Petersburg Mayor W. Howard Myers expected to introduce Rochelle Small-Toney as the new city manager Wednesday evening.

He even invited the deputy city manager of Fayetteville, N.C., to be on hand for the announcement. In a closed session a few days ago, a majority of the Petersburg City Council agreed she was their top choice to lead the city that is engulfed in a severe financial crisis.

But in an embarrassment for Ms. Small-Toney and Mayor Myers, her appointment did not happen.

The seven City Council members spent more than an hour behind closed doors Wednesday and then left without taking a vote to hire her.

The bottom line: Dironna Moore Belton remains Petersburg’s interim city manager, although apparently no closer herself to winning the job on a permanent basis as she also sought.

The selection of Ms. Small-Toney apparently went south after the council members were bombarded with Facebook posts and text messages filled with criticism from people.

“If you hire Rochelle Small-Toney as Petersburg’s city manager, you demonstrate that you wish to continue the inept management of the city. Why would you want to hire someone with such a checkered past? We’ve had enough sketchy players in city government and need a top-quality manager,” one person wrote in a Facebook post that typified the response to Ms. Small-Toney’s selection.

The concern was not about her work in North Carolina but involved reports that surfaced about her previous stint as city manager of Savannah, Ga.

Hired in 2011 as the first African-American and first female to hold the Savannah post, Ms. Small-Toney was fired a year later after a series of controversies and missteps.

According to reports at the time, the Savannah City Council raised concerns with Ms. Small-Toney’s hiring of an emergency management official who later was fired for apparently falsifying his résumé.

Concerns also were raised about the size of contracts she awarded to consultants and about her repeated failure to properly document travel expenses. Ms. Small-Toney also drew fire for difficulties related to the development of a city-supported shopping center.

The city also had to deal with sagging morale among city employees that led to significant turnover and a spate of lawsuits and discrimination complaints that stemmed from decisions she made.

Ms. Small-Toney reportedly also faced sharp criticism in a prior job as assistant city manager in Charlottesville.

However, Ms. Belton, who returned to the area to serve as manager of the troubled Petersburg Area Transit Co. and was named interim city manager in March after the council fired the previous manager, does not appear to have won a majority of the council’s support either.

Sources said that many council members are concerned about Ms. Belton’s failure to consult with them. Several members have felt blindsided when news reporters have called about decisions Ms. Belton made, such as approving raises for two employees after winning council approval to cut the pay of the rest of the city workforce.

Ms. Belton also has shared few details of the city’s current financial position, the sources said, leaving the council without any reports that show what bills are being paid and what bills remain to be paid.

“Council members too often feel they are learning about what is going on when they read about it in the newspaper or see it on TV,” one source said.

In the past few days, Ms. Belton has warded off some problems. Last Friday, she sent a $145,000 check to the Central Virginia Waste Management Authority to keep trash collection service operating. And on Monday, Ms. Belton paid a long overdue $32,000 bill to prevent repossession of more city fire equipment.

However, that did not stop Petersburg from being hit with another snafu, a finding that the transit company had failed to conduct annual inspections of many its buses and was operating them on expired inspection stickers.

And a host of Petersburg residents are reporting receiving duplicate or inaccurate water bills, despite Ms. Belton’s assurances in June that she finally had been able to fix longstanding problems with the utility billing system that was a prime reason the previous city manager, William Johnson III, was dismissed.

For now, it appears that City Council is returning to its search for a city manager in which they and Petersburg’s residents can have confidence.