Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Beth Robrahn to head new department in Hailey

Planning, business and economic development to merge under Community Development Department


By TONY EVANS
Express Staff Writer

A reorganization of official duties in Hailey government, approved by Mayor Rick Davis Monday, allows for the creation of a Community Development Department.

Several jobs in the now defunct Hailey Planning Department will be absorbed by the Community Development Department, including the positions of building official and city planner.

The Community Development Department also absorbs some duties previously undertaken by the clerk's office, including business licensure, website development and liaison duties with city commissions.

Beth Robrahn, currently the city's planning director, has been named director of the Community Development Department, adding to her job duties a host of business- and economic-development roles.

Robrahn, who presented the plan to the City Council on Monday, said the reorganization allows for faster business development by consolidating planning, building and economic development into one city department.

"We will do more with the same number of personnel," said Robrahn.

City planner Mariel Platt is expected to move out of the planning department into a new position, made possible by an Environmental Protection Agency grant to promote and document Hailey's "green development" efforts. Platt's position, as well as an assistant position, will be filled with new recruits, Robrahn said.

Robrahn said her work in recent months organizing the Hailey Downtown Revitalization Plan, networking with the county-wide Sustain Blaine group, and developing an urban renewal district have prepared her for her expanded position.

"I've already folded these into my job," she told the council.

Mayor Rick Davis said the reorganization was necessary because since the beginning of the recession, the city has become more reliant on funding from grant writing than on revenues collected from developers.

"Let's give it a shot," Davis said.

Tracy Anderson, currently deputy clerk in the Finance and Records Department, will take a full-time position as grants administrator under the reorganization.

By last summer, Hailey had acquired $745,000 in federal and state grants. Almost $400,000 of that money will be spent in the upcoming fiscal year, starting in October. About 80 percent of the money was acquired from federal stimulus funding associated with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The rest is from grants from the state of Idaho and nonprofit organizations.

Last October, the city was awarded $3.5 million in U.S. Department of Transportation funding to be used toward the $4.41 million Woodside Boulevard Complete Streets project. The project creates bike lanes, sidewalks, bus shelters, bike parking, a landscape buffer zone and installation of a roundabout at Fox Acres Road and Woodside Boulevard.

Budgeted revenue from grants totaled $10,300 in 2009 and 2010.

"Grant writing is a large part of how we do business now," Dawson said in October. "It's how we are making ends meet."

Councilman Fritz Haemmerle contended the plan would create a "mighty weird office with a disjointed structure."

Councilman Don Keirn said similar changes had taken place in many cities in the Intermountain West, including Boise, where he served in public office for a number of years.

"It's a realignment," Keirn said. "It is called progress."

Tony Evans: tevans@mtexpress.com




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