Robert C. Bobb took control of the Petersburg city government Tuesday after being handed an opportunity to turn around the municipality that is drowning in unpaid bills.

With his first step, Mr. Bobb installed a member of his team, Tom L. Tyrell to run the city, ousting interim City Manager Dironna Moore Belton, who returned to her former job as manager of the Petersburg Area Transit Co. She left that position in March when she was brought in to replace Petersburg’s fired city manager.

Mr. Tyrell is a former chief operating officer for the Chicago public school system.

The arrival of Mr. Bobb, a former Richmond city manager, and his team came just a few days after the Petersburg City Council held a special meeting and voted 4-1, with two members absent, to award his company a five-month contract to fix the city’s problems at a cost of about $350,000.

The vote was taken Oct. 20, just two days after the council balked at the deal. On Oct. 18, the contract failed to win a majority when council deadlocked 3-3 with one abstention.

As the Free Press reported last week, Councilman John A. Hart Sr., who voted against the contract Oct. 18, provided the crucial fourth vote to bring Mr. Bobb’s consulting firm to Petersburg to provide a rescue plan.

Arriving more than an hour late to the special meeting, Mr. Hart made the motion and voted with Mayor W. Howard Myers, Vice Mayor Samuel Parham and Councilman Brian Moran to direct Ms. Belton to sign the $350,000 contract.

Councilman Darrin Hill, who is in a re-election fight, cast the lone opposing vote.

Council members David Ray Coleman and Treska Wilson-Smith, who previously did not support the contract, were absent from the meeting. But their votes could not have halted the deal.

While the council’s rules bar it from voting on the same issue within a 30-day period, new Petersburg City Attorney Joseph E. Preston cleared the way with an opinion that the Oct. 18 vote didn’t count so that City Council was entitled to take its first vote on the contract at last Thursday’s meeting.

“It’s my legal position that no action was taken due to Mr. Hart indicating at the last meeting that he wanted time to review this matter,” Mr. Preston said before the vote.

Meanwhile, Ms. Belton had not issued a city financial statement to the public before returning to her former position. According to a list released by the city, Petersburg had about $11 million in unpaid bills as of Sept. 30 and lacked the funds to pay the long list of public agencies and private companies owed money.