Five people filed before the deadline on Monday, July 10 to fill the District 2 seat on the City Council, which will be appointed by the City Council at its Tuesday, July 18 meeting to replace City Councilmember Jamal Fox, who announced in June he would be resigning.

Fox is getting married next month and is reportedly moving to Portland, Oregon, where his soon-to-be wife lives.

Those who have filed to be appointed to the District 2 council seat to serve until the current term ends in December are C.J. Brinson, Tim Vincent, Mebane Ham, Goldie Wells and Sherry Walker.

Vincent and Brinson have both also filed to run for election to the District 2 seat in November, along with Felicia Angus, who did not apply for the appointment. Former District 2 City Councilmember Jim Kee has announced his intention to run for the District 2 seat, but Kee also did not apply for the appointment to the City Council.

By far the best known of the five is Wells, who served as the District 2 councilmember from 2005 to 2009. Wells stepped down in 2009 and Kee was elected to represent District 2. Kee was defeated by Fox in 2013 and Fox won reelection in 2015. Fox has been an active and popular councilmember and, until he announced he was resigning, it appeared he had a good chance of being reelected.

Since stepping down from the council in 2009, Wells has remained active in the community and is currently chair of the Citizens for Economic and Environmental Justice and the Interactive Resource Center. She is co-chair of the North Carolina Freedom Monument Park and a member of the Building Stronger Neighborhoods Grants Review Committee, Preservation North Carolina and the Greensboro Bias Based Police Committee as well as other committees.

She is a member of the board of trustees of Wells Memorial Church of God in Christ and many other church related organizations.

Wells is a retired educator who has degrees from Hampton University and North Carolina A&T State University and a doctorate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Vincent is a lifelong resident of Greensboro who graduated from Dudley High School and Guilford College. He is currently the chief operations officer of Ready 4 Change, a business development associate with Vantage Consulting Associates and a program director with the Non-Profit Development Institute.

Earlier in his career he sold cars and was a finance manager at Green Ford.

Vincent has served as the chairman of the Greensboro Minimum Standard Housing Commission, an advisor to the NC Legacy Foundation and participated in the Greensboro City Academy.

Brinson was one of seven members of Operation Transparency who were arrested and charged with trespassing at city hall in January after demanding the records of the investigation of the arrest of Dejuan Yourse.

Brinson is currently a youth pastor at Faith Community Church and a volunteer coordinator with Greensboro Participatory Budgeting. He has served as a youth organizer for the Beloved Community Center and and an organizing assistant with Democracy North Carolina. He has also worked as a testing coordinator and substitute teacher for Guilford County Schools.

Brinson is a graduate of NC A&T State University and Hood Theological Seminary.

Since 1990, Ham has run Hambone and Associates, a public relations and marketing firm. Her clients have included ArtQuest, Greensboro Beautiful, Greensboro Bicentennial Celebration, and the Mental Health Association in Greensboro.

Ham has been a member of numerous civic boards and associations and is a past board president of the the Women’s Resource Center, a past president of the Women’s Professional Forum and has participated in Leadership Greensboro.

She is a graduate of Page High School and UNC Chapel Hill and has lived in District 2 for over 25 years.

Walker sent a short email to the city clerk’s office and included no letter or resume, but she evidently wants to be appointed to the City Council. She is a registered Democrat in District 2 and according to Guilford County Board of Elections records she has never voted in Guilford County.

If either Vincent or Brinson is appointed, it will give them an advantage in the City Council election, since they will be an incumbent. Both District 5 Councilmember Tony Wilkins and District 3 Councilmember Justin Outling were first appointed to their positions before being elected to serve full terms.