Portsmouth officials concerned with solicitations

PORTSMOUTH

A woman drove down a highway exit ramp in the heart of the city Tuesday and held two dollars out the driver's side window of her minivan.

"Are you seeking a donation?" she asked Pastor James W. Suggs, who stood on the side of the ramp near Victory Boulevard, bucket in hand.

The yellow sign taped to his bucket reads: "Last Days Harvest Outreach Center. Help Feed + Cloth Women + Children Gal 6:10 non-profit."

An ID card identifying Suggs as a solicitor dangled from his neck. He took the woman's money, thanked her and quickly turned his attention to other cars.

"This is my pulpit right here," Suggs said, gesturing toward the street. "This is my ministry."

City streets are increasingly a venue to solicit contributions.

Since about January, Portsmouth police estimate they have seen the number of solicitors in some of the city's busiest intersections increase tenfold. That has some city officials concerned, and they'll hold a news conference about it Monday.

"We haven't had to deal with it on this scale until recently," said Portsmouth Police Capt. Robert Butler.

Butler is not aware of traffic accidents resulting from the solicitations, he said. But police have received repeated reports from city staff and residents of aggressive solicitation.

"These people are so persistent," said Michael Fink, who runs a towing company in the city and has complained to police about solicitors.

"They're seeking each driver out by pointing at them. They're kind of intimidating."

Councilwoman Elizabeth Psimas said she was stopped May 31 by solicitors as she left Victory Crossing Shopping Center.

She asked a man in a tie and orange vest for whom he was collecting money. New Life Ministry, he said, and asked for a donation, Psimas recalled.

Psimas asked him for a card so she could mail a donation.

"He told me I should get off my pedestal in my Benz," recalled Psimas, who drives a Mercedes.

City officials are considering asking state legislators for permission to ban or limit solicitations. Portsmouth leaders are discussing whether to propose bills at the next General Assembly session that would either add the city to the list of localities allowed to regulate solicitation on their own, or rewrite the law to make it a statewide option for municipalities to do so.

If the city receives permission and decides to enact an ordinance, it would have to apply to all solicitation of funds in public streets - including firefighters collecting money in their boots.

"Legitimate charities, questionable organizations, and homeless people would all have to be treated the same," City Attorney Tim Oksman wrote in an e-mail.

"If it's illegal for one, it's illegal for all."

The issue of street solicitation became heated locally in 2004, when the Norfolk City Council voted 5-2 to ban solicitation by those without a city permit.

The effort drew protests from both Norfolk firefighters raising money for muscular dystrophy and the Nation of Islam.

Suggs' organization, Last Days Harvest Christian Church International, is registered as tax-exempt with the Internal Revenue Service, according to an agency customer service representative.

The address in the IRS files is the same one in Michigan that Suggs provided to Cheseapeake when he registered to solicit there.

In recent interview, Suggs said he was raising money for a church based in Tallahassee, Fl a. Asked about the Michigan address, Suggs said he had recently moved.

Suggs served three prison stints in Florida between 1988 and 1996 for grand theft and forgery, according to a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Corrections.

Suggs confirmed that he had served time in Florida. But he said everyone has a past and he's not doing "those things" anymore.

"Don't condemn me with my past. I'm a new man," Suggs said.

On Tuesday, the driver of a truck waiting for a red light to change at Victory Boulevard asked Suggs whether the homeless in Tidewater would benefit from the money.

Another driver, Robert Williams, said he heard the solicitors were collecting money for the homeless and dropped a dollar in the bucket.

"I'll help people that need it," Williams said.

Andra Kimp approached Suggs on foot, holding a small plastic container. He opened it and dumped change into Suggs' bucket.

He told Suggs that he worked at the car wash for a nearby used car lot and that he had collected the change that was left in the last four cars he'd cleaned.

"I just heard him say that it's going to children," Kimp said.

Suggs said the money he collects goes into a corporate account with his church in Tallahassee.

Suggs said he has used money to help local people, like lending $200 to a woman who he said was about to be evicted.

Suggs said he has been debating whether to open an outreach center for the homeless here, but he provided few details. Some states require solicitors to have local or state offices.

"Everybody wants to see something, but it's frustrating, because I'm not at liberty to say," Suggs said.

"People start calling you by your first name, then you know you've been there too long," Suggs said.

Pilot writer Julian Walker contributed to this report.

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