The Prince William Board of County Supervisors will appoint a Baltimore City Administrator to lead the local government in Virginia’s second-largest jurisdiction. The Prince William Board of County Supervisors will appoint a Baltimore City Administrator to lead the local government in Virginia’s second-largest jurisdiction.
According to multiple sources, Christopher Shorter will be appointed the new County Executive following a closed-session meeting at 10 a.m. Tuesday, October 25. A media report indicates Short is telling others in Baltimore he is leaving Maryland for a new job in Northern Virgina.
Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott hired Shorter in December 2020 to work as the city administrator, a new position created for Shorter meant to improve how the city delivers services to its constituents. Shorter went to Charm City after a stint in local government in Austin, Texas, where was the assistant fro health, environment, culture, and lifelong learning.
Before that, he worked for 10 years in the Washington, D.C. Government under Mayor Muriel Bowser, including a job the director of the city’s public works division.
According to his bio on Baltimore’s website, Shorter received his Masters of Public Administration degree from the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public & International Affairs and a Bachelor of Science degree in economics from Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University in Tallahassee, Florida.
Shorter will replace Christopher Martino who served as the Prince William County Executive from 2016 to 2021. The Board of County Supervisors placed interim CXO Elijah Johnson in charge while it searched for Martino’s replacement.
Johnson applied for the full-time job and had no comment for this story when asked. Supervisors are also mum, and did not respond to our request for comment today.
During a September meeting, Woodbridge District Supervisor Margaret Franklin pushed Johnson to provide answers on how the county police, and by extension the county government would work to curb a recent rash of shootings in the county.
“With each incident, we’re having to answer questions, and we want to have actual action items in place to let our residents know we’re taking this seriously,” Franklin said during the meeting.
Johnson said he would work with county staff to provide answers sometime in November.
Just last week, police said a man walked into a home in Dale City and shot a mother, father, and and their 19-year-old daughter, and another man. Their deaths bring the homicide count in Prince William County to a total of 14 in 2022.
More than 200 people have been shot and killed so far this year in Baltimore.
