Cruise e-mail puts city employee in hot water

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By Jen McCaffery
The Virginian-Pilot
© June 20, 2009

PORTSMOUTH

It sounds like fun: a seven-day Carnival cruise to the Bahamas to celebrate a birthday.

The only problem? An e-mail solicitation for the fall trip was sent out June 5 by the city's marketing manager, LaVoris Pace.

Meanwhile, the president of the travel company seeking cruisegoers, and the birthday girl, is Portsmouth Councilwoman Elizabeth Psimas.

Psimas said Friday that she did not know her company's promotion had been e-mailed by a city employee. Her company, Travel Designers, is located downtown.

"I did not ask any city employee to distribute this information, nor was I consulted before it was sent," Psimas wrote in an e-mailed statement Friday. "It is inappropriate for the city to advertise any particular business, and most especially one that is owned by a City Council member."

The employee routinely sends out e-mail blasts of events designed to bring people to Portsmouth, Psimas noted.

Psimas added that the employee had been made aware of the error, as has acting City Manager Betty Burrell. Psimas said she is confident that the mistake will not happen again.

Pace wrote in a statement released Friday that more than a year ago, the city launched a promotion to encourage spending in Portsmouth and its businesses.

"The campaign targets city employees, business owners, and citizens through a variety of marketing strategies to include cost-effective e-blast messages," Pace wrote.

"In these tough economic times, to help keep Portsmouth's economy vibrant, the city has a responsibility to encourage, support and help promote our business partners through business retention and marketing strategies," Pace added.

Jen McCaffery, (757) 446-2627, jen.mccaffery@pilotonline.com

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Portsmouth Chamber of Commerce

Submitted by markk33831 on Sat, 06/20/2009 at 8:43 pm.

The local Chamber of Commerce should be handling such promotions. Last time I checked, that was one of their jobs, instead of city employees.

Nothing worse than being

Submitted by ChrisK on Sat, 06/20/2009 at 5:42 pm.

Nothing worse than being busted on a technicality.

The Complainant:

Submitted by Art Director on Sat, 06/20/2009 at 3:05 pm.

Was probably "Louie" (gimme-de-money) Lucas, who resented anyone else in any part of local politics sniffing around her personal P-town pie. I also quite agree that otherwise, this is a total non-story.

Did I miss something?

Submitted by DMLassiter on Sat, 06/20/2009 at 12:40 pm.

Acting City Manager Burrell? What happened to Mr. Chandler?

Who's complaining?

Submitted by r.j. on Sat, 06/20/2009 at 10:28 am.

The backstory the Pilot failed to disclose----someone complained to make this an issue. Another council member?

Cruise email

Submitted by frankk93282 on Sat, 06/20/2009 at 10:27 am.

Unfortunately, making an employee "aware of what was done wrong and being certain it won't happen again," is far from enough as far as any punishment. Any OTHER City employee would be suspended and an investigation launched........So, let's do the RIGHT thing!

"City Employee Mailings"--NOT!

Submitted by Cit-com on Sat, 06/20/2009 at 9:18 am.

This is SO not a story about "City Employee Mailings." (Who writes these subheads, anyway?) In fact, it's a story about trying to promote the City of Portsmouth in cooperation with a committee of volunteers who spend precious free time at 8 a.m. (ouch!) meetings trying to figure out ways to keep businesses here in business and sell our city. We asked the City's Marketing Department, represented at these early morning meetings by the very talented and hard-working Mr. Pace, to send out e-mails promoting Portsmouth businesses. Anyone who receives these e-mails should have noticed by now that they are many and varied and NOT targeted to any one entity. And anyone paying attention to First Events Weekends and special events might have noticed more people downtown spending their time and money, producing revenue streams for the City, which--HELLO!--helps reduce the property tax burden on our stressed citizens. Ms. Psimas was not even at the table on this matter, and I cannot stress enough how much time, talent and energy Mr. Pace has put into promoting the entire business community--we are very lucky to have him here in Portsmouth. --Terry "Not a Morning Person" Danaher

Can you say --- Cover-up?

Submitted by lj17163 on Sat, 06/20/2009 at 7:36 am.

Not a real big surprise here. If anyone thinks that this was an accident by some lowly uninformed city employee I have a bridge I'll be happy to sell you! The only thing that surprises me is Mayor Holley isn't somehow involved in it.