The Fredericksburg City Council officially appointed Kelly Lackey as its new city attorney during its regular meeting on Tuesday night.
Lackey replaces Kathleen Dooley, who retired earlier this month following 20 years of service. Lackey previously served as the county attorney in King George from 2021 until this past January, when she departed in a flurry of personnel changes that followed the seating of a new board of supervisors.
Shortly after leaving King George, Lackey began working part-time for the city of Fredericksburg as Special Projects Counsel, city public information officer Sonja Cantu confirmed in an email.
According to a news release, Lackey has worked as a local government attorney for 15 years, beginning as an Assistant City Attorney in Chesapeake. She serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Local Government Attorneys of Virginia, Inc., and has volunteered for the Virginia State Bar as a member of the Professionalism Faculty, offering training in ethics and civility to new lawyers from 2022 to present.
She earned her B.A. at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., and her J.D. at the William & Mary School of Law in Williamsburg, according to the release.
Lackey’s appointment came just a few minutes into Tuesday’s meeting, and she took her seat in front of a newly-engraved nameplate in council chambers immediately thereafter.
“Not much downtime in this job,” Mayor Kerry Devine told Lackey.
Also at Tuesday’s meeting, the city council approved a FY 2025 real estate tax rate of 76 cents per $100 of assessed value, as well as a one-cent fire tax. It also adopted a version of its FY 2025 budget based on the 76-cent tax rate.
All three votes were 7-0.
