County’s Planning Leadership Realigned Again Assistant Will Concentrate On Growth Management Act

The leadership of Spokane County’s planning department is changing for the second time in a year.

Jim Manson, director of building and planning, announced this week he is moving assistant planning director John Mercer to a new job that deals only with meeting requirements of the state’s Growth Management Act.

Manson hired a planner from Okanogan County to replace Mercer.

The change was made because the county missed several state deadlines for steps required under growth management, Manson said. It was years late in writing regulations for managing wetlands and other “critical areas,” for instance, and is behind schedule for drawing urban growth boundaries.

“We’ve got a whole lot of work to accomplish,” said Manson. “John will be working on it 100 percent of the time.”

Laurie Grimes, the new assistant planning director, has been a planner 17 years, the last five as director of planning and building for Okanogan County. Okanogan is Washington’s largest county in land area, but one of its most sparsely populated.

Grimes said moving to an urban county will present new challenges. Because it is not fast growing, for instance, Okanogan County does not fall under the requirements of the Growth Management Act.

Mercer said he considers his new position “a positive move.”

Changes in the planning department started in January 1995, when county commissioners placed it under Manson, who had been building director. Commissioners said the consolidation would cut the time required to obtain a building permit.

Six months later, Manson eliminated the positions held by Planning Director Wally Hubbard and two of his planners, Mercer and Steve Horobiowski.

A month after he was laid off, Mercer was rehired as assistant planning director, replacing Gary Fergen, who left Spokane County to become planning director in Pend Oreille County.

Hubbard is suing the county for $1 million, claiming he was wrongfully fired. Horobiowski recently was given back pay and rehired as a planner for the park department, after county officials acknowledged they did not take the proper steps to lay off the union employee.

, DataTimes