By Leonard E. Colvin

Chief Reporter

New Journal and Guide

By a vote of 5 to 1, former Portsmouth City Council member  Bernard D. Griffin Sr., who once served as the city's  vice mayor, has been selected as the interim mayor for the next three months.

    On November 3, Portsmouth voters will select an individual to serve out the remainder of Dr. James Holley's term, which ends in 2012.

    Holley was ousted in a recall vote on July 13. A long list of candidates is expected to file for the city's highest political office.  The same story is being played out in Norfolk. Daun Hester, who ran against incumbent Mayor Paul Fraim, had to give up her seat after running against a sitting council member. A special election to fill the Super Ward 7 seat is Nov. 3.

    A number of Norfolk candidates have already declared to run for the seat temporally being filled by former Norfolk educator Alveta Green. According to several sources if the number of Black candidates is too large in Norfolk, efforts will be made to convince many of them to exit the race.

    There is a fear that a white candidate could capture a seat in the majority African American ward. The city’s ward system of electing council is based on a federal court's decision after decades of using an at-large system.

In Portsmouth, Griffin left the city's governing panel in 2004 when he last served on the city council.

Griffin, according to council members who supported him, would "hit the ground running" because of his familiarity with the buttons needed to keep the political and governmental operations of the city because of his previous tenure on council

    He is a retired member of the city’s public school division. For 12 years, he was on the city council and was chairman of the school board in the early 1990s.

    He said Monday in a public interview for the post that he would focus on repairing rifts in the city that were caused by the recall election and on fostering unity on council.

  Griffin was one of four finalists under consideration for the interim position. Also seeking the appointment were Vice Mayor Charles B. Whitehurst Sr., Councilwoman Elizabeth Psimas and Bishop Curtis Edmonds, one of the most powerful members of the city's Black clergy.

    It was expected that an African American would be appointed, considering the city is majority Black  with a very strong and active political organizational mindset. However, that power was not used to keep Holley from being recalled twice in his political life.

    Now the question is who will run to serve out the rest of Holley term and how much clout he or she will have in the election. Holley still has a potent political base and may choose to use it to support one of the candidates seeking to replace him.

     Two of them may come from the council: Vice Mayor Whitehurst and Councilwoman Psimas.