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Greensboro Selects New City Attorney

Downtown Greensboro. KERI BROWN/WFDD

Greensboro has a new city attorney. City Council approved the hiring of Charles Watts at a meeting this week.

Watts brings 30 years of experience to the job. He has served as deputy secretary and general counsel for the N.C. Department of Transportation since 2017.

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Charles Watts - City of Greensboro

Prior to that, he worked as an attorney in the private sector and served as an assistant professor of law at Vanderbilt University. Watts is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He earned his law degree from Howard Law School.

He replaces Tom Carruthers, who had held the position since 2014. He's was a key figure in negotiating major business deals in Greensboro, including new downtown parking decks.

Jim Hoffman was tapped to serve in the interim and is returning to private practice.

Watt's salary will be $190,000; that's about $10,000 more than Carruthers made.  He will begin his new role as Greensboro's city attorney on June 1.

*Follow WFDD's Keri Brown on Twitter @kerib_news

Keri Brown is a multi-award winning reporter and host at 88.5 WFDD. She has been honored with two regional Edward R. Murrow awards for her stories about coal ash, and was named the 2015 radio reporter of the year by the Radio Television Digital News Association of the Carolinas (RTDNAC).Although she covers a variety of topics, her beats are environmental and education reporting.Keri comes to the Triad from West Virginia Public Broadcasting, where she served as the Chief Bureau Reporter for the Northern Panhandle. She produced stories for the state's Public Television and Radio programs and was honored by the West Virginia Associated Press Broadcasters Association for her feature and enterprise reporting.She also served as an adjunct instructor at Wheeling Jesuit University and Bethany College in West Virginia. She worked with the Center for Educational Technologies in Wheeling, WV, and other NASA centers across the country to develop several stories about the use of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) concepts in the classroom.Keri's journalism career began at WTRF-TV 7 in Wheeling. She worked in several roles at the station, including the head assignment editor. She also was a field producer and assignment manager at WPGH-TV Fox 53 in Pittsburgh.Keri is a graduate of Ohio University. When she's not in the studio or working on a story, she enjoys watching college football with her family, cooking, and traveling.Keri is always looking for another great story idea, so please share them with her. You can follow her on Twitter @kerib_news.

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