County soon to choose top planner

The Kootenai County Commission hopes to hire a new planning director in the next two weeks, filling a key position that has been vacant for nine months.

Commissioners interviewed three of the four finalists this week, Commissioner Rich Piazza said Thursday.

“It will give us all relief, everyone in the community,” Piazza said. “They (the planning department) have been in flux.”

Piazza said the county received about a dozen applications after advertising the position for nearly a month. The commission narrowed the pool to four, three of whom are from about a 200-mile radius of Kootenai County. The other candidate is from the Midwest.

Planning Director Rand Wichman resigned in June to start a private land-use consulting business. The position remained open until late December, when the commission appointed Cheri Howell as interim director. The commission interviewed several candidates before appointing Howell but said it wasn’t satisfied with the quality of the applicants.

Howell had served as director for seven years before resigning in 2001 to start a private land-use consulting company. She returned to the county in February 2006 as a senior planner to oversee long-range planning, including the rewrite of the county’s growth plan.

She said Thursday she has not interviewed for the director’s job.

Newly elected commissioners Piazza and Todd Tondee said hiring a new director was at the top of their priority list when they took office in January.

Tondee suggested hiring a headhunter to find the best person for the crucial position in the quickly growing county.

Piazza said the commission decided against that idea because of the cost and thought they would give it one more shot by advertising the position.

Commission Chairman Rick Currie declined to say how much the county would pay a new director. He said the commission would have to negotiate the salary with the top candidate.

The job paid Wichman $67,000 a year. He has advised the commission that it likely won’t get the needed talent unless the county bumps up the salary for the position, which includes overseeing more than 30 employees and acting as the face of major land-use decisions.

Wichman didn’t return phone calls Thursday, but in a June interview, he said growth and development are foremost on residents’ minds and the county needs a planning director who can handle the new demands.

“The face of the community is changing,” Wichman said. “This is not the laid-back, easygoing community it once was. The public has become to some degree fed up and frustrated. They’re much more demanding.”