City names Guthrie interim manager
By Joey Pitchford
Published in News on September 7, 2018 5:50 AM
Randy Guthrie
Randy Guthrie, Goldsboro's assistant city manager, will take over as interim city manager Sept. 14, the day current manager Scott Stevens is set to retire.
The Goldsboro City Council announced Guthrie's promotion earlier last week. He will earn a salary of $145,000 during his tenure as interim manager.
A Greenville native and graduate of East Carolina University with a degree in urban and regional planning, Guthrie came to Goldsboro in 2004 to work as the city's planning director.
In 2007, he became director of the city's development services department, before becoming assistant city manager in 2013.
In that role, Guthrie said he supervised about half of the city's departments, including public works, parks and recreation, travel and tourism and several others. He also oversaw many of the city's special construction projects, such as the Paramount Theatre and the ongoing downtown Streetscape project.
As interim manager, Guthrie said he will need to take a broader perspective than he is accustomed to taking.
"I'll probably need to step back from some projects, focus on a wider picture," he said.
Once Guthrie takes over, he may be in the position for some time. When then-city manager Joe Huffman retired in December 2010, it was not until August the following year that Stevens took office.
Mayor Chuck Allen said after Stevens announced his retirement that the city council decided it would hire a company to collect applications for the position. After Huffman's departure, the city hired the Mercer Group, an Atlanta-based management consulting firm, to find new candidates -- one of whom was Stevens.
Although the council decided to hire a firm to find the next city manager, the actual firm has not been selected, Allen said.
Guthrie said that there are "a lot of good projects" going on in Goldsboro right now, and his focus will be on maintaining the city's current course while the city searches for a new manager.
As for Stevens, he will take a job in October working as manager for James City County, Virginia.