Town Council - Special Meeting

Okay.

Call to order. It's Tuesday, May 19th, 2026, 6.30 p.m. for our special meeting. 6.30. It's 6.30. You said 3 p.m.

I heard 6.30. 6.30. Okay.

So whatever I said, it's 6.30. But anyway, we have a quorum, even though it's just three of us, we do have a quorum talking about the adoption of the agenda. We're here to talk about the possible consideration of staff job description for the town planner. And also, I'd like to add to this discussion about the contract for a temporary town planner. whether it be with Centralina or InFocus. And I want to get you guys' opinion and input on that. Can I get a motion on the...

I make a motion to adopt the agenda as amended with discussion and possible consideration for the contractor part-time fill-in town planner until one permanently can be hired.

Okay. All in favor? Okay. All right. That is approved, unanimous. Opening up the discussion, let's talk about the staff job description as a town planner. Anybody want to go first?

I will jump in. Based upon looking at the previous job description and even what our previous town planner had believed the job responsibilities were. We felt we wanted to blow some of that out and give additional detail and to be very clear about the relationships that need to happen. And so we took the time to add a few things into here that they need to work with developers to kind of help them maneuver through the process. And we added some things as well in terms of being able to we put a and then we talked about this at the town council meeting to put a like a prior um kind of setting the tone and context paragraph in there that would basically say that we're hoping that they can act as a custodian as well for the town uh helping to draw the right projects to town or circumvent projects that may not fit with our town look and feel And so that's what Tom and I spent Friday morning kind of blowing out into more detail. Did you want to add anything?

And I will say too, thank you too, for doing that, taking this on as a, I won't call it a sub council group here to bring it for the council to approve. So thank you guys for taking the time.

Part of that was pretty much spell it out that the planner has to be proactive and reactive with developers and development projects, not just it comes in and processes. You have to work with them, steer them in the right direction in that this is what we expect. You are missing stuff or you need to improve this, that or the other before it comes all the way in to save them time and money and us comes in and not fully done. So that was part of the conversation we had is that you have to be

with the developers you know this is not just take what they give you but no no and i think it's critical that we be proactive to determine what is right for the town and what like you said what fits and doesn't fit what works and doesn't work what's going to bring value what's you know what's going to i'm going to say it like this the excite the residents who are here the wow factor just bring in a nice product and so i think it is critical for the planner to be engaged with that and to make sure at the start that these things you know are is what we're looking for you know and and not just like okay here's what we got you know from the community meeting on the first community meeting they should be giving feedback to them

to the development. This is where I see you have this problem or that problem, or this is good, that it's good. Give them that feedback so when they come with an application that it is coming into the box of what we expect.

Right. No, you're exactly right. And this all is a part of shaping the town and just making sure the applications, like you said, are complete. And when it comes to the planning board, We have less hiccups along the way until it gets up to the council position.

And this is something I would recommend we do. It's not with the job description, but with the application form that there's basically with the checklist that at the bottom of the checklist, there's a place where it says reviewed and approved as complete by the And stamped that they have fully believed that everything is there and done.

And verified. And verified. I think it's important to cross-check the numbers and make sure.

Well, as much as can be done at the early stage.

Exactly.

And you're talking about Appendix 2B, you know, that whole process.

The 2B has basically a certification that the planner believes that it's full and complete and is presented as proper proper paperwork to document whatever you need. You have the stormwater plan that's been done by their engineer that says it works, reviewed by Lovella or whoever that says, we've reviewed it, it looks reasonable, that this should work. That's all they're going to say at that early stage. This should work and go from there. So at least looks at it they're not saying well where's this where's this where's this everything gets to them nothing gets to them until it's complete right and when they have it they have all the facts then they can dig into it do their work and I think it's less headaches along the way like I said earlier and

You know, there's less chance of kicking it back. We have everything lined up. We know for sure what we've got presented to us.

So do we need to read this out loud and then.

We can just add it to the record. You've got the red lines from Kevin, and you're approving that? Yes.

Right. Let me ask this before, because Tom has a great idea or comment here about uh a place on that uh application where the uh the planner signs off on it stamps it or whatever he's going to do with it is that something that that's not a udo change that's just an application change yeah can we can we uh we'll add that to that add that to that but we're not talking about that right now but yeah we'll add that right so so we're getting we're giving direction to the staff to add that

I have an additional question. It didn't occur to me till this moment, and I'm sorry that it didn't, but based on reporting structures, we have Jazzy reports into the planner, right? I'm assuming that it will continue to do so. Do we need to add those kinds of responsibilities into the job description? What for? That they are responsible for

managing the permit technician assistant correct yeah i think so yeah i think so good catch yeah and if um i'm not sure what you all are planning to do as far as like evaluations that would be appropriate for the planner to be 100 yeah yeah i agree because they work directly with yeah but they oversee they should do it so i would um unfortunately we have to recommend that change

And we would then have to, do we have to have that again checked by legal? But if that is okay? I think you just say if that's. Then I would say that then I'm okay with those changes to go forward.

Yeah, I think so too.

Yeah, we always find things that.

Thank you for catching that.

Yeah, but it's really a bullet point. Yes, exactly. It should not be.

Which there did not seem to be anything.

Yeah.

no and i read through this as well and didn't see anything and that's that's again a great catch um and i guess i'm looking at where that would probably be best added in uh it doesn't matter it's a laundry list yeah they could put it at the end it doesn't matter or whatever or Wherever the staff feels that it needs to go.

And other duties that we could do, but it would be good to... I'm just looking where it's probably the best place to add it.

maybe under reviews and recommends rezoning requests interpret supplies and recommend zoning and land use ordinance amendments right in there maybe and because it's kind of with the reviews applications issues zoning permits could go in there overseas permit technician which is the third one from the top

yes and oversees the what is that what is her technical permit technician planning assistant is what now permit technician and planning assistant and she's also now as assistant zoning administrator yeah and basically added yeah after that comma you could add oversees and yes whatever you the proper words is for that title i like supervise i do supervise that's more descript right supervise that person which then infers you do the review if you're supervising you're right correct right that is agreeable to me anything else anybody is yeah that was just the last little little strike in his brain and if you do that

know that that language basically is going to be approved basically to approve this with that slight modification correct can they get a motion to approve it with that modification to it i will make a motion to approve the um job description as written with an included uh modification um requiring the um supervision of the permit technician to be added and reviewed by attorney.

Again, for a town planner position.

Yes.

All right. All in favor? Okay. Unanimous. That was good. Okay. Let's move forward to the... temporary we're looking for a temporary planner until we get a full-time planner for anybody who's watching this and uh we've got a couple we threw out uh some others didn't respond so we have a couple here that we're looking at uh in focus in central lana and uh so uh And I'm going to be honest, it was tough. There's pros and cons on both sides. There's expenses, but you pay a little bit more here, but you get more. And it's like, okay, then trying to stay within a budget and trying to determine, you know, what do we need? It was tough. I read through this several times. I'm like, oh, my gosh, I could go both ways. And so your thoughts?

I included up there, I believe, in the stack of Greg's papers, a brief resume of the people that would be coming here with us. Yes.

And this was primarily within focus, correct?

That was in focus, yes. I did not get back from Centralina.

Okay. Again, I mean, I went through and I, you know, I circled things and made bullet points and that kind of thing for both of them. And it's like, and when I got down to the end, the head was still spinning because I saw things I wanted in both. I'm like, okay, can I have this and that? But it was a tough deal. And I'm going to ask you, you know, what would be your, what's your input?

I've worked with both before, most recently with InFocus as far as interim planner. And I'm in the same spot you are. I would be leaning more towards InFocus, if only because I'm familiar with those people.

Okay.

And they're familiar with the town.

Has Centralina had any, how long ago was their experience here?

Well, we have Matt, who is our code enforcement officer. He is a planner, but he doesn't do that for them. But as far as having a planner here, I don't know. It's before my time.

Now, just to clarify for anybody who's watching, these are two part-time positions with limited time here um and so this is not a full-time staff positions that somebody's going to be here all the time because again this is very costly and we're trying to you know be wise and what we're spending in our dollars here so but still get the job done and keep things moving so we don't completely stop down and so um i'm gonna i'm gonna ask you karen um which one gives us more time in the office? And I know that was tough and I had it in my notes, but one gave us a little bit more time, but less direction.

Yeah, they broke it down a little differently. I mean, Centralina said about 20 hours a week with one to two in office days and focus was initially a day a week with the planning director. We won't need him every week. Um, and then one to two days a week for the regular planner.

Um, yeah, no, I hate to throw that at you. Um, which do you, do you remember which one gave us more access to a planners to more?

I think they both do. It's a matter of how you pay it.

And what difference did you tease out in the cost?

Right. And then that all boils down to how many hours they're here.

and how many hours we need them and initially it's going to be more than hopefully when it is later and we're hoping this may be 90 to 120 days right hoping yes yeah yeah i'm hoping yes

we're not locked into you know if we find if we find a full-time planner in 30 days right we're not we're not locked in we can we can move on right in the contract basically this is a contract not a temporary employee they they both have a an end to them and if you need to extend you can extend but it's a contract but it yeah yeah it's technically

And there's not like an early termination fee.

I didn't see that, but I would check that one. Let me check that one more time. I did send them both to Karen to review. Okay. And she took a first blush. She said she wants to see names. And I did get names from Enfocus. What else did she say? Give me a second. She said... all right so yeah the the basic i mean we may have it's important to have the same people or person in the office and um and we are limited on the time they will be here right so so access to this person you know is going to be limited by all of us including residents because

Someone pops into the office, hey, can I talk to you for a while? Cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching. Right.

The priorities will be the projects that are in the pipeline and the reviews that need to be done for that kind of stuff.

Speaking of which, well, maybe what we should do, let's just discuss it, is institute something like if, there are like between this time to this time is your office hour. If anyone drops in, that's the time that it can be handled or everything has to be by appointment only for this period of time. And there's like 15 minute increments or something because I don't want it to bleed.

No, exactly.

And the other thing is however much can be steered off to correct from a permit basis, anything, anything, it can be steered off. You know what I'm saying? If she can be the front person and then kind of a gatekeeper. Oh, Jaslyn, yes. Jaslyn, yeah. Jaslyn would be the gatekeeper to back there. Somebody just walks in out of the blue and just wants to, whatever, talk, she talks to them. Then if it's something that really needs to go, then something gets worked out. Because she's going to be here. reasonable amount of time.

She's here during the work day and a couple hours after.

Because we have a full-time load with a part-time planner. So if someone comes in and wants to chit-chat, just, you know, whatever, we just don't have that time.

We do not have time. I wish we would have been able to see the work experience of the central line of people too.

I think yesterday I reached out and I didn't hear back. If you want to I don't want to put this off any longer. I can try and nudge them one more time.

Because I'm leaning a little that way.

You lean a little.

Towards central line.

Central line.

And I believe in their contract, they also listed, or in their scope of services, they also listed specific people that were going to be here.

In my notes, I was leaning towards Central Atlanta too, but at the same time, we have folks here, like you were saying earlier, Karen, that are familiar and sort of knows our workflow and knows to feel with the town and who we are. And that's important as well. I'm going to ask you this. It's critical that this person gets up to speed on our UDO and holds that tight. WOULD I BE ASSUMING WRONG THAT IN FOCUS, SINCE THEY ARE MORE FAMILIAR WITH US, WOULD KNOW OUR UDO? WOULD THAT BE THE CORRECT ASSUMPTION OR NOT?

THAT WOULD BE AN ASSUMPTION. BUT I THINK I WOULD MAKE THE SAME ASSUMPTION.

WE HAD THE UDO WHEN THEY WERE HERE LAST.

RIGHT. WELL, AND THINGS HAVE CHANGED, BUT I DON'T THINK THE BIG not fundamentally yeah yeah yes absolutely cost-wise are they pretty comparable now i remember looking at that and i they didn't i wish they had similar pricing structures it was so different yeah i said apples and oranges right i even i asked leslie to look at it and she said she hates reading contracts she was the one that suggested getting the the resumes as well um

i think if we're smart with it we'll be able to manage the budget of it anyway i mean this is a matter of we know what the full-time planner cost us that's I don't think it's going to kill us. But this is a necessary evil. We don't have any choice. This is a necessary evil we have to do until we get somebody full time.

And I know I do like the fixed fee from Centralina. Right.

And I like that too.

It just makes me much more comfortable.

Yeah. And I was thinking about that too, Tom, because we're going to have to pay somebody anyway. So, you know, so just, it's not like it was zero to something. We were in that, we were, money was outgoing anyway. Right. And so it's just, you know, how much on top does it go?

And we won't be paying a full salary like we would once we hire somebody.

Right. You know, and, and, for what you said earlier, the fixed cost. Uh, and I was leaning a little bit towards central line, even though I said earlier, like I said earlier, I was torn toward, you know, both, both ways, you know, it was just pluses and minuses on both sides. I would probably lean toward central line as well, but again, you're going to split hairs. But then again, you got folks here in, in, in focus that already knows our system.

And so it's like, but I think if you're a planner, you're a planner. right and no matter what you have to adjust and central line would probably be just as capable you know as in focus to be able to hit the ground running so i i'm good with whatever you guys think yeah it is it's a hard decision tom where are you i just gotta i gotta feel that the cost one way to

either way is going to be relatively comparable one way or the other. I always like familiarity is just my one thing I think of, but I understand that the other is more black and white.

Financially?

Yeah.

Like a contractor coming into your house?

Yeah.

I don't want them to open the door and be like, oh, now it's going to be something different.

This is pretty straightforward what we're asking them to do though. And if we have a good gatekeeper to keep the things up.

But she's young.

She handles them very well. She's very good. She's more confident than I was at that age. It's amazing.

Somebody comes in and needs an application here. We'll send it to you or whatever it may be. She can handle a bunch of this stuff. It's when you get down to you have this coming in and it's going to be an application that you have to have these people really available to review and steer these people in the right direction. I just hope Jasmine of the people, cost wise for us.

Debbie is a really good gatekeeper as well, for lack of a better term.

And there's always you two as well.

It is difficult, but we're down to, this is almost a coin toss. That's the way I look at it. There's pros and cons for both people. You know, the concept of knowing more your price, I fully understand that this is what we're bought or paying for.

Just have a comfort level with that.

Yep.

Okay.

And hopefully this will not be an extended period of time that the money could end up being considerable.

in a line that we want this to be as short as possible. We all are of that same mindset.

Somebody make a motion.

oh i'm not good at this i'm new yeah so i make a motion to to um accept the contract for central line central line okay you actually word it that way or have staff direct staff to direct to enter into a contract in the amount not to exceed what what did they say no more than we have a number well i see that but

I see the in focus contract here of $36,000 a month.

Okay. It's about $6,000 a month not to exceed $36,000 for six months.

Yes.

And it can be stopped once we hire somebody coming on.

And we will verify that one last time before.

contract is signed okay uh can i get a just uh you made a motion all in favor unanimous to move forward on that yeah financially this cannot make much any difference one way or the other it's a matter of service is where we are do we get enough service or not no this is good enough service to get us through to where we need to this short period of time and you have enough to advertise for a position i

i need to do official i might need a salary range i can use the same one we used when we hired greg and see how that goes and we can come back and discuss it if we need to we should probably benchmark what other planners are well that was kind of what was done right a couple years ago but could we use his the latest yeah we can use his latest

Basically, you've got a 3.5% bump that we would be given. That's what I would do, current plus 3.5% to get us into that range at least we could discuss. You don't want to scare people off if we're too low.

Correct. But you also want to maybe attract people that could be coming out of school too and may want to learn and grow.

I don't want quite out of school.

yeah we we have that guideline for five years we we do have some guidelines ideally it would be somebody who's been working under a planner yeah and a good assistant a planner right okay from a bigger entity right we need somebody to experience because of the dynamics of the town yeah

Part of me feels like if we give someone the opportunity and they can grow into it, they could also be here for the long haul as well. And that to me may be, you know, because it's that time of year where students are coming out.

It's a stepping stone.

I know. ideally it would be somebody who's looking to hang out while they're approaching retirement. I love that idea.

We need experience.

I think that's enough to attract somebody that if we find the right person to deal with, you figure it out. When the bridge

and if we have to negotiate we can do that too if you have an idea yeah okay so i'm directed to advertise for the planner position yes and are you guys okay with me paying to advertise in some places 100 yes yes all right you're talking about like the north carolina league yes sir yes sir um yeah yeah does it also go on like the online sites like i find some of them yeah i um i think we did linkedin last time okay um

I assume there's more civic type sites.

There are. There are the Management Association, the Clerk Association, the UNC Charlotte Alumni Association, things like that.

Okay. As long as it's out there and a good pool to find some good qualified people.

We can get you a bunch of people.

It seems like NC State has a lot, like maybe through their alumni network.

I'll look into that too. Okay. I'm always glad to have another Wolfpack in the house.

Okay. Is there anything else that we need to discuss on this? So are we good? I think we're good. All right. Are we good? Is there anything you need from us as well?

I think I got it.

Okay. All right. Can I get a motion to adjourn?

I'll make a motion to adjourn.

All in favor? Aye. All right. We adjourn. Thank you for being here and thank you for watching.