Portsmouth City Council formally fired City Assessor Patrick Dorris Tuesday at its meeting and appointed an interim who previously served with the city.
The City Council met in a closed session Monday and informed Dorris he was being terminated before taking the official vote at Tuesday’s regular meeting.
In a 5-1 vote, the City Council appointed Janey Culpepper to the position beginning immediately with a salary of $120,000. Culpepper was promoted to city assessor in 2011 after working for the city for more than 20 years. She retired in 2017.
Dorris was terminated immediately but will receive six months worth of severance. The city hired Dorris in September 2021, with a salary of $114,450.
Councilman Mark Whitaker was the lone no vote. Councilman De’Andre Barnes was not present for the vote. Shorty after the meeting began, the mayor directed Barnes be escorted out of the chamber because he was filming the meeting on his phone from his seat — which violates a new policy the majority of council members recently enacted. Both Whitaker and Barnes supported Dorris’ appointment.
Before voting against the termination Tuesday, Whitaker credited Dorris with “courageous moral service” for “exposing some things that some people in this city were being privileged by.”
Whitaker cited as an example the revelation from Dorris’ office that aggressive use of tax liens were used against Sugar Hill residents over the decades in an effort to obtain their properties in favor of various development projects.
Vice Mayor Lisa Lucas-Burke previously told The Virginian-Pilot members had concerns about Dorris’ performance leading the assessor’s office, including the lack of a functioning CAMA system that’s used for real estate assessments and another being inadequate staffing that she said has been an issue before.
CAMA, or computer-assisted mass appraisal, is an automated system that keeps property data and uses uniform valuations.
But Whitaker said Tuesday the issue was less about performance and more so the city’s desire to maintain the “status quo good ole boy system.”
“I’m glad Mr. Dorris had the moral courage to stand up against that,” he said.
Natalie Anderson, 757-732-1133, natalie.anderson@virginiamedia.com
