from the backup site at the Jail also need to be addressed. If the main site goes down because of equipment failure or for maintenance the backup site will be put into service. I have significant concerns with the current radio architecture.

The City of Portsmouth really needs a “Radio System Engineer” to management and address these types of problems. Someone who is an expert in radio telecommunications and system architectures. Currently the radio system is managed by a computer professional. I don’t know if he has any radio telecommunications background or not. He is an IT (Information Technology) professional and I suspect he has no radio background. A computer professional (IT specialist) might be the best IT specialist on the planet but radio systems and computer systems have computers in common but if you have no background in radio telecommunications you are not going to be able to effectively manage a radio telecommunications system. Especially one as complex as a city wide Motorola 800Mhz Trunked Radio system. It took Virginia Beach a number of years to realize this fact and they now have a Radio Engineer dedicated to managing there 800Mhz Motorola Smartnet Simulcast Trunked Radio System.

A step in the right direction. Lets keep it up ..

I received a comment back in January that I have not had time to address until now. Below is the comment and my response;

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First, I never went begging or groveling for my job back. In fact Chief Corvello offered it back to me prior to the Grievance Panel Hearing but I turned him down because I would have had to take punishment for something I didn’t do. That was something I will never be willing to accept.

Second, I stopped writing for a number of reasons. As I said I won my grievance with the City of Portsmouth and was reinstated to my previous position as a Police Officer. That job keeps me very very busy so my time is much more limited then before.  As an employee of the City of Portsmouth I have certain obligations as an employee that I feel I must follow in my blog postings that I did not have when I was not an employee. If you read my goals when I started this blog you will see that many of my goals have been achieved or are being addressed;

1) Got my job back, received $20,000 in backpay and all my benefits.

2) City Council passed the resolution granting a Public Safety pay plan and finally making Public Safety pay “market based” and comparable to the other Police Departments in the area. The city is hoping to stem the flow of Portsmouth Police Officers leaving for better paying jobs in other departments. Their are issues with the Pay Plan and a copy of the report produced by the consultant “Matrix Consulting Group” is available by clicking here. The city will not answer questions about the plan and refer inqueries to Officer Jim Swann who is the President of the local Portsmouth FOP (Fraternal Order of Police) Lodge. Anyone see a problem with that? He is not in HR or in payroll and the city has no business referring any employee to him regarding their pay. Given the current financial situation I do not believe the city will follow through with this long overdue promise and institute the plan in July. I fully expect the City Council to backout of the deal claiming they don’t have the money because of the “economic crisis” not that I thought they could/would come up with the money to fund this before the crisis. I also have heard rumors that the city is saying that the Pay Plan is “Time in Grade” based. I disagree after reading the Matrix Report. It clearly states “An employee will move one step for each year of service.” Their is no mention of an employee starting over at Step 0/1 if they are promoted. The notion is ludicrous and senior people being promoted would actually receive pay cuts. More responsibility less pay, don’t see the logic in that…

3) See that better management is put in place in the Portsmouth Police Department. I have already made posts about that in the past. To update everyone that is not already aware, Portsmouth has a new Chief of Police, Edward G. Hargis. Thankfully he is from the “outside” and was not one of the people that applied from within. He is already making changes and from what I hear holding some of his executive staff far more accountable then the previous Chief. I am hoping that accountability, ethics and professionalism become the words of the day under the new Chief.

4) Radio System problems are being addressed, very slowly but plans call for a multi-million dollar Motorola Smartnet Simulcast site in Churchland to address the considerable problems Public Safety personel having in communicating using the current generation of portable radios. I am looking into additional details because I am now assigned to work Churchland several days a week and find the radio problem to be of serious concern for officer safety. I have used the new car and fixxed base repeaters that have been installed in some of the police cars and at several sites in the Churchland area. I am not impressed overall with the functionallity of the repeaters. They are a step in the right direction but they have significant short comings. Portsmouth needs a simucast site in Churchland to correct the problems and make it safe for all the city employees that rely on the system for communications. I hope and pray that some public safety official does not have to die to have the radio system short comings addressed.

This was my first post in many months and I have a couple other issues that I will be making posts about in the future but with my current constraints I will not be able to maintain the same level of posts as before.

Portsmouth is in financial crisis and appears to be the first city in this area to start laying off employees claiming budgetary shortfalls. Could these layoff’s have been prevented? It’s a complex question, but if you look at some of the previous actions of the Portsmouth City Council and the City of Portsmouth Upper Level Management the question might actually be yes.

After significant research several things become clear. First, the City Council saw fit to give the city’s executive management huge pay increases over the past 10 years compared to the rank and file general employee’s including the city’s Public Safety employee’s. Click here to see the Portsmouth Pay Increases Comparison 1998 through 2008 which documents the huge pay increases the City Manager, City Attorney and others in the upper levels of management have reaped in the past 10 years while the rank and file were given pittance pay increases. The data for the graph was obtained from the City of Portsmouth via FOIA and was contained in their own pay plans that the City Council approves each year placing them by ordinance into the city code.

I learned a long time ago that a true leader leads by example and is willing to make sacrifices for their people to see that they are taken care of. That has not been the case in Portsmouth. While the rank and file employees which include Public Safety have had to struggle, work second jobs or part time work to cover their family expenses or were forced to leave Portsmouth and seek employment elsewhere the city management has received significant pay increases. This certainly demonstrates what the Portsmouth City Council thinks about their rank and file employees that do the real work of the city. They don’t…

I am currently working on a study of the cost to City of Portsmouth tax payers every time a Portsmouth Police Officer is forced to leave employment because economically they simply can not afford to stay in Portsmouth.  I don’t have all the numbers crunched nor all the records I have FOIA’d from Portsmouth yet but hope to soon. My estimate from what I have already is that each officer that leaves costs the tax payers in excess of $50,000. You multiply that out with the number of officers that have been leaving and you could have had the funds to provide pay increases over the years. The city has continued to take away benefits from the Police Officers such as take home police cars. They used that as a recruiting tool for years. They would say hey, “we don’t pay as much as some of the other cities but after 5 years you are entitled to a take home police car with city gas to burn.” That benefit was taken away last year from many of the officers resulting in what amounted to a pay cut to many police officers who are already struggling to make ends meet.

A contributing factor to the current financial crisis is the continued trend over previous years to spend, spend, spend but not build up a contingency fund to cover just such a financial crisis. The city has an obligation to provide for a functional and safe court facility but instead they have invested in hotels and traffic circles.

The city contends that it was the consultant’s independent study that determined the positions were not needed.  That very well may be the case but unfortunately the city has no choice but to lay people off because of poor fiscal decisions made in the past. Had it not been a financial crisis because of poor decisions the city would not now have to place dozens of it’s employee’s into a crisis of their own. Portsmouth claims that it’s work force is a family, if that’s the case I suggest they start making sacrifices at the top to help some of their family at the bottom. The increased salaries given to management over the past decade were not even comparatively close to the raises the rank and file employees have received. The amounts involved actually could fully fund a number of the positions that were eliminated or provide funding to transition those employees to other positions within the city.

I received word yesterday that Interim Police Chief William Corvello resigned for the second and likely last time from his position with the City of Portsmouth Click here to see Chief Corvello’s second and likely last resignation letter. Having dealt with him personally during the previous months about matters related to my termination and grievance I have nothing but positive things to say about the Chief.

He is a “law enforcement officer” of the highest class who believes in doing things the right way, with honesty and integrity. I have no doubt some of his experiences with the current administration have left a bad taste in his mouth but I have no doubt he gave it his 110% during his tenure. I will have one last opportunity to meet with him on Monday as that is my final step in my grievance process and the last step in trying to get reinstated into the position Chief Long and City Manager Chandler terminated me from back in April. I have no expectations going into the meeting but one, that the person representing the City (Chief Corvello) has no ulterior motive, that he will do what he feels is the right thing to do and say. Unlike others in the executive staff of the Police Department that have personal agenda’s I firmly believe that Chief Corvello’s agenda was to fix the problems in the Department and to see that everyone at every level was treated fairly, honestly and that no one was shown any favoritism.

I have not made any posts in a while as I have been waiting on several Freedom of Information Act responses from various departments of the City of Portsmouth. My current project is to make an accurate estimation of the cost to train a newly hired Police recruit from the date of hire till the recruit is certified and released to Uniform Patrol as a fully trained productive officer.  Going hand-in-hand with that project is another one that will demonstrate the inequity between the pay raises given regular and public safety employee’s over the previous 10 years and the high level city management such as the City Manager, City Attorney etc etc.

Sometimes we live for the small victories in life. I received notification two days ago that the Virginia Unemployment Commission (VEC) ruled in my favor when I recently applied for unemployment benefits. After a telephone hearing, exchange of documents the Commission ruled that “The charge of misconduct is questionable” and that I am “Entitled to benefits”.

More to follow in the next week or so …

Below is the latest radio spot from the Portsmouth Fraternal Order of Police Lodge. They are attempting to generate support among the citizens of Portsmouth for better pay for the Portsmouth Police Officers. I fully support this endeavor and wish them well on a quest that typically falls on deaf ears in the Portsmouth City Council.

Over the previous 10 years the City of Portsmouth has provided significant pay raises to the executive staff of the City, i.e. City Manager, City Attorney etc. The pay raises given to the general and public safety employees has been significantly less during the same period. I am in the process of collecting and processing 10 years worth of City of Portsmouth Pay Plans to document this inequitable distribution of pay raises. Hopefully I will have that post ready in the next week or so.

Click to the right to hear the latest FOP Radio Spot Portsmouth FOP Radio Spot Number 2

If after you read my post or listen to the ad and want to help out, click the link below to go to the Portsmouth FOP page that has all the contact information to voice your concern to the Portsmouth City Council.

Email sent a little after 8pm tonight indicates that Chief Corvello met with City Council and they addressed his concerns. He has decided to stay.

That’s good news because the City of Portsmouth was not going to find anyone of Chief Corvello’s caliber, stature or experience.

Thanks Chief Corvello for staying ..

Click here for a copy of the email; Interim Chief William Corvello will be staying in Portsmouth

I had a good laugh today when I received an email with an audio attachment. It’s one of those funny things that’s sad. It starts off as a recruiting ad, kinda, but is actually a very well done parody of the current retention problems facing the Portsmouth Police Department. The Portsmouth Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) lodge had the ad made and is going to be airing it on various radio stations starting Monday.

I received permission to place it on my blog from one of the Officers of the Portsmouth FOP.

The Department has one very positive note for the junior officers that are hired. Once trained, then Department of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) certified Basic Law Enforcement Officers they can then find a job at any other Commonwealth of Virginia Law Enforcement Agency. A little over 10 years ago the City of Portsmouth changed their retirement system from a city run pension plan to the Commonwealth of Virginia “Virginia Retirement System” (VRS). By doing this they made a city employees retirement “portable”. You can now leave Portsmouth, go to any other Virginia state agency or municipality that is also under VRS and continue on with all your time from Portsmouth credited to you under your new agency for your retirement.

When you look at the pay differential of the local police departments (click here for area police pay comparison) you will see that Portsmouth ranks at the very bottom for pretty much everything. The question then becomes, why would a Portsmouth Junior Police Officer stick around in Portsmouth when they can go almost anywhere and get a pay raise in the thousands of dollars. Given the turmoil, mismanagement, politics, unfair treatment, inadequate compensation and poor working conditions how can you blame them for leaving? You can’t, but that doesn’t seem to concern the City of Portsmouth. The starting salary of a Portsmouth Police Officer is in the neighborhood of $30,000. It takes about a year from start to finish to train one to become a patrol officer and get them DCJS certified. You are talking about losing an investment of about $40,000-$50,000 every time a trained police officer leaves the department. Because Portsmouth Officers do more with less, handle more varied types of police cases due to the high crime rate (click here for Hampton Roads cities crime statistics comparison for 2006) they are far more experienced in a few short years then most of the other departments in the area and are popular applicants with the other departments. These departments avoid the $40,000-$50,000 cost to train a new officer and the applicant gets a pay raise in the thousands of dollars depending on the department that hires them.

Click the link below to listen to the ad, it’s accurate, funny and sad.. Portsmouth FOP Radio Recruiting Ad

If after you read my post or listen to the ad and want to help out, click the link below to go to the Portsmouth FOP page that has all the contact information to voice your concern to the Portsmouth City Council.

City of Portsmouth Interim Chief of Police William Corvello submitted his resignation on August 18th after a little over 3 months on the job. (Click to see Chief Corvello’s resignation letter to City Manager Kenneth Chandler). The resignation has an effective date of September 1st 2008. Chief Corvello was Portsmouth Police Departments best hope of getting all the numerous problems fixed and getting morale up in a demoralized Police Department that is fraught with numerous management problems for years.

Their has been much conjecture about Chief Corvello leaving short of his employment contract requirements. The Chief was on a Month-to-Month contract since starting his employment on May 7th, 2008 (Click here to see Chief William Corvello’s employment contract). If a retired Superintendent of State Police with Chief Corvello’s stature can not fix the problems or is not given the cooperation by City of Portsmouth Officials he needs to fix the Police Department then who can? Certainly not the current upper management of the Portsmouth Police Department. They have a sorted past, part of the current problems and lack of accountability can be directly attributed to the shenanigans of certain members of the current executive staff. Very few of the rank and file officers have any confidence in them. I have some personal experience with several of them and will be relating some incidents that will demonstrate that the current upper level executive staff is not fit to be a Chief of Police in Portsmouth or anywhere else.

I have had numerous contacts with Chief Corvello during these past months. I have only good things to say about him. He was fair, personable and reasonable. He cared about the people that worked for him and it was apparent that he wanted to fix the numerous problems that have plagued the Police Department for years. Unfortunately his hands were tied, he was micro-managed by the Office of the City Manager. As you can see in the resignation letter, he was “backdoored” by the City Attorney at least once (and I suspect that was one of many occasions).

He was not given the authority to accomplish the tasks neccessary to implement positive and required changes to fix a broken Police Department. I suspect Chief Corvello had to get everything pre-approved before he was allowed to do anything. Chief Corvello publicly speaks very highly of his association with Portsmouth City Manager Kenneth Chandler but if that was really the case would he be resigning? I think not !

A man of Chief Corvello’s stature and experience should have been allowed to make the necessary decisions on his own and implement them. If Chief Corvello can’t fix the problems with his vast resume who can?

Their are still a number of issues (moral, ethical & legal) that have been covered up over the years that are going to come out. Their has been illegal activity within the upper management of the Police Department. Some that people are aware, (i.e. Lt. Ali) some that hasn’t come to light yet. Their have been transgressions committed by Portsmouth Police management in the past that they have never been held accountable for. The saying “Do as I say not as I do” is a fitting phrase to describe many in Portsmouth Police leadership positions. Part of the problem is that they are supervisors but not leaders, they lack the discipline to follow their own policies. Certain staff members have been involved in illegal spending of department funds, had sex with subordinate female civilian employee’s in there office and other various incidents.

I know that if I was the Chief of Police trying to be fair, do the right thing and hold people accountable for their actions and was told “no you can’t” I’d resign too.

It’s extremely doubtful once Chief Corvello leaves that their will be any forward progress made in fixing the Portsmouth Police Department. He was the cream-of-the-crop, it is doubtful they are going to find anyone with his experience and caliber again. That’s a shame, given that they had a guy capable of pulling it off and the Portsmouth City government let him get away. You hired the guy to fix the problems, guess you should have let him do the job you hired him for.

Farewell Chief Corvello, we know you gave it your best shot ..

I have been involved with the City of Portsmouth for over four years now. As a Police Officer you are involved in many situations where people say things that are rude, impolite, hateful, abusive and obscene but what I heard at the Portsmouth City Council meeting on the night of the 22nd just left me in awe. Below is a short excerpt courtesy of Portsmouth TV Station WAVY-10.

This is not the image Portsmouth needs. Perhaps it’s time for Mayor Holley to consider retirement. Society in general no longer tolerates that type of perspective. The Mayor has had a turbulent time lately. Back in February he drove his 2006 City of Portsmouth Black Chevy Impala into the side of an HRT bus causing over $9000 damage to the bus. Below is the video from the inside of the bus as Mayor Holley hit the bus.

The three video’s above are courtesy of HRT. Below you will find links to pictures of the damage to the bus and Mayor Holley’s City of Portsmouth 2006 black Chevy Impala. The accident happened on a Sunday afternoon in Newport News about 4:44pm in broad daylight. Newport News Police were nice enough to provide me with a copy of the Impala Tow slip. The vehicle was severely damaged and could not be driven. It’s interesting to note that the Newport News Police Tow Slip lists a bunch of golf gear in the vehicle. I would guess that perhaps the Mayor was out for a round or two of golf on that leisurely afternoon. If you listen to the audio from Newport News Police Dispatch Channel you will hear the Officer that was handling the accident make a request of dispatch about 2 minutes into the recording asking for the Chief of Police for Portsmouth to call her. Gee kinda curious what that was about, did former Chief Long respond to Newport News and smooth things over with the locals? Below are the various records and recordings I obtained that documented various things about the incident. Take a look, listen and draw your own conclusions. I think that Mayor Holley is a perfect example of the problems plaguing the City of Portsmouth Government. Will the citizens of Portsmouth tolerate this type of person as their top elected official? I surely hope not, but they are the ones that need to take a stand and force positive change on Portsmouth City Government.

1) Newport News Police South Dispatch Channel - Listen closely at a little past two minutes into the audio when the Officer requests Portsmouth Chief of Police (Former Chief Ed Long) call her on her cellphone.

2) Newport News Police Vehicle Tow Slip - Mayor Holley’s City of Portsmouth 2006 Black Chevy Impala was damaged severely requiring NNPD to have the vehicle towed. Noted on the tow slip is a number of golfing items. Could this trip to Newport News been a golf outing?

3) Virginia Uniform Summons issued to Mayor James Holley - Copy of the Virginia Uniform Summons issued by Newport News Police Officer J. Pennington for “Fail to Obey Traffic Signal” when he ran the Red Light and struck the side of the HRT bus.

4) Virginia Court Record showing the disposition of Mayor James Holley’s Traffic Ticket - Court Document that shows his infraction was dismissed after paying $61 and returning to Newport News Court on July 18th 2008.

5) Incident Photo’s of Portsmouth Mayor James Holley’s crash into the side of an HRT bus (Large file 7 megs) - Various photo’s taken of the crash scene showing the damage to Mayor Holley’s City of Portsmouth 2006 Black Chevy Impala and the HRT bus.

6) Photo’s taken the day after HRT Bus 1906 was hit by Portsmouth Mayor James Holley - Photo’s taken of HRT Bus 1906 the day after the incident where Portsmouth Mayor James Holley hit the bus broadside. Photo’s were taken by Bryant Damage Appraisers & Ins. Investigations.

7) HRT Bus Driver Accident Report detailing the incident where Portsmouth Mayor James Holley crashed into his bus. - HRT Employee’s Accident Report that details the information provided by HRT Driver Renardo Benjamin that documents events involving Portsmouth Mayor James Holley crashing into the side of the HRT bus in Newport News.

8 ) HRT Supervisor John King’s “HRT Supervisor’s Report of Occurrence” - Report produced by HRT Supervisor John King that documents the events involving an HRT bus being hit by Portsmouth Mayor James Holley in Newport News.

9) HRT Supervisor’s Accident Diagram - Hand drawn diagram by HRT Supervisor John King showing the vehicle dynamics of the crash in Newport News when Portsmouth Mayor James Holley crashed into the side of the HRT Bus.

10) Capstone ISG Damage Appraisal Letter HRT Bus 1906 - Letter from Capstone ISG to HRT that documents $9,351.92 damage to HRT Bus 1906 hit by Portsmouth Mayor James Holley while driving a City of Portsmouth 2006 Black Chevy Impala.

11) Bryant Damage Appraisers, Inc Damage/Cost Breakdown for HRT Bus 1906 - Letter from Bryant Damage Appraisers, Inc detailing the $9,300 damage to HRT Bus 1906 that was struck by Portsmouth Mayor James Holley’s City of Portsmouth 2006 Black Chevy Impala.

12) HRT Bus 1906 Interior Video Still Images of Mayor James Holley crashing into the side of the HRT Bus (Large file 11 Megs) - Several still images extracted from HRT Bus 1906 Video camera’s on the interior of the bus.

13) Copy of the $9,300 Check the City of Portsmouth paid HRT for damage caused by Mayor James Holley’s Crash into the side of the bus - City of Portsmouth Check for $9,351.92 for payment to HRT for damage cause by Mayor James Holley when he crashed his City of Portsmouth 2006 Black Chevy Impala into the broadside of HRT Bus 1906.

Is it time for change in Portsmouth?

I have it on good authority that several original arrest warrants issued by a Portsmouth Magistrate were shredded because of possible political ties to someone in Portsmouth City Government.

Depending on who’s involved it’s a Class 6 Felony (Click here to read State Code 18.2-107 about destroying Public documents). I am doing some research on the matter but as I have recently found out the court refuses to release copies of unexecuted warrants. Click here to see the FOIA response letter I received from a Portsmouth Court refusing to even confirm that an unserved warrant exists and then refuses to provide a copy. Because they refuse to release copies or even acknowledge that they exist makes it easy to make one disappear and no one would notice.

An unexecuted warrant can only be ordered destroyed by a Judge of the Circuit Court per State Code 19.2-76.1 (Click here to read 19.2-76.1). My understanding is that these warrants were destroyed without a Court order.

It appears corruption in Portsmouth Government is something that City Officials refuse to acknowledge even when they have the evidence right in there own files and are told about it. This doesn’t speak well about our government or the trust we place in them or our elected officials.

I will definitely follow up on this and see what more I can find out.