Maurice Jones is set to become Chapel Hill’s new town manager following the town council’s vote Tuesday night to approve his selection. The Virginia native will leave his position as Charlottesville city manager after working in that role for nearly eight years. He previously served as assistant city manager and communications director for Charlottesville along with a stint at the University of Virginia.
Chapel Hill mayor Pam Hemminger spoke about Jones and his hiring in an interview with WCHL’s Aaron Keck. After a long period of remaining silent on town manager candidates, Hemminger said she was excited to finally talk about the selection of Jones.
“It was a great process; it took a lot of time,” Hemminger said. “We wanted to involve public comment and input, and we wanted a process that was rigorous.”
Hemminger said the town received over 60 applications for the position before narrowing it down to six. Those candidates were then sent to an assessment center, where they worked through various scenarios submitted by community members and town staff.
From there, the council selected three finalists and interviewed them all before choosing Jones. Hemminger said the former communications director impressed council with his style of communication and glowing references from those who had worked with Jones in the past.
“The words that were repeated were ‘impeccable integrity,’” she said. “He has passions for social justice, social equity and affordable housing, along with public service in general. He was very engaging and the references said over and over again he was a collaborative team player.”
Charlottesville’s city council announced earlier this year it would not be renewing Jones’ contract, allowing him to search for other job opportunities. The city is considering a ‘strong mayor’ style of government, where the elected mayor takes on more administrative responsibility and power. Charlottesville officials and citizens are exploring this structure following displeasure over the city’s handling of a Unite the Right rally last August, which sparked racial tensions and saw a counter protestor killed by a white supremacist.
“Political climates change,”Hemminger said, “and when you have a manager-council form of government, the political wind can shift and people can want something completely different. Charlottesville, as we understand, is just considering what direction they want to head in.”
Jones will replace Roger Stancil, who served as Chapel Hill’s town manager for 12 years. Jones begins work with the town on August 20 before taking over the job completely when Stancil retires on September 1.
Photo via Town of Chapel Hill
At no point did you think it relevant to ask her about his terrible mismanagement of the Unite the Right rally and the at- best weird optics of bringing the guy responsible for that to the town that has Silent Sam?