Juandiego Wade has resigned — not from his position as mayor of the city of Charlottesville, but from the post he has held for more than 30 years in neighboring Albemarle County.
Long before he helmed Charlottesville City Council, Wade was involved with the county. He started out as a transportation planner in 1991 before transitioning to the role of Social Services Career Center coordinator in 2009.
After 34 years with the county, he is set to retire Thursday, making him exclusively a public servant of Charlottesville.
“The county has just allowed me to grow personally and professionally, and I enjoyed every every minute of it,” Wade told The Daily Progress. “I’ll still able to serve the community, of course, but it’s a lot of work being mayor, being on Council, and this just will allow me to focus on that a little bit more.”
Wade was first elected to Council in 2021 after roughly a decade on the city School board. Council named him mayor January 2023, in a unanimous vote. In December, he announced a joint campaign for reelection with current Vice Mayor Brian Pinkston in next month’s Democratic primary.
Over the course of his tenure with the county, Wade said he acquired a variety of skills that gave him a boost as a leader in the city — from his early years focused on transportation and infrastructure planning to his later years helping “people connect their passion with their profession.”
“I learned how to present and talk in front of large groups of people, sometimes people were not happy with the decision or the road project, but I learned to speak with confidence in front of individuals,” said Wade. “All of this has helped me create wonderful policy, I believe, both as a school board member and now as a councilor.”
A Richmond native, Wade moved to Charlottesville in 1990 to study for a master’s degree in urban and environmental planning at the University of Virginia, where he met his wife Claudette Grant. The two now reside in the city’s Locust Grove neighborhood.
Though he jokes that it feels as though he’s “served on every nonprofit board” in the area, the claim is not as far-fetched as it may seem. Over the years, he’s been involved with ReadyKids, Charlottesville Parks & Recreation, the Virginia School Boards Association, the Charlottesville Police Foundation, the 100 Black Men of Central Virginia, the United Way of Greater Charlottesville and the Charlottesville Albemarle Technical Education Center, to name a few.
“All of those experiences helped me to be the leader that I am today, to understand the needs in the community, the resources out there, but most importantly, the wonderful people in the community all stepping up to the plate to volunteer,” Wade said.
Source: www.dailyprogress.com
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