Regina Williams, Norfolk city manager, to retire in January

NORFOLK

Faced with a City Council impatient for her to retire, City Manager Regina V.K. Williams announced Friday that she will leave the job in January.

More than a year of negative publicity, which included questionable spending on city credit cards, light-rail cost overruns and a Norfolk Community Services Board employee who was paid for 12 years without showing up for work, all contributed to the council’s decision, Mayor Paul Fraim said.

“The administration and City Hall have taken some body blows, most of which were not her fault, involving things like the Community Services Board, over which she had little or no control,” Fraim said. “The cumulative effect of that over time was damaging.

“If you’re the manager, like it or not, people expect you to take the hits. Life is not fair. That’s just the way things are.”

Williams said she understands, but regrets that she’s leaving under a cloud.

“I will bear that as a burden, even though much of it was not my responsibility,” Williams, 62, said.

“The stories in the newspaper, while they’re bad news stories and they’re sensational, five years from now people won’t remember those things. I hope they remember the other things we accomplished the last 12 years.”

Williams, the first African American and first woman to head Norfolk’s city government, will retire on Jan. 14. The day will mark her 12-year anniversary as Norfolk city manager.

She told the council last year that she planned to retire in 2013. But the council reached a different timetable in a closed-session meeting during its annual retreat last month. During the meeting, members decided that two more years was too long, Fraim said.

The mayor said he met with Williams three weeks ago and told her where the council stood. The council had hoped Williams would stay on through next year’s budget season, he said. She decided it would be better to retire now, he said.

Fraim said he will recommend that Assistant City Manager Stanley A. Stein become the interim city manager. He also will recommend that Williams receive a severance package of a year’s salary – she is paid $213,276 per year – and that the city provide her an additional year of retirement benefits.
Fraim called his proposal “very fair. Some will say it is, some will say it’s not. It is what it is.”

“Regina has been an exemplary public servant,” he said. “The city has made enormous strides under her leadership. Norfolk has experienced one of the greatest economic expansions in its history. We are a wealthier, more prosperous city today because of her stewardship.”

Most council members declined to comment Friday, but Councilman Paul R. Riddick was critical of his colleagues for pressuring Williams to retire.
Because the timing is just before work begins on the budget, he described the decision as “insane.”

The city’s budget director, Ron Jones Jr., also recently resigned.

“We don’t have a budget director, and everyone knows that Regina has the skills to build a budget that’s sound and balanced,” he said. “It’s not just political – it’s stupid.”

Williams leaves a legacy of progress and controversy. The Dominion Enterprises and Wells Fargo Center office towers, a downtown cruise-ship terminal and the light-rail line, the latter of which is expected to open next year, all came under her watch.

So did new recreation centers at Wards Corner, Lamberts Point and Norview and a new library in Ocean View. The city also helped Old Dominion University nearly double its size by helping it construct the University Village, where a 9,000-seat arena, retail space, office buildings and thousands of student residences now sit.

Two of the most ambitious neighborhood redevelopment plans in the city’s history – Broad Creek near Norfolk State University and East Beach in East Ocean View – were nursed into fruition under Williams.

Her biggest strength, council members said, was her ability to crunch numbers. She balanced the city’s $1.1 billion budget the last two years without tax increases by trimming spending by about 8 percent.

Williams attempted to implement what she called “a more caring” attitude at City Hall. She encouraged neighborhoods to work together to solve code enforcement problems rather than having city inspectors ticket homeowners and take them to court.

She also has received her share of criticism. Recent revelations of questionable credit card spending by a city employee and employees of agencies affiliated with the city led her to suspend all credit card use. Williams has acknowledged there was lax oversight of credit card spending.

She has been criticized for moving too slowly to fill executive positions. It took her three years to hire a recreation director , and by the time she did, an audit found the department rife with problems.

Three years ago, she was criticized when she placed a felon convicted of drug dealing and manslaughter in charge of an anti-crime initiative. He was forced to resign after his criminal record was revealed by The Virginian-Pilot.

Council members also have consistently complained about what they say is a lack of code enforcement in neighborhoods.

Bob Rawls, president of the Poplar Halls Civic League, said Williams served ably for years, “but her time has come and gone. She stayed on too long.”

Norview civic leader Walter Dickerson said he wishes Williams would stay. The city manager brought a recreation center to his neighborhood and personally worked with community leaders to get the project done, he said.

“I have great admiration for her,” he said. “She reached out to people in our neighborhood in a way no one at City Hall had ever done before.”

Williams came to the city in 1999 from San Jose, Calif., a city whose population then was almost four times the size of Norfolk’s, in part to be closer to her family. She had been an assistant city manager for five years in San Jose before serving as its city manager for five years.

Prior to her decade in California, Williams was a deputy city manager and chief of staff in Richmond. She served Gov. Chuck Robb as the state director of personnel and training.

A native of Detroit, Williams graduated from high school at 16 and attended Eastern Michigan University, where she received degrees in sociology and English. She later received a master’s degree in public administration from Virginia Commonwealth University.

Williams has found time to lecture at Harvard and Stanford universities, and teaches confirmation classes at the Basilica of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception, a downtown Catholic church.

She also has suffered personally. Her husband, Drew, died in 2008. So she could be with him while he received treatment at Johns Hopkins University’s hospital, Williams oversaw business at City Hall for four months from a small apartment in Baltimore .

She has three children and 11 grandchildren.

Williams said the loss of her husband makes all of the problems in recent years pale in comparison.

“I know there’s a life after the city of Norfolk, so there’s a side of me that’s smiling,” she said.

“I lost my soulmate of 40 years. He remains with me. It’s going to be an adjustment to leave the city, but I do believe God’s got something in store for me, and I’m ready for whatever it is.”

Harry Minium, (757) 446-2371, harry.minium@pilotonline.com

Williams' retirement letter