Portsmouth council votes to enter closed session for annual personnel reviews

Portsmouth City Council voted June 23 to enter a closed meeting under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act to discuss annual performance reviews for the city assessor, city clerk and city manager.

Councilman Hugo moved "I move to go into closed meeting pursuant to Virginia code subsection 2.2 dash 3 7 1 1 a 0.1 for the purpose of discussing the annual performance reviews for the city assessor, city clerk, and city manager," and a second was recorded. The council approved the motion by roll call. Present and voting in favor were Miss Bryant, Doctor Dodson, Mr. Hugel, Miss Thomas, Mr. Tillich and Mayor Glover; Mr. Louisa and Mr. Moody were recorded as absent.

After the closed meeting, Councilman Hugo read a certification motion: "I hereby move that each council member certify that to the best of his or her knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion by which the closed meeting was convened were heard, discussed, or considered in a closed meeting just concluded." The certification motion was seconded and approved by roll call with the same recorded yes votes and absences.

The transcript contains no substantive discussion of the personnel reviews themselves; the meeting record reflects only the motion to convene a closed session for those reviews and the subsequent certification that the closed session covered only the matters identified in the motion. The work session concluded and was adjourned.