(Photo via Cortland County).
Current Planning Director Trisha Jesset announced recently she will be taking a position at SUNY Cortland, which has prompted the county to seek her replacement. For now, that replacement will have to come from Cortland County.
County Legislators recently declined to expand the search for a new planning director outside of county lines.
At last week’s Government Operations Committee meeting, legislators voted down a measure that would amend a local law to ease restrictions on who can be the director of planning. One of the county’s current stipulations states that the planning director must reside in the county.
The county currently has one applicant for the position, according to County personnel officer Laurie Leonard. Legislator Richard Stock (D-LD-6) noted he opposed changing the local law to allow for applicants outside of the county. He added he spoke with Cortland mayor Scott Steve who echoed his comments.
“We want someone doing planning in our county so we know what our needs are here,” he said. “If we have to change the qualifications for the position, we’ll do that so that we can find someone locally who can do it.”
Legislator Kelly Preston, LD-10, agreed with Stock.
““Director of planning needs to be very well aware of the needs of Cortland County,” she said. “The way to do that is to be based in our county.”
County administrator Rob Corpora spoke on the hardships the county has had hiring for several positions.
“Limiting ourselves to people in Cortland County is really going to shorten the playing field and the candidates we are going to receive,” he said. “This is a very specialized position. It could go vacant for quite a while.”
The motion to change the residency requirement failed with only one yes vote.
At the Agriculture Planning and Environmental Committee meeting later that day, Jesset said she was disappointed the resolution did not move forward.
“Someone can't even live in Dryden, and work in this position,”she said. “Many people have grown up in Cortland County, have lived here or had friends, family here, or cared deeply about the county and know a lot about the operations of our local government, but simply live a mile two miles over the border. I just think that that's a very unfortunate and short-sighted perspective to maintain that residency requirement. I think that the pool gets more and more shallow all the time.”
Legislative Minority Leader Beau Harbin (D-LD-2) also spoke in favor of waiving the residency requirement.
“The Director of Planning is a highly skilled professional and we should be casting a wide net to help find the right person,” he said. “We have many roles in our county where people commute to their jobs. Many families make decisions simply for things like access to child care, which we have a need for in Cortland and have lost the opportunity to grow with the abandonment of the Parker School project, or they might be looking to buy an affordable home but the housing market is tight here. If they are willing to work for our community and bring their specialist skills and knowledge to help Cortland then I am all for that.”
