The Next Director of Permit and Planning

Stephen Amsbaugh is -by our reckoning- the sixth director of the Permit and Planning departments, which has recently been re-organized and re-named to: "San Juan Community Development and Planning". We recently sat down with Mr. Amsbaugh in his office, and our first question was to inquire if the 10 days that he has been Director were sufficient to allow him to recognized the main areas of concern, and what his priorities were. Mr. Amsbaught has done his home work. Prior to coming here he spent several weeks doing in depth research on our community, and the issues that have consumed past Directors of the Center. His stated priorities are to meet the expectations of the County Commissioners, and also to return to the prior department policy of issuing building permits in a timely fashion.

If his stated goal to serve the two masters of his job, that is, the public and the private sectors of San Juan County, then he may very well have the proper background of experience to pull this off successfully. Mr., Amsbaught (like his deputy, Francine Shaw) has years of extensive experience in both the private and public sector, and that experience has been at the highest levels. In the private sector his experience has ranged from Vice Presidents of Development, as well as Operations, and also Project Managers for major corporations and their projects. Within the public sector he has served at the Director level for three jurisdictions, with in depth experience in all aspects of planning, housing and building, which includes affordable housing projects, land analysis, permit processing, master planning and environmental impact analysis.

This may be a good time for the County in terms of having a new team of two new commissioners, and a new director, all of whom are starting off with a fresh slate upon which they can spell out the rules of running a department that many have said is the single most important, and controversial, department in county government. The permitting of projects is, after all, where peoples dreams are sometimes realized -or their nightmares begin- and the decisions that are rendered by the Permit Center can have impacts that are far reaching, not only on individual projects, and neighborhoods, but the county as a whole, and legal missteps can, and have, impacted the county budget as well. We wish Mr. Amsbaugh, his staff, and the new Board of County Commissioners, all the best.

[more..]