SUFFOLK

Dennis Craff, the city's top spokesman for more than four years, said Wednesday that he will retire at the end of June.

Craff, 66, said he wants to leave so he can homeschool his granddaughter in Virginia Beach. The former TV news anchor couldn't stop smiling Wednesday when he talked about his plans.

"Right now, she and I are best buddies," Craff said of his granddaughter, who turned 4 in April. "I can't think of anything better in life to do right now."

The move adds to a string of departures by top administrators in Suffolk over the past two years. Craff said the decision to retire was his, though. Then he corrected himself.

"Well, not totally mine," he added. "My family's decision."

In July 2006, the City Council fired City Manager Steve Herbert, and last week it fired Assessor Maria Kattmann. In between have been the resignation of a finance director, the retirement of another city manager and the departure of an assistant city manager after she was put on paid administrative leave.

"Some things have happened, that, yeah, 'What the heck's going on?' " Craff said. "But it's an election year, so they have an opportunity to go to the polls."

Craff became Suffolk's first communications director in 2003, when he was hired for the position under Herbert. He had been a media and communications coordinator for Virginia Beach before that. Craff said he was drawn to the Suffolk job because of the excitement he felt in city over its exploding growth.

Craff, a TV newsman in the '70s and '80s, recalled the fun of working in television during the heyday of broadcast news, when salaries were soaring and everybody, it seemed, wanted to be a reporter after Watergate.

A college assignment at the University of Minnesota led to job offers from three stations in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. One had him audition for weatherman against another aspiring TV man: David Letterman.

Dave Forster, (757) 222-5563, dave.forster@pilotonline.com