Charlottesville City Council will kick off Friday morning with a 9 a.m. special meeting to interview candidates for a vacant deputy city manager position and discuss matters for an interim city manager.
City leaders have not said who they are interviewing for the positions and Councilor Heather Hill said she’s not sure what announcements may stem from the meeting.
“I’m not sure we will have an announcement at this point, but we definitely are going to meet and take next steps in that direction,” she said, noting that next week would very likely have some news.
The meeting comes 10 days after Chip Boyles announced his resignation from the city’s executive position and 10 months since Deputy City Manager Letitia Shelton resigned ahead of Boyles’ arrival.
Turnover and vacancies have become the norm in city hall in recent years. Boyles is the fifth person to serve in some capacity as city manager in the last four years.
Following a series of closed session meetings in January, council appointed him city manager for at least this year with plans to relaunch a formal search in 2022 that he could also apply for.
Though Boyles was essentially an interim city manager himself, council members never referred to him as such, saying they wanted him to be empowered in a longer-term interim position. His objectives since taking office mid-February were to stabilize the city with hires in multiple vacant leadership positions.
In his tenure at the helm of the city, Boyles was involved with the hiring of two deputy city managers and saw the removal of Charlottesville’s Confederate monuments — something that was years in the making by many community members, councilors and previous city managers.
Boyles’ resignation comes after he received intense backlash from Mayor Nikuyah Walker and some community members for his decision to fire Police Chief Rashall Brackney in early September. His final day will be Oct. 29.
Meanwhile, Councilor Heather Hill explained that the hiring process for Shelton’s replacement began before Boyles’ resignation. His office had been fielding applications for several months. She said that interviews began sometime between the middle of September and middle of October to narrow down final candidates.
To stream Friday’s special meeting, click here.
This is an ongoing story and may be updated.
