Decline to opine: Virginia attorney general will not weigh in on Hopewell firings issue
Hopewell Commonwealth's Attorney Rick Newman confirmed last week that Attorney General Jason Miyares would not offer an opinion on the vote by Ward 4 Councilor Ronnie Ellis. Newman had asked council to delay any action on the future of Dr. Concetta Manker until Miyares could opine on Ellis' ability to vote.
A spokesperson for Miyares neither confirmed nor denied there was any action on Newman's request.
'We receive many requests for opinions, and there are numerous grounds upon which we will decline to issue a formal opinion in response,' Shaun Kenney said in an email last week to The Progress-Index. 'We do not comment on specific requests.'
According to Virginia law, local prosecutors are one of several Virginia officials permitted to ask for opinions from the attorney general.
More: Hopewell commonwealth's attorney finds legal fault with council's firing of city manager
Newman had said he thought Ellis – a battalion chief with the Hopewell Fire Department – would be in conflict because of his day job. As the department's second-in-command, Ellis could be called upon at any time to step in for the fire chief who is traditionally appointed by the city manager. Because of that possibility, he still could be considered as a direct report to the city manager.
Ellis did not take part in the first effort last February to oust Manker, which failed on a 3-3 vote. However, on May 1, Ellis made the motion to reconsider the termination, which appears to violate Rule 36 of Robert's Rules of Order that only persons who voted on the prevailing side (or any side in the matter of a tie vote) could make the motion.
Ellis made the motion May 1 to reconsider the termination and also joined three others on council in the 4-3 vote that let not only Manker go but also fired Brittani Williams as city clerk without cause.
Rule 36 also says that any vote reconsideration can happen 'only on the day the vote to be reconsidered was taken, or on the next succeeding day, a legal holiday or a recess not being counted as a day.' Two-and-a-half months passed between the first vote and the reconsideration.
The move has generated a great deal of blowback from citizens and some councilors for what they say are an underlying racist tone of the vote – Manker and Williams are Black; Ellis, Mayor Johnny Partin Jr., Vice Mayor Rita Joyner and Ward 5 Councilor Susan Daye are White.
More: Tempers, tensions, racism, lawsuits dot Hopewell City Council agenda. How it played out
Manker and Williams are expected to file lawsuits over the firings. Ward 7 Councilor Dominic Holloway has also vowed to bring court action.
Two protests over the decision were held last week in front of the Municipal Building in downtown Hopewell. One of the groups who protested – the Virginia Party for Socialism & Liberation, whose presence startled many in this somewhat conservative city – is planning another rally May 27 to coincide with the next Hopewell City Council meeting.
Bill Atkinson (he/him/his) is an award-winning journalist who covers breaking news, government and politics. Reach him at batkinson@progress-index.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @BAtkinson_PI.
This article originally appeared on The Progress-Index: Virginia attorney general stays out of Hopewell firing decision
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
San Francisco Chronicle
30 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
By sending troops to D.C. and eyeing Oakland, Trump continues targeting Black-led cities
When President Donald Trump announced Monday that he will deploy National Guard troops to the streets of Washington D.C. to combat crime, he named several other cities where he might take similar action. 'We have other cities also that are bad. Very bad,' Trump said during the White House news conference. 'You look at Chicago, how bad it is. You look at Los Angeles, how bad it is. We have other cities that are very bad. New York has a problem. And then you have, of course, Baltimore and Oakland. We don't even mention that anymore there.' Trump and other members of his administration, while often using false or misleading statistics, have cited rampant crime as the justification for deploying federalized troops within U.S. cities. But these cities share another commonality: They're led by Black mayors. Critics don't think that's a coincidence. Trump's focus on Washington D.C., Chicago, Baltimore, New York and Oakland is part of a larger pattern in which the president has suggested cities with majority-Black populations, or those led by Black leaders, are hotbeds of crime and corruption and symbols of American decline. 'I see this as a political dog whistle to his base, evoking long-running stereotypes that Black mayors cannot adequately govern or are soft on crime in their cities,' said Jordie Davies, a professor of political science at UC Irvine. 'Donald Trump is engaging in political theater so he can be seen as responding to the racist ideas that these cities are poorly run and overrun with crime — even as statistics demonstrate that violent crime in major U.S. cities, including D.C., is down this year.' Reports of violent crimes — homicides, robberies, assaults and sexual abuse —have seen steep declines over the last two years, the Washington Post reported. 'If he is going to start lying about major American cities to justify sending the military there, it is not surprising to me that he would pick cities with Black leadership and significant Black populations,' state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, said Monday. 'That is straight up Donald Trump's alley and straight out of his racist playbook.' Crime is also falling in Oakland, a trend that Mayor Barbara Lee cited Monday in arguing that Trump was less interested in facts than in scoring 'cheap political points by tearing down communities he doesn't understand.' Oakland experienced a 6% increase in reported violent crimes in 2024, but saw a decrease in homicides and property crimes, according to a Chronicle analysis. So far in 2025, violent crimes including homicides are down significantly in the city. 'We're making real progress on public safety in Oakland, and while we acknowledge we have more work to do, we are doing this work each and every day,' Lee said. 'Our comprehensive public safety strategy is working — crime rates are coming down even though we still face many challenges. And let me repeat, President Trump is wrong.' Before Trump accepted the Republican presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last year, he reportedly called the city 'horrible.' 'Trump is a lot of things but he certainly isn't subtle—all of the cities he denigrates have one important thing in common: they all have significant Black populations,' DNC Chair Jaime Harrison said in a statement to the Daily Beast at the time. In 2020, Trump said of Detroit, Oakland and Baltimore, 'these cities, it's like living in hell.' 'And everyone gets upset when I say it, they say, 'Is that a racist statement? ' It's not a racist,' Trump told Fox News. 'Frankly, Black people come up to me, they say, 'Thank you. Thank you sir for saying it.'' Davies, the UC Irvine professor, said using the fear of crime — especially the idea of 'Black crime' — has always been an effective political message in the U.S. It was a message Trump hammered consistently in the 2024 election, a race in which he doubled his share of Black voters from 2020. (still, Trump's opponent, then-Vice President Kamala Harris, won 83% of Black voters.) 'Crime evokes fear and fear provides a political vacuum that can be filled with state violence,' Davies said. 'It will be important for experts, politicians, and journalists to call out Trump's lies about crime in these places and name this for what it is: a racist attempt to dominate Black cities and a performance of power for his base.'
Boston Globe
an hour ago
- Boston Globe
Cambridge names three finalists for district superintendent Monday
Mayor Denise Simmons, who serves as School Committee chair, did not respond to requests for comment Monday. Cambridge has been without a permanent schools leader since May 2024, when the School Committee voted Related : Advertisement Murphy, an attorney who had been serving as the district's chief operations officer, was named the interim superintendent that June. None of the finalists immediately responded to a request for comment Monday afternoon. The district will hold listening sessions during the week of Aug. 20, and School Committee members will conduct site visits to the finalists' school districts the week of Sept. 15, according to a schedule posted by the district. There will also be opportunities to meet each of the finalists during the week of Sept. 22, according to the district. The School Committee will interview the finalists on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1, and a vote to select the next superintendent is expected Oct. 6, according to the district. Advertisement Finalist interviews will be broadcast live and will be open to the public, the district said in its announcement. Public comment will not be included, it said. Cambridge's public school district is home to about 7,000 students, according to state data, and more diverse than the state as a whole. Black students make up more than one-fifth of the district, while Asian and Latino students each count for about 15 percent, the state reported. Around a tenth of Cambridge's students are multi-race, and roughly a third are white, state data showed. Students and Cambridge district staff represent more than 109 countries, 89 languages are spoken in the schools, and about 30 percent of students speak a first language other than English, according to an online description for the superintendent's job. The superintendent oversees a district with more than 2,000 employees, including educators, and a proposed budget of $280 million for fiscal 2026. Greer, the previous Cambridge superintendent, had Smith drew complaints from teachers and parents over her decision-making on issues like the assignments of some assistant teachers in classrooms and a police presence at the school. Cambridge Public Schools hired an outside law firm to review Smith's leadership of the school early in 2024, which determined the allegations against Smith were unsubstantiated. Greer was placed on paid leave until her final day in early August 2024. Greer, whose tenure as superintendent ended a year early, received more Advertisement Greer earned $260,000 in fiscal 2023, the first year of her three-year contract, which also included a 2.5 percent bump in pay in each of the remaining two years. 'I am saddened to leave,' Greer This is a developing story. Check back for updates. John Hilliard can be reached at
San Francisco Chronicle
an hour ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Trump's moves toward taking over Washington are unprecedented. Here's what the law says
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump took unprecedented steps toward federalizing Washington, D.C. on Monday, saying it's needed to fight crime even as city leaders pointed to data showing violence is down. He took command of the police department and deployed the National Guard under laws and Constitutional powers that give the federal government more sway over the nation's capital than other cities. Its historically majority Black population wasn't electing its own city council and mayor until 1973, when Republican President Richard Nixon signed the Home Rule Act. The measure still left significant power to the president and Congress, though no president has exercised the police powers before. He activated the National Guard The Constitution calls for the creation of the District of Columbia to serve as the federal seat of power under the jurisdiction of Congress rather than any state. While the Home Rule Act allowed for greater local control, the president can still call up the National Guard in Washington. His administration did it during Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, when members were later faulted for flying a helicopter too low over a crowd. The Guard was called out again during Trump's first term on Jan. 6, 2021, when his supporters overran the Capitol. Trump's second-term moves in Washington come as the legal battle continues over his deployment of the National Guard in another Democratic-led city, Los Angeles, despite the objections of Gov. Gavin Newsom. His authority is less clear there, but an appeals court has so far refused to intervene. A lower-court judge was starting a trial Monday to determine whether the deployment violated another federal law. He took over the police Section 740 of the Home Rule Act allows for the president to take over Washington's Metropolitan Police Department for 48 hours, with possible extensions to 30 days, during times of emergencies. No president has done so before, said Monica Hopkins, executive director of the ACLU of Washington. Trump cited a number of recent high-profile incidents, including the killing of a 21-year-old congressional intern and the beating of a DOGE staffer during an attempted carjacking. 'This is liberation day in D.C. and we're going to take our Capitol back,' the president said. The Democratic mayor of D.C., Muriel Bowser, called the takeover 'unprecedented." She said that violent crime overall in Washington has decreased to a 30-year low, after a rise in 2023. Carjackings, for example, dropped about 50% in 2024, and are down again this year. More than half of those arrested, however, are juveniles, and the extent of those punishments is a point of contention for the Trump administration. He didn't specify how long it would last It wasn't immediately clear how long the takeover might last or exactly what it might mean. It could also face challenges in court. Congress still has power over things like the budget and laws passed by the city council, but would have to repeal the Home Rule Act to expand federal power in the district. It's something a few Republican lawmakers have pushed to do, but such an overhaul would almost certainly run into steep resistance from most Democrats, making it difficult to achieve. The law is specific to D.C., and doesn't affect other communities around the U.S. referred to as having their own 'home rule' powers in relationship to their state governments. Hopkins said Trump's moves in Washington could foreshadow similar tactics in other cities. 'That should alarm everyone," she said, 'not just in Washington.'
