Olde Towne residents push for flooding fix

I know I pay more than $10K a year in property tax "because Portsmouth is a smaller region and the per capita rate for tazes is higher". My question to government officials is simply - with all the money we pay each year, why are our roads the worst in Hampton Roads and why can't the flooding/ drainage issues be fixed? I get tired of hearing "lottery money proceeds/taxes" go for schools but I don;t see any Portsmouth Schools that looks decent - the same applies to our roads. Someone's living high on the hog off hard-working people - and I'm sure they don't suffer when we have flooding ... Maybe officials she be more concerned about making life better rather than their pay raises and hiring illegals or using non "made in the USA" agencies - Yeah - I think I covered just about every iem that ticks me off - the question is: what is our government going to do about the things that just keep getting worse?????

I see the street sweepers on High Street and in Old Town. I live in Churchland and haven't seen one in years. I can't feel sorry for Old Town. Drive down Crawford Parkway and you can see that the whole area is a flood waiting to happen. You have 2 Council members that live in your area yet Churchland only has one. Get over it and move to higher ground or get the City to cut back on the 51 million it spends on Social Services to fix your problem.

"We tried to get flood insurance, but it isn't available to renters."

Flood insurance for contents is readily available to renters. All, day, all night, year round after a 30 day wait.

In order to fix something it has to be broken. The existence of gravity and the nature of a fluid to flow to the lowest points is not broken.

I am a City of Portsmouth employee. I do know for a fact that the city was shut down but some employees were still at work for emergency storm duty!!!!!! We closed Thursday at 8:20 or so and most of the employees went home but some (few) but some departments kept people here to do emergency work. Mother Nature is going to do what she wants to do. The City WORKERS CAN NOT perform miracles. Everyone is so quick to complain but nobody knows how to give compliments!!!! Yes is was flooded and yes it was a mess. Get over it. You may have lost some belongings and other items but you still have your fingers to type about all your problems and you are still breathing!!!!!!!!!!

In Portsmouth, we are billed for our water, sewage, and refuse pick on on the same bill. So the extrodinarily high SPSA refuse fee has the net effect of making Portsmouth's "water" bill a burden on a lot of resident's of Portsmouth.

Just a side note. Coupled with the highest property tax rates in the area, these high city taxes and utility bills are driving middle class residents to purchase elsewhere.

As someone who works in Olde Towne, I would just like to be able to walk across the street to my car on rainy days without having to remove my shoes and socks!

Sindy Donovan here, just to clear up a few of the comments.
When we moved to the apartment on Dinwiddie Street, we had no knowledge of the flooding problem. We carried over our renters insurance, and until the first flood had no idea that did did not cover floods. We tried to get flood insurance, but it isn't available to renters.
We haven't moved because we love Olde Towne, it's the largest accumalation of historically preserved homes outside of Charleston, S.C. My sons and I (we lost my husband to cancer 4 years ago) are determined to do anything we can do to preserve the houses here in the Olde Towne district.
The meeting was entirely about just that, preserving the historical section of the city - not about anything for ourselves. The only reason our losses were mentioned was just to give the City officials an idea of the losses that its taxpayers are losing due to the lack of a functioning pump station and an upgrade to the 80 year old drains.
The point being that there are a lot of areas in the city that flood,and all of them need attention. But not one, other than Olde Towne, has 10 feetof flooding to deal with.
Just in case there is still a misunderstanding concerning

While I realize that there has been some subsidance associated with the height of Crawford Parkway, my take is the same as residents living on the beach and losing their sand. Didn't you take time to check out what you were getting into? If you didn't, while of concern, a resident's lack of planning does not make a crisis for the rest of the citizenship. And the guy who didn't have enough renters insurance or anyone who did not carry enough insurance have no one to blame but themselves. They should not expect sympathy from the rest of us to the extent that we desire to take a hit on our wallet for their behalf.

I have been a resident of Portsmouth for over 10 years. Some of these very same people who are whinning now told me to my face that I should have known what I was getting into when I bought my house in Parkview. It's apparent that now that the shoe is on the other foot they think there should be a different allowance for themselves.

Lets thank about this a little first, there is nothing you are the city
of portsmouth can do about the flooding, this is all low land and you have
water on two fronts,reason for the flooding is all the drains are plugged with debris and pine oak leafs over the last 200 years,this matter is not
going to get any better, your best bet is to move to higher groung.

..... would be to dig a ditch with a descending slope beside High Street from the water-front all the way to Isle of Wight County. Hey, who paid for a 2 million dollar traffic circle and just over a million to stop a church from remolding. :-)

Well I can tell you as a city worker that the Mayor, council on down talk a lot of game, have a meeting on what ever your concerns are, and just forget about it as soon as you leave the meeting. I am on the inside so I know. I can tell you for a fact that during the flooding they had the city shut down and the only ones at work were the Police, fire and Sheriff's. They had a police sgt pumping water out of the street because they shut the city down and not one city worker was called in. Please, if we have an emergency, I hope you have a plan because the city could care less about you and trust me when I say you were left out in the cold. I am not a disgruntle worker, I am at that city building and I see what they did and you would be in shock if you only knew there is no emergency plan except to leave folks on their own!!!!! Mark my words when I say they will not fund any project to help the citizen and they wouldnt have workers come into help even when it was their scheduled work day. When all failed, they shut down the city and left no resources!!!

SPSA has nothing to do with water. But either way, VB pays the highest water fee.

And then this may be the funniest thing I have ever read:

"Donovan and his mother, Sindy, said they have renter's insurance but it didn't cover their losses in this storm.

"This is our third flood," Sindy Donovan said."

Ok class, how many floods does it take for the family to understand they need to buy flood insurance? While the need to improve the infra structure may be there, it is dubious to live in an old riverfront community and be awed by flooding. But what really bothers me is that this person feels the repairs are needed as they have suffered loss to personal belongings and not the structure(they rent), and they feel the community should improve their situation instead of the minimal amount for floods insurance.

It's funny how such a small group can get together and selfishly proclaim that "it's the right thing to do",because the same thing was said of our last property tax increase,even though it was during the worst recession since 1929.It is my firm belief that we need new government in PTWN,from the mayor on down,including all of thier appointees.We now pay the highest water bill's in Hampton Roads due entirely to mismanagement and outright unethical behavior on the part of SPSA officials.I wonder how they will put the screws to us over this.

It looks like the high rent/photographic district gets the priorities as usual. City has to keep its reputation up to attract the downtown clientele. If any if you noticed, that's where the pedestrians walk and I don't know if anyone has noticed, but downtown has more pedestrian crosswalks than any other place in the city. Port Norfolk, take a walk in your neighborhood and tell us how may crosswalks to you see, even by the playground by Fire Station 12. You would be amazed