HOPEWELL – A move to fire City Manager Concetta Manker failed on a tie vote Wednesday night after one City Councilor, apparently tired from the marathon closed session that preceded the action, walked out of the city council chambers without voting.
The 3-3 vote fell strictly along racial lines. Councilors Michael Harris, Yolanda Wyche Stokes and Dominic Holloway – all Black members – supported keeping Manker, who is Black. Mayor Johnny Partin, Vice Mayor Rita Joyner and Councilor Susan Daye voted in favor of termination.
Manker
Ward 4 Councilor Ronnie Ellis, a battalion chief with the Hopewell Fire Department, left the chambers without voting. Had he cast a ballot, his vote could have been considered a conflict-of-interest because of his city employment.
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Air thick with tension
Tensions hung heavy over the council chambers almost from the start of the meeting and only intensified as the night wore on. Raised voices could be heard coming from the off-chambers meeting room, and after more than two and a half hours behind the door, councilors emerged to cast a quick and terse unanimous vote to go back into closed session until the issue was resolved.
Shortly before the meeting was to hit its four-hour mark, councilors returned to the dais. Ellis gathered his belongings and walked out of the chamber under the glowering stare of Partin.
Once Ellis was gone, Partin asked for a motion to terminate Manker “without cause” and offer her a six-month severance package plus benefits instead of the 12-month clause that was in her original contract.
Before the vote was taken, Holloway indicated he was ready to vote but not before insinuating that some of his colleagues had already made up their minds to get rid of Manker before the meeting.
“Even in deciding personally for myself, I still feel there were certain decisions made and brought up in discussion before coming to this council meeting,” he said.
Following the meeting, Partin refused to comment on the decision. Asked if there were any specific issues that led to the motion or if council would consider revisiting the matter at a later date, he replied to both questions, “I can’t comment on that because it’s a personnel matter.”
Other councilors left the meeting without commenting, either. Harris and Stokes took part in the meeting remotely.
Manker, who did not attend the meeting due to illness, told The Progress-Index she “was not provided the courtesy to be told” in advance that her contract and possible termination were the reasons for the special meeting.
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A rocky path from the start
Manker, Hopewell’s former information technology director, has been city manager in Hopewell since 2022, the first 11 months as interim after March Altman left to take the Petersburg city manager’s job. She faced criticism from some on council for the way she managed the yearlong $3 million contract with the Robert Bobb Group to reboot Hopewell’s flailing fiscal-management system and the back-and-forth with city treasurer Shannon Foskey over a plan to transfer accounting duties from Foskey’s office to the Hopewell finance department.
That led to a standoff between Foskey and the city where Foskey blocked Hopewell’s access to its bank accounts and only reinstated it after council and administration forced her hand. Foskey wound up being arrested on an embezzlement charge for blocking the access, but some on council claimed Manker overstepped her authority and sought the criminal charge without council signing off on it.
Manker also has faced criticism from Joyner, the vice mayor and one of three votes in 2023 to not give Manker the job full-time. Joyner publicly questioned Manker’s ability to perform as city manager without any prior municipal administration experience, and she also sent an email – a copy of which was obtained by The Progress-Index through the Virginia Freedom of Information Act – telling a constituent she hoped to garner enough support from the three people elected to council last November to push for Manker’s ouster.
Bill Atkinson (he/him/his) is an award-winning journalist who covers breaking news, government and politics. Reach him at [email protected] or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @BAtkinson_PI.
This article originally appeared on The Progress-Index: Hopewell City Council fails to fire city manager Concetta Manker
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