Rolanda Russell, New Interim City Manager

Rolanda Russell has been an assistant city manager with Evanston for about 18 months. A native Illinoisan who graduated from SIU, Russell worked on her master’s at Illinois (Champaign) and has a certificate from Harvard’s JFK School of Government for attending a leadership program. After working for 12 years with the public sector in Decatur, Ill., Russell moved to Roanoke, Va. in 2001 and received good reviews for her work as Assistant City Manager for Community Development before leaving to take the Evanston job in 2006.

Among the innovations during Russell's tenure in Roanoke was an affordable green building project.

The Central Street Neighbors Association offers its best wishes to Ms. Russell in this somewhat tumultuous time for the City.

Some articles on Russell can be found at the following:

S. Flowers, Roanoke better for Russell's hard work, Roanoke Times online edition, October 26, 2006

City of Roanoke News Release, October 4, 2006

New Sustainable, Affordable ‘Cradle to Cradle’ Homes To Be Built, A to Z Building, June 10, 2006

Russell named interim city manager/i>