Freeze Fraim, A Titan in the White House

Freeze Fraim

This is a Big Day.

Today Mayor Paul Fraim will stand and deliver.

Today he will address an adoring crowd.

He will tell us about the state of the city. He will bestow his benediction upon the crowd.

Expect some announcements.

Fraim likes to thrill the audience with nuggets of new projects, past achievements and future visions.

The Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce sponsors the event, which will be held at Norfolk Waterside Marriott, beginning at 11:30am.

A notice on the Chamber’s web site said the event is sold out.

Norfolk’s mayor kicks off the series, followed by Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Portsmouth and Suffolk, but not necessarily in that order.

Norfolk’s mayor gets top billing.

Which seems incongruous. Why Norfolk first? Why not Virginia Beach, the most populous and most affluent city in the region?

As usual, Norfolk leads and everyone else follows.

Old habits never die. They are perpetuated.

Just One More, Mayor
The bill to change the Norfolk mayoral election term from four to two years has been approved by the Virginia House of Delegates and now rests with the Senate committee on Local Government.

Should the bill pass, expect Fraim to campaign (and probably win) another term, but for two years, and then he will retire from politics.

Meanwhile, the contenders (or pretenders) to the crown are jostling for leverage in a town where ward politics wins.

 A Titan in the Big House                                                                                                                           
Zack Miller, the consummate promoter, was at the White House earlier this week.


Even better, he was caught wearing a blazer, tie and dress shirt.

It seems out of character for him. Yet he’s in the White House, pitching something, anything, in his understated style.




The Labyrinth of Transparency
City Manager Marcus Jones promised to make his administration more transparent than the previous administration. He has done so – up to a point. 

A report by the Public Interest Research Group, or PIRG, compares the transparency of city spending nationwide. Some cities, as the report illustrates, post a checkbook online showing where money was spent.

So I asked Norfolk officials a few questions.

Is Mr. Jones willing to consider some of the practical applications in this report, such as the examples on pages 11 to 13?

Would Norfolk consider posting information spending on the Web site?

The response.

“We are always working to become more available to the public,” said Norfolk spokeswoman Lori Crouch.

“We have received awards for our budget and CAFR [comprehensive financial annual report]. We will certainly consider and evaluate additional notification methods.”

The “New Normal" Norfolk Planning Commission

Chairman, Earl J. Fraley Jr., a licensed real estate appraiser with Virginia Beach based Smith and Company

Vice Chairman, Martin A. Thomas, Jr., an attorney at Decker, Cardon, Thomas, Weintraub & Neskis, P.C. in Norfolk.

Lisa Chandler, Executive Vice President of Nancy Chandler Associates, a real estate firm based in Norfolk

Lorraine K. Flood, retiree of Norfolk Public Schools and member of Calvary Revival Church and currently the league manager of Hampton Roads 7 Cities Pro-Am, Inc. Mrs. Flood was appointed to the Commission in January, 2013.

Matthew Hales, co-founder and owner of GVI Inc., a Norfolk based defense contracting and consulting firm

Brad Law, an engineer with the City of Virginia Beach Department of Public Utilities

Dr. Neumann, a gastroenterologist with Gastroenterology and Liver Specialists of Tidewater PLLC.