The Richmond City Council voted unanimously Wednesday evening to confirm Mayor Danny Avula’s appointment of interim Chief Administrative Officer Sabrina Joy-Hogg, but only after two new members reiterated their desire for change and accountability in city government.

In a virtual meeting, Avula said Joy-Hogg has shown “tremendous leadership in the first week” as the city has struggled to manage the water crisis that set in Monday after a snowstorm-induced power outage took down the city’s water plant.

Joy-Hogg previously served as the city’s deputy chief administrative officer for finance and administration, but Avula asked her to step into the top administrative role to temporarily replace former CAO Lincoln Saunders. An appointee of former Mayor Levar Stoney, Saunders left his position on Dec. 31 as Stoney left office and Avula took over.

Though the council approved Joy-Hogg taking the job on an interim basis, newly sworn Councilors Kenya Gibson (3rd District) and Sarah Abubaker (4th District) both said they want to see a fresh start.

“I’m still in full support of a national search for a permanent CAO,” Abubaker said. “That is what we all ran on and I’m hoping that’s what we continue to do and this won’t be a long-term thing.”

Gibson too said she believes “Richmonders were looking for change” in the CAO role but she recognizes that “we need the city to run.”

“My hope is that the mayor prioritizes candidates that are looking to really make investments in public systems,” Gibson said. “Someone with a deep level of experience in a municipality that has not seen corruption and issues with transparency that we’ve had here in Richmond.”

Gibson, a former member of the Richmond School Board, said she appreciated the work of city staff to resolve the water crisis and was pleased to see progress being made. But once the crisis has passed, she said, the council should take an active role in preventing a repeat occurrence by prioritizing public infrastructure and potentially asking the city’s Public Utilities and Services Commission to initiate a third-party investigation into what went wrong.

“I believe it’s time for us to do our work, which is to put the wheels in motion to ensure that this doesn’t happen again,” Gibson said.

In a statement released Wednesday, the City Council said that once water service is restored, it intends to work with Avula “to fully identify and address needed system upgrades and emergency response processes.”

Avula participated in the meeting from the city’s emergency operations center and gave the council an update on the situation similar to the one he had already delivered at a news conference Wednesday afternoon.

Council President Cynthia Newbille (7th District) thanked Avula and his team for working to resolve the crisis with “minimal impact” on residents.

“I cannot thank you enough,” she said. “Your folks have just been incredible. All of them.”

“It’s certainly not the way I expected to start this job,” Avula replied.