ROANOKE, Va. – With Roanoke City Manager Bob Cowell resigning, it leaves a lot of questions about what comes next.
And it starts with who’s taking over.
Mayor Sherman Lea will be the interim city manager.
Cowell’s last day is June 7.
City Council was in charge of the decision of who would be taking over in the meantime, and settled on Lea over current assistant city managers Sam Roman and Angie O’Brien.
But Republican candidate for mayor and former mayor David Bowers tells us this is in violation of separation of powers.
“It’s not appropriate for those in the legislative branch, such as the city council, to also serve in the executive branch of our city. We all should have learned that in eighth-grade civics,” Bowers said.
But I sat down with Councilwoman Stephanie Moon Reynolds, who is also running for mayor, who tells us this isn’t the case.
She said it is within council’s authority to name Lea, and they decided on him due to experience.
She tells us the assistant city managers have only been in their positions for about a year, and felt more comfortable naming someone with more background.
She said the mayor will not be compensated for taking on this role, and is only interim manager until an acting manager is named.
“Mayor Lea is not the acting manager until you hire a new city manager, he is only what we call interim for a short time. Hopefully, you look at maybe within a month, I would say, I would hope that we’d be able to have an acting manager,” Moon Reynolds said.