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Sylva’s planning director resigns
By Stephanie Salmons
The town of Sylva lost a key administrative employee when Planning Director Jim Aust resigned last Wednesday (Oct. 1).
That move came one week after Aust, who has been in his position almost 10 years, was quoted criticizing town board members in an article published in the Sept. 24 edition of The Smoky Mountain News.
That report focused on Aust, who was upset after board members voted 3-2 to deny an application for a Residential Planned Unit Development last month.
Board members Harold Hensley, Ray Lewis and Maurice Moody voted “no,” while Sarah Graham and Stacy Knotts voted in favor of the RPUD.
Interim Manager Chris Carter said during the town board’s Oct. 2 meeting that Aust had voluntarily tendered his resignation.
“It will be a void in our staff,” Mayor Brenda Oliver said. “I appreciate the long hours and hard work he put in to making Sylva better.”
Oliver said that she didn’t “really think” the article was his reason for leaving, but said she was “a little surprised” by what was reported.
“I just ask the public to have patience with us in the transition,” she said. “We’re regrouping and deciding on how the different functions will be farmed out to the proper departments.”
Graham said she did not have a comment about Aust’s resignation, other than from what she understood it was voluntary. While she said she didn’t think the article had anything to do with his departure, the issue of the RPUD was something she knew “(Aust) was upset about.”
Graham also declined to comment about her reaction to the article.
“I try to take what’s written with a grain of salt,” she said. “I know when I speak to reporters on the record, I can be quoted on what I say, and it’s important for anyone in this line of work to understand that.”
Hensley said that he didn’t know the resignation had happened until a reporter called Thursday.
“It’s really his position to resign if he wants to,” Hensley said.
Hensley said he didn’t know if the article had anything to do with Aust’s resignation, but that the newspaper story “wasn’t good.”
“If you’re going to ride in the boat, don’t punch a hole in it,” Hensley said.
Lewis, however, indicated that the article may have had something to do with Aust’s resignation.
“It made the board members look really bad, and I didn’t think he had the right to question our vote on the RPUD,” Lewis said. “I’m glad he resigned instead of (us firing him).”
Lewis said Aust was upset because of the time he spent on the RPUD project.
“He just works for the board,” Lewis said. “It’s up to the board to make the decision to re-zone it. If he hadn’t been doing that he’d have been doing something else.”
Moody said he didn’t “really have any insight as to why Aust resigned.
“He was obviously disappointed on a recent vote, and I don’t know if that had anything to with it,” Moody said, adding that he’s not permitted to discuss personnel.
As for the article, Moody said that he “thought it was inaccurate to start with.”
“There are no requirements for a $500,000 house,” he said. “Look around Sylva. There are very few that meet that. That part was an exaggeration.”
Moody was referring to a quote in the article in which Aust accused Moody of only wanting $500,000 homes in the town.
Knotts said she was sorry to see Aust go.
“I’ve enjoyed working with him,” she said. “I’ve worked with him a lot in conjunction with the planning board, and he has done a lot of good things for Sylva.”
As far as she understood, Knotts said Aust’s resignation was voluntary and she said she was unsure whether the article had anything to do with his decision.
She was, however, “a little surprised” by what was reported.
“I knew that Jim believed in that project, and I knew he seemed disappointed that it didn’t pass,” she said.
Carter, who had only been with the town for about a week when Aust resigned, said Monday that Aust “voluntarily tendered his resignation and really gave no reason for it.”
Carter offered no comment about the article, saying only that “it broke just about when I got here.”
Aust did not return several Herald phone calls seeking comment for this report.
At Thursday’s meeting however, Carter did discuss how Aust’s responsibilities would be divvied up until a replacement is found.
“Of course he wore the hat of code enforcement office, but I think in some respects, (he did) much more than that in terms of responsibilities. There were a variety of activities under that title,” Carter said.
Carter will take over on routine planning board work, along with sign ordinance applications. The town’s steep-slope ordinance will also have to continue to be administered by the town through Carter, he said.
However, county officials have agreed on a temporary basis to do building and fire inspections for the town of Sylva, Carter said.
“What I think we would feel most comfortable with is if we enter an interlocal agreement to continue to do that on a permanent basis until we figure out how these functions will be handled in the future,” he said.
One tricky area would be making sure that town projects have the proper zoning clearance before they are granted permits by the county.
“I know that’s a sticking point, and we will try to be really careful and develop that relationship where this won’t be an issue,” Carter said.
Code enforcement will have to be administered through the town, he said.
“Another thing I know that will need to be picked up immediately is information technology,” Carter said. “He did have some knowledge of our computer system, both hardware and software.”
However, Carter said he was informed that the town did have a contract through a local Internet service provider for hardware maintenance.
“I think we’ll just go that route,” he said.
“The big unknown is dealing with developers as they walk through the door, to discuss their project and get feedback,” Carter said.
Also Oct. 2:
– Oliver announced that she spoke with Paul Frye a real estate specialist with the U.S. Postal Service, and that progress is being made on the new post office.
Tessier and Associates of Asheville are working on the “shell” of the building, Oliver said, adding that when that is complete, the USPS will come in and do the finish work.
According to Oliver, the new post office, which will be located in Jackson Plaza, will be ready for occupancy in the first quarter of 2009.
– The Public Safety committee will meet at 3 p.m. Monday, Oct. 20.
– Board members voted unanimously to change the town manager’s job description. The changes read that the manager will also serve as finance officer, Oliver said.
“I wanted to also add the idea that the interim manager would have the same job duties as the town manager,” Oliver said. “That’s not spelled out specifically.”
Moody agreed.
“I think that’s what we hired him for,” he said.
– Oliver said that the Revolving Loan Committee – which met earlier in the day Oct. 2 – had discussed the town’s loan to Metrostat Technologies. Metrostat owner John Kevlin told committee members the struggling economy had caused his company to fall behind in payments to the town.
“The recommendation from the Revolving Loan Committee is that the town attorney be authorized to draft a new promissory note between the town of Sylva and Metrostat, amending the payment schedule to specify a monthly payment of $1,200 with a provision of a permanent 5-percent interest rate, observing the original term of 84 months, beginning Dec. 1, 2004,” Oliver said.
The remainder of the loan will be due Dec. 1, 2011.
“The purpose of these loans to start with is to help businesses and create jobs,” Moody said “We have worked in the past with businesses that were in trouble financially. To me, this makes sense, if it gives him a payment he can live with and we’re still drawing interest. My recommendation is that we approve this.”
Board members voted unanimously to approve this set up.
– Sylva officials held a workshop prior to the meeting in which Warner Anthony, a lawyer from Greensboro discussed investment policies and procedures for the town’s $3.5 million, which came from a conservation easement for Pinnacle Park.
Illegal investments of the funds prior to September led to the Sept. 4 firing of former town Manager Jay Denton.
Anthony advised town leaders to look into getting a set investment policy or procedures in place “to make sure you don’t get in trouble inadvertently.”
Anthony said that policies set should follow state law and have a set of checks and balances.
“Write it out,” he said. “You should give thought to the policy you will follow.”
Anthony also discussed state statutes that regulate municipal investments and provided general information to board members.
Officials did not take any action but said that Anthony offered “good information.”
Anthony told town officials that he’s a federal attorney licensed in Washington, D.C., and was not offering legal or investment advice.
Denton had much of the $3.5 million in accounts not allowed by state statutes to achieve the highest available interest rates.
Denton said during a meeting of the Finance Committee prior to his firing that he had checked with the Local Government Commission on the use of some accounts, but not all of them. However, when the mistakes were found, immediate steps were taken to correct them, he said.
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