Kimberly Sowell, was appointed as a Greensboro assistant city manager according to a Tuesday afternoon press release.
Sowell who is currently the business division manager with the Water Resources Department will start her new position on Friday, March 1.
Sowell, who has been a city employee since 2015, will oversee the Field Operations, Engineering and Inspections, Water Resources and Transportation departments. Before coming to work for the city in the human resources department, Sowell worked for North Carolina A&T State University for 20 years at positions that included university treasurer and assistant vice chancellor for student affairs and administration.
Sowell will be filling the position left vacant when David Parrish was promoted from assistant city manager to interim city manager in March 2018. Since April 2018 Water Resources Director Steve Drew has been serving as an interim assistant city manager while keeping his job as water resources director. So this promotion will allow Drew to take off one of the hats he’s been wearing and return full time to being water resources director. Drew reportedly didn’t apply for the assistant city manager position.
Parrish was named interim city manager, after then City Manager Jim Westmoreland had announced he would retire on April 30, 2018 but before Westmoreland retired. During that period some city councilmembers were at a loss on what title to use for Parrish since interim city manager is quite a mouthful. That problem was solved in June 2018 when Parrish was named city manager.
Sowell will join current Assistant City Managers Chris Wilson and Barbara Harris and Greensboro will have three assistant city manager and no interims. However, that’s not going to last long because Harris is retiring at the end of May.
Greensboro has had as many as five assistant city managers and as few as one. The consensus seems to be that five is too many and one is not enough.
