Spring Hill leaders vote to cut city planning director position during budget talks

As the end of the 2019-20 fiscal year fast approaches on July 1, Spring Hill city leaders have ramped up budget talks over the past few weeks. 

Those talks culminated Monday night during the virtual bi-weekly meeting of the Board of Mayor and Aldermen, in which the city director of planning position was voted to be eliminated following a heated discussion. Steve Foote has held that position since May of 2017.

Proposed by Alderman Dan Allen, city leaders voted in favor of diverting all funds associated with the position to go instead towards engineering services, with Allen arguing in favor of working with a third-party organization as to “more quickly advance [the city’s] infrastructure program, in particular the water and sewer side of things.” 

Alderman Jeff Graves, Matt Fitterer, Hazel Nieves and Vice Mayor Amy Wurth also voted in favor of the proposal, with Aldemen Vincent Fuqua, Kevin Gavigan and Mayor Rick Graham voting against.

“I really feel like over the last year we got a lot of concerns about the overall direction of the program being shifted much more towards current planning, sometimes - in my opinion - at the expense of some long-range planning,” Allen said. 

“My thoughts [on] privatizing; it would allow us to switch to a third-party consultant [and] we could get some extra horse-power and get some things addressed a little bit quicker and better. It would also, in my opinion, help us tie some of the planning and engineering programs together better, particularly related to getting a little bit better handle on the front-end policy wise on water and sewer capacity issues.”

Allen’s proposal was soon passed with a vote of 5-3, with Allen subsequently proposing another position cut - this time, to the city’s infrastructure director position, again proposing all funds be redirected towards engineering services.

Allen did, however, say he would be willing to drop that amendment were City Administrator Victor Lay to consider promoting Missy Stahl, the city’s project manager, to the position of infrastructure director.

Lay said that while Stahl had done “an exceptional job” in her position as the city’s project manager, he was “pretty much offended” by Allen’s proposal.

“I’m a little bit surprised that you’re going to [say], ‘we will hire a team of consultant engineers with the money if you get rid of the position, or, you can hire someone who is a non-engineer who doesn’t have an engineering background to drive our projects forward in working with engineers,’” Lay said. 

“Now I agree that Missy Stahl is excellent as a project manager, but what I’m looking for in that position is an engineer that understands the technical side of that position and the engineering things that are being recommended. If you’re not going to allow me to hire someone, then by all means, take it to a consultant and we will work with a consultant engineering company.”

The vote on eliminating the city’s infrastructure position failed 3-5, with Aldemen Fitterer, Nieves and Allen voting for, and Aldermen Fuqua, Graves, Gavigan, Wurth and Graham voting against.

The vote is reconsidered

Foote, the city’s planning director, seemed taken aback during the meeting at the vote to eliminate his position, and asked city leaders to reconsider their vote, arguing that those who voted to eliminate his position “do not recognize the contributions [he’s] made to the city.”

“You all were looking for people with experience, I came here, left a perfectly good job, and I’ve worked hard, put in a lot of hours," Foote said. "I’ve improved the processes in the department, and I just think this is not taking any of that into account.

“If you take this and you make this job contract, you lose all the continuity of what’s going on in the city and in the department. I’m the person that now knows the history of what’s going on, what has gone on, how to find things. I think you’re going to lose - well I don’t think, I know - you’re going to lose every bit of that.”

Alderman Fuqua called the move to eliminate the position during a voting meeting “detestable,” and said those who voted in favor of eliminating the position “could have given a bit more respect” by bringing up the issue first during a non-voting meeting.

Mayor Graham was also against the decision, calling the move “crazy” given the recent growth of the city.

“I’ll just say again what Mr. Lay said: no city our size does not have a city planner on staff,” Graham said. “I think this is crazy with the amount of growth and projects we’ve got in front of us.”

Vice Mayor Wurth, who voted in favor of eliminating the position, made a motion to reconsider the vote. While Wurth voted in favor of reconsidering the vote, the previous aldermen who voted to eliminate the position voted against the reconsideration, ultimately leaving the vote as it was with a deadlocked 4-4 vote.