5 cities at a glance: City bills APM for retroactive tax fees

PORTSMOUTH 

APM Terminals' tax bill for its six multimillion dollar marine cargo cranes is $1.3 million.

City Assessor Alethia C. Bryce said Monday that a bill was mailed Friday to APM Terminals. It included retroactive tax fees for the cranes.

The $450 million terminal off Western Freeway opened in early 2007.

City officials have been trying to determine whether the cranes should be taxed as personal property or real estate. In August, they agreed the cranes should be taxed as real estate.

APM Terminals, Portsmouth's largest taxpayer, pays about $4 million in real estate taxes annually and already paid $2.7 million in personal property taxes for this year. An APM Terminals spokeswoman did not return a phone call Monday.

- Jen McCaffery

Bataan will be in N.Y. for Veterans Day

NORFOLK

About 1,500 sailors and Marines aboard the amphibious assault ship Bataan will celebrate Veteran s Day in New York.

The Norfolk-based ship is scheduled to arrive at pier 88 on the West Side of Manhattan at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday. It will be open for public tours on Saturday and Sunday, according to a news release.

Bataan sailors and Marines from the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit will participate in community outreach and the Veteran s Day parade. They also will support the re opening of the Intrepid, the decommissioned aircraft carrier also docked on Manhattan's West Side.

The ship will return to sea after the New York visit to continue training for an upcoming overseas deployment, according to the Navy.

- Louis Hansen

City names director of public health

NORFOLK

Kim McDonald, who graduated from Eastern Virginia Medical School and is a former Navy physician who was once stationed in Norfolk, will become the city's new director of public health. She replaces Valerie Stallings, who retired last summer after 35 years.

McDonald attended undergraduate school at the University of California at Irvine and graduated from EVMS in 1995. After completing a master's of public health at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences, she returned to Norfolk as a program manager dealing with chemical, biological and radiological weapons casualties for the Navy.

She is a local manager for the North Carolina Department of public health in Greenville and has served as the acting health director in Pitt County.

Although the public health director is a state position, City Manager Regina V.K. Williams and Assistant City Manager Anne Odell participated in the interview process because McDonald will work closely with city officials. McDonald begins work on Jan. 10.

- Harry Minium