Since the appointment of a new city manager a couple years ago, leadership in Asheville city departments has undergone a gradual turnover. Some of these positions (e.g., civic center director, planning and development director, and head of traffic engineering) remain unfilled. Though unofficial sources like City Manager Gary Jackson have indicated that extensive interviewing processes are underway, the local daily represents that the city is seeking applicants for these slots.
The former planning director, Scott Shuford, quit while the Coalition of Asheville Neighborhoods was putting pressure on him to do so. Joe Minicozzi, quoted in the article, is the President of CAN. In less than two years, the city is working on its third Neighborhood Coordinator, a position created to appease CAN. Traffic Engineer Anthony Butzek, whose experiments with roundabouts were viewed as too progressive for Asheville, took a job elsewhere. The city is also looking for a new transit manager after a radical 90-day fare-free bus ridership program that overworked the buses and their maintenance crews, and made bus drivers irate.
During the budget crunch following the termination of the water agreement, the City of Asheville wisely decided to freeze all hiring until the end of that fiscal year. Unfortunately, it continued to fill upper-management vacancies during the freeze. It would be my preference that they hold off hiring heads of nontraditional role of government positions. In particular, if the federal government would allow it, it would be nice to eliminate the entire department that oversees the administration of HOME and CDBG funds when the department head quits.
