Warriors and Whiners

Road Warrior
Norfolk City Manager Marcus Jones said he would name an interim director of the city’s development department and then begin searching for a permanent replacement.

That was September 22, 2011.

Chuck Rigney, whose credits include banking, commercial real estate and 15 years with the city, was named the interim director.

That was November 28, 2011.

It is now January 25, 2013, and Rigney is still the interim director and still on the longest interview in his life.

What’s the delay?

Rigney, a familiar face in the business community, revels in public appearances, a plus and a necessity for this town.  

Either hire Rigney or find someone else.

Prolonging the hire reflects procrastination and indecision on the part of city officials and Norfolk City Council.

This is a pivotal position for the city’s economy and shouldn’t be treated as a political plum for special interests or for the whims of city council.

The delay sends the wrong message to the right people – investors. 

You've come so far Mr. Jones. You have transformed the city's administration, and I sense you have more to offer. 

So hire someone to spearhead the city's economic development strategy, who is public, who can make deals and who is comfortable pitching the city to strangers. 

There will be blood - The missing piece

In the recent class-action suit filed against a dozen former executives and directors of Commonwealth Bankshares, parent company of now defunct Bank of the Commonwealth, someone is blind.

Or in complete denial. Or mistaken. 

You decide.

Former stockholder Robert Bogatitus filed the class-action suit Tuesday, January 22, in US District, alleging that the former directors and executives fraudulently hid massive losses that caused the bank to fail and left the company's stock worthless, a Virginian-Pilot said.

Norfolk City Treasurer and former speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, Thomas Moss Jr., issued some terse words for the public in The Pilot article.

Moss served on the bank’s board for ten years, as well as the audit and investment committees.

"The board is clean on this."

"He doesn't know what he's talking about," Moss said of the stockholder.

"The feds haven't found a thing wrong with the board."

"I told them I don't know how to answer your questions because I know nothing about it.”

Moss and five other former members -- Morton Goldmeier, E. Carlton Bowyer; Herbert Perlin; Kenneth Young; and William D. Payne – served on the audit committee, the target of the suit.

But a piece is missing.

Past financial documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission show that Moss and six other board members, including CEO Ed Woodard, served on an Investment Committee.

The bank’s 2009 proxy statement said the investment committee administered the investment and asset/liability policies of the company.

The bank’s 2008 proxy statement said the committee administered the investment policies of the company.

But the bank’s 2010 proxy statement, a year before it folded, never mentioned an investment committee.

Darkness Falls on Norfolk
Streets in portions of Ghent are dark and dreary.

The lights are out on Westover, north of Botetourt, and have been for a week.

It’s early morning.

The bushes rustle with imagined foes. I can’t see. I am blind to the threats lurking there because the street lights are out. I fear for my life, my sanity and the pack of cigarettes in my pocket.

I am accosted.

“Hey, buddy, ya got a cigarette,” a guy appears out of nowhere, wearing a hood like a member of the Medieval Order of Black Friars.

“Man, it’s dark here,” he says. “I could get mugged and no one would know it.”

I sympathized with this mendicant of the streets.

“Call the city,” I say. “Better yet, call the contractor that replaced the sewer pipes.”

He evaporated, the cigarette I gave him flaring in the darkness.