Cobb to name permanent DOT director at Tuesday meeting

Parish has served on interim basis since Wilgus left in April.

Cobb County’s elected officials are set to approve a permanent director of transportation half a year after the last one resigned.

Erica Parish was serving as interim director after Jim Wilgus cited “stress issues” as contributing to why he was left in April.

Cobb commissioners will vote on Parish during its Nov. 13 meeting, which begins at 9 a.m. in the commission chambers at 100 Cherokee St. in Marietta.

Parish came to Cobb in 2016 from Paulding County’s transportation department, where she was their pre-construction manager.

“We look forward to her continued contributions to making Cobb the best place to live, work and play,” said Cobb’s County Manager Rob Hosack.

Hosack, appointed in May 2017, ran the search for a new transportation director to oversee the state’s third-most populated county with three-quarters of a million residents.

Wilgus, who was earning $144,707 a year, took the transportation role in 2016 after serv- ing seven months as interim director following Faye DiMassimo’s departure for the city of Atlanta. He was previously a city engineer for the city of Marietta.

Wilgus had the task of implementing the traffic plan around the Braves’ SunTrust Park, which was paved with tough conversations at all levels of government and business.

Wilgus presented the Cobb plan to push gameday baseball traffic off highways and onto local streets; Sandy Springs Mayor Rusty Paul called it “our night- mare.”

“I now feel that I can no longer effectively run the DOT as it should be run to meet the transportation challenges ahead. The stress of the job has put too much pressure on my family and me,” part of his resignation letter reads.

Traffic tensions with Sandy Springs have always been high, including the time in 1997 when someone shot a traffic control box during a petty back-and-forth between the municipalities.

Wilgus also dealt with snowstorms and tropical storms.

Erica Parish has been serving as Cobb County’s interim director of transportation.