When Charlottesville City Manager Sam Sanders reshuffled his administrative team last fall, one of the two deputy city manager positions was retitled Chief Prosperity Officer.
“This role focuses on the priorities set by the City Manager in what is referred to as ‘the Laboratory’– a place where we dream, imagine, try, test, assess, evaluate, discard, change, and pivot,” reads the original memo and quoted in a story I wrote last October.
The memo went on to say that the position would be connected to the Police Civilian Oversight Board, the Human Rights Commission, Home to Hope, and work on implementing the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The first person to hold the position was Ashley Marshall who had been serving as one of Sanders’ two deputies. Marshall left earlier this year to become Chief of Community Services in Savannah, Georgia.
On August 17, Sanders announced that Joshua Barr has been hired for the role.
“Joshua comes with a very nice resume, a history that I will indeed expect that he will share with you as he interacts with us talking about our various prosperity priorities, which is lifting everyone in our community, and we definitely look forward to having him here,” Sanders said.
Barr’s most recent job has been serving as president of his own consulting company called Raising the Barr. Before that he was the executive director of the Des Moines Civil and Human Rights Department from October 2015 to July 2021. In that position he won an Emmy for a documentary called “Breaking Bread, Building Bridges.”
Learn more about his time in Iowa in this article in the Des Moines Register.
Barr is a former attorney with a degree from the University of South Carolina School of Law and a Masters of Business Administration
“I’m looking forward to listening, learning, and working alongside residents and City staff to tackle the issues that affect people’s ability to move up the socioeconomic ladder and experience a greater quality of life,” Barr said. “I’m particularly interested in understanding Charlottesville’s history and connecting that history to the opportunities and challenges we face today.”
The usage of the term “laboratory” is one of Sanders’ choosing and is intended to help people in new ways. For instance, he said Barr will be involved in efforts to increase access to childcare.
“Joshua will be a part of that conversation and other conversations and he’ll be asked to seek other opportunities for us to be a part of things like that that bring resources to the City of Charlottesville,” Sanders said.
There is still an open assistant city manager position since Evan Pilachowski left at the end of the May after five months on the job.
Before you go: The goal of Town Crier Productions is to increase awareness about what is happening at the local, regional, state, and federal government levels. Please share the work with others if you want people to know things. Paid subscribers cover the cost of conducting research for this article which was originally published in the August 19, 2026 edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement. You can either subscribe through Substack or make a charitable contribution.
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