Portsmouth City Council works around a subdued Holley

PORTSMOUTH

Even by his own admission, Mayor James W. Holley III is quieter these days.

At 83, he stays silent for long stretches at City Council work sessions, sitting back while other members hash out issues with staff. When he does speak up, his wandering comments can induce stifled giggles from others in the room.

"Good point," Vice Mayor Bill Moody Jr. will say, interjecting to help him finish.

Holley's leadership, in a city he helped racially integrate and still devotes his life to, is under scrutiny anew as a July 13 election for his recall draws near.

Other c ouncil members work around him, kept on task by Moody even as Holley sits at his side. The other six elected leaders have grown closer because of it, Councilwoman Elizabeth Psimas said.

Holley, meanwhile, continues with his appearances and community events, operating outside the loop of e-mails that swirl among other council members and city staff. His calendar is still full. He still puts on a show at ribbon-cuttings. He said he is still good for business in Portsmouth.

"Some people were born to play the role," he said. "That's what you're playing: a mayor."

On a warm day earlier this month, Holley arrived at a new restaurant in Olde Towne for a routine he has polished over decades. He had on a seersucker suit and a straw boater lined with a navy blue and red ribbon - "the mayor's uniform," he called it.

"Good morning," he said into a microphone outside.

The crowd responded in kind. It was the opening Holley was looking for.

"Good morning!" he yelled again, this time with his hands out and a feigned look of displeasure on his face. "My goodness, this is a celebration!"

Holley, unaided by notes, spoke loudly, pointed for emphasis and drew laughs and applause. The delivery was fit for a pep rally, and for a while the message was like any other he has given at these openings.

But as it continued, it drifted to indirect references to the recall effort and segregation.

"A man said on the radio show this morning, say, 'Be careful with what's being done to Mayor Holley, they'll take you back to the '50s,' " he said.

"You don't want to go back there, you won't have any rights," Holley continued. "You have every right to be where you are. So stay right where you are focused, and you will be all right."

The crowd, consisting mostly of black residents, was silent during the remark. Holley continued and introduced other speakers until he gathered with a group behind a red ribbon, a pair of oversize scissors in his hands.

Holley yelled out a countdown ("One!... Two!... Three!") and he clipped the ribbon before any of the six others at his side did. He raised his arms and yelled, "Whoo!"

A retired dentist, Jim Holley rose to prominence in Portsmouth through social activism. In his corner office last week at City Hall, a room covered floor-to-ceiling with plaques and awards, he recalled his introduction to politics.

It was the 1950s, and some neighbors invited him to a cookout. Holley thought it'd be "just an easy way to get a hamburger and a beer," but the group had a request.

They asked him to speak before the City Council to help them get a ditch covered in their neighborhood. Holley spoke, and the ditch was filled.

Then he helped with several campaigns by black residents trying to get elected to the council. None won, so they asked him to run.

"They came to me because I was the last thing left," Holley said, chuckling.

Holley lost, too. But he won on his second try, in 1968. He had already helped open access for black residents at places like the library, golf course and restaurants, in some cases through lawsuits.

In 1984, he became the region's first black mayor.

In his prime - "when Holley was great," as Councilman Doug Smith put it - he helped dampen racial divisions in Portsmouth, Smith said.

Amos Berkovich said he brought an IHOP to Portsmouth because Holley challenged him to do so in 1997. The two hit a rough patch when a deal to build at an initial location fell through, and Berkovich felt that Holley avoided him during the episode.

But the two repaired their relationship.

"I've never seen anybody care for the city like him," Berkovich said last week. He continued to praise Holley, but added: "He's not as sharp as he used to be."

Appearances by Holley outside the city can make council members cringe.

In an interview in April with The Virginian-Pilot editorial board during his re-election campaign, Smith recalled a gathering of South Hampton Roads mayors in which the leaders from Norfolk, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake spoke about pressing issues such as light rail and transportation.

Holley talked about Col. William Crawford, Portsmouth's founder, Smith said. "There's a lot of good stuff that's happening in Portsmouth, and we're not telling the story," said Smith, who lost his re-election bid. "Holley's not able to do it. And years ago he would have been telling that story."

Holley doesn't become defensive when asked about critics who say he should retire.

"That's their opinion, and I'm not angry with them about it." Holley said he is still engaged at meetings, even if he isn't vocal.

"A lot of times when I'm quiet, I'm pretty much pleased that they are developing their own skills and moving in a direction that I'm comfortable with," he said.

On Thursday, Holley attended a meeting of the Portsmouth Redevelopment and Housing Authority, for which he is the council's liaison. He brought up one issue: Residents want to know when the new development will be done at the former Jeffry Wilson housing complex. A staff member gave him the estimated completion date - 2012 - and said it would be called Seaboard Square.

Holley said the residents he spoke to liked the new name. "They said, 'That's cool,' " he said.

About 45 minutes later, he strode briskly through the door to the clerk's office for an interview in his office. Over the course of 40 minutes, he spoke engagingly about his life and his work in Portsmouth.

He heaped details into stories, like how he started I.C. Norcom High School's basketball team when he was a freshman there and sold Mr. Goodbars for 7 cents apiece as a fundraiser.

"And you would get two of it, and the vendor would get five," he said.

Holley owned the team's ball, a fact that he still uses for a laugh. "Whenever you didn't give it to me enough, I took the ball and went home," he said.

Holley is trim, with skin so smooth that he says strangers sometimes wonder if he has had a face lift, which he said he hasn't. He speaks slowly and slurs the occasional syllable. At times in this interview he confused basic facts, such as his age.

When he said he was born in November 1926 and thus is 82 years old, he took a correction of the math in stride.

"Oh, is that right? I'll take it," he replied. "I don't want 'em thinking I'm knocking off a year. I'll take every one of 'em. "

When asked what he was focused on for the city, he began with "growth and development" and veered into the impact of the military's heavy presence in Portsmouth. He noted the benefit of Portsmouth Naval Medical Center, and said that John McCain, the future senator, recuperated there after he was held as a prisoner in the first Iraq war.

A hospital spokeswoman confirmed that McCain did recover there after his captivity in the Vietnam War. The following day, when asked about his statement about McCain, Holley again cited the Iraq war, until he was corrected.

"Was it the Vietnam War?" he asked. "I'm not sure, one of the wars he was shot down as a pilot."

The recall movement began last year after Holley was reported by his then-assistant in the clerk's office for abusive speech and a laundry list of personal tasks that he made her do on city time. The City Council fined him $2,500 and asked him to retire.

He refused.

Another former aide, Marc Davis, said last week by e-mail that he left the position in 2005 when he refused to fill out a city form for reimbursement for Holley that Davis said he believed was illegal. Davis did not elaborate on the nature of the reimbursement.

He wrote: “When I told him of my concerns he yelled at me across his desk. … 'I’m the F’n Mayor and you’re my F’n Secretary (he knew I detested being called that) and you’ll do what I F’n tell you or I’ll F’n find someone that will.’ ”

Holley also was recalled by voters in 1987 after he refused to intervene at the request of other black community leaders against the proposed closing of I.C. Norcom High School. Hate mail was sent to several of the people who opposed the school's closing, and an investigation determined that Holley's fingerprints were on some of the mail.

Holley denies to this day that the letters came from him. He was re-elected in 1996.

"I know one thing: We've put that beside us," he said.

Psimas, who has said she would like to be mayor, said she's "watched Jim Holley for all of my adult life do some pretty remarkable things. He was a leader on civil-rights issues and lots of great things in this community."

But she kept returning to the same word to describe his current performance, especially in representing the city regionally.

"The situation we are in now is sad for him and sad for Portsmouth," she said.

On Friday, Holley was back in his office by 10:45 a.m. after a meeting in Suffolk for the Hampton Roads Partnership. It was a relatively quiet day, he said, but there were 10 messages waiting for him.

Dave Forster, (757) 446-2627, dave.forster@pilotonline.com