PETERSBURG, Va. -- The city of Petersburg initially postponed a City Council meeting scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Tuesday due to "threats" related to the meeting.
“We have received certain threats relating to the meeting. We have a duty to ensure the safety of our citizens,” the city said on their website.
City leaders initially said Tuesday’s meeting would be rescheduled for a future date and the public will be notified before that meeting.
Residents came out anyways, and began to fill the building. Five of the council members held a quorum and decided to continue the meeting. But because no clerk was present, council then announced a special meeting on Thursday at 6:30 p.m., to discuss the performance of city council employees.
Three council members told CBS 6 they were unaware of any threats prior to an email from the mayor's office at 4:30 p.m. and they were displeased with the mayor's decision to cancel.
“If there was a decision to be made, the decision should be made by a majority vote, not by one person,” said council member Treska Wilson-Smith.
This comes after, CBS 6 Problem Solvers reported that some Petersburg residents have not received a water bill from the city since fall of 2015. Others got bills that were hundreds of dollars higher than usual despite no change in their water usage.
Petersburg resident Jack Coyle said he was disappointed with Tuesday cancellation. He said he wanted his opinion about how the city is being ran to be heard.
"I’m disappointed, I’m disappointed in a lot of things in this city," he said.
The sudden cancellation has some other residents skeptical.
"It's very shady no question about that," said Petersburg resident Leslie Speight.
Tuesday threat
City attorney Brian Telfair said two separate threats prompted Tuesday's cancellation. The first was an email sent to the city on Saturday.
“That basically said Petersburg was a city full of N words,” said Telfair.
The second was a phone call placed directly to Telfair at 4 p.m. Tuesday.
“It was a physical threat, a threat of physical harm to certain individual council members, city staff members of the administration,” he said.
Telfair said he called an officer in the police department about the threats.
He said that was when police opened an investigation and the mayor decided he wanted to cancel the meeting for safety reasons.
CBS 6 tried to confirm the investigation with police, but we were directed to the city attorney.
CBS 6 reporter Melissa Hipolit asked Telfair why we were directed to talk directly with him about the investigation.
“One of the reasons we do that is so the message doesn't get convoluted between a bunch of city departments,” Telfair said.
Lead up to Tuesday's meeting
Tuesday's meeting was expected to draw dozens of concerned citizens, many who attended Thursday night's State of the City address by the mayor.
Last week, CBS 6 attempted to ask Petersburg Mayor W. Howard Myers about these issues. After offering several "no comments," a city employee put her hand in front of a CBS 6 camera and said "You can shut off the camera. Bye-bye. Thank you."
Some in that crowd were calling for the resignation of city manager William Johnson since the city is millions of dollars in debt after a more than $3 million budget shortfall in 2015.
The city directed questions about the cancellation to the City Attorney’s Office:
“A notice of meeting adjournment will be issued by the Clerk of Council and publicly posted. We apologize for any inconvenience. Please direct all questions to the City Attorney’s Office, (804) 733-2305.”
