19-02-2025
Decatur planning director interviews scheduled
Feb. 18—Starting Wednesday, if the weather cooperates, the Decatur City Council will interview two applicants from Texas for the newly recreated planning director opening and then next week talk with a former city planning manager seeking to return as director.
Steve Hohulin, former director of Land Planning for Quiddity engineering and planning, The Woodlands, Texas, and Corin Hooper, senior noise analyst, BB&E Inc., San Antonio, Texas, are scheduled to be interviewed Wednesday.
Lee Terry, economic and planning director for TARCOG (Top of Alabama Regional Council of Governments) in Huntsville, will interview Feb. 25 at 3:30.
All three are certified planners.
Human Resources Director Richelle Sandlin sent out an email Monday that says, "Unless weather patterns change drastically," the planning director interviews will continue as planned. She says Hohulin will go first at 10:30 a.m. with Hooper following at 1:30 p.m.
After bringing back the planning director position, the City Council authorized Sandlin in November to hire formerly GovHR, for $40,000 to conduct a search for planning director candidates.
Sandlin said Thursday that MGT received 16 applications and chose four finalists, but two withdrew from consideration. MGT presented two finalists, Hohulin and Hooper, for the Decatur job.
Sandlin said Terry, who was Decatur's planning manager for three years before leaving for TARCOG, applied directly to the city. His interview is scheduled for 3 p.m., Feb. 25.
Councilman Carlton McMasters said after Monday's council meeting that he is impressed with the applicants.
"Of course, we know one of them," McMasters said. "And the other two from Texas look like good candidates. I'm curious to see what they have to say."
Council President Jacob Ladner said there are not many applicants being reviewed, but he pointed out certified planners are difficult to find.
"Three is not very many, but hopefully we can find one out of those three," Ladner said. "We've been able to find people for the other roles we've hired. If it's not the right three, we'll keep looking. We're not going to just settle on somebody because it's time to interview."
The Decatur Daily obtained the three resumes and applications Monday through an open records request to the city.
According to his resume, Hohulin has been in urban planning for 36 years with mostly private companies in Texas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arizona, Indiana, Illinois and Michigan.
Hohulin writes that he led private development in 25 states. He has done over 100 comprehensive master plans, created education and medical campus planning designs at close to 30 colleges and hospitals, and led water and wastewater planning across the country.
Hooper analyzes land use and noise in the context of the National Environmental Policy Act for BB&E. He writes in his cover letter that he also has an "extensive background" in GIS, transit planning and federal comprehensive planning. He started in the planning business in 2016.
Hooper writes in his cover letter that he interviewed with the city of Decatur once before.
"It's a place I would want my family to call home," Hooper writes.
A former city employee, Terry writes in his resume that he "has been a planning professional with over 10 years of experience in urban planning, transportation planning, comprehensive long-range planning and data analysis."
Terry worked for Decatur-area Metropolitan Planning Organization under Director Dewayne Hellums for eight years before moving over to the city Planning Department in 2021 as a planner 3. He was promoted to Planning manager but then left for TARCOG in July 2023. — No director since 2009
Decatur has been operating without a planning director since Michelle Gilliam-Jordan left for Huntsville in January 2009. The City Council and mayor then chose to operate with a planning manager at a lower pay scale than a director. The director of development has been running the Planning Department since 2009.
Karen Smith retired as planning manager in 2020, and Terry followed her, but since his departure the city has had trouble filling the position.
The city has been operating for more than a year with only one planner in the Planning Department. Former city Director of Development Wally Terry returned to work part time last year.
Sandlin led two job searches this year for a planning manager but ran into several obstacles. She told the council in September that pay was an issue for some candidates while others were more interested in the "prestige" of the director's position.
The city pays a planning manager a minimum salary of $72,834 and maximum of $109,305. In September, the City Council approved changing the manager position to that of a director, increasing the salary to a minimum of $87,523 and maximum of $133,178.
All three finalists are certified by the America Institute of Certified Planners, which the city only had briefly since Gilliam-Jordan left. Terry earned his AICP certification in May 2023, just before leaving the city.
City Councilman Billy Jackson has repeatedly expressed his concern with not having a certified planning director.
Jackson said after Monday's council meeting that the city lost 14 years of planning by not replacing Gilliam-Jordan with a certified planner when she left in 2009.
"Councils and mayors substituted and put themselves in the place of planner even though they don't have that background and training," Jackson said. "Without that planning background it was easy for us to guess, but, when you're guessing on projects that cost hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars and it fails, then you've just wasted a lot of time and money."
Jackson said he is looking for someone who can "re-seed" the Planning Department, so the city can make up some ground for that lost time. He pointed out that Decatur's neighbors — Athens, Madison and Huntsville — all have certified planners on staff.
"Are we going to be able to recapture all of what we missed in one fell swoop? No, we can't, but we have to have the person that's most qualified to try to make up valuable time that we lost," he said.
McMasters said he 100% agrees with Jackson. He said having an AICP certification as a planner is like an attorney passing the bar exam because of the advanced training received.
"We've had excellent staff pull more than their weight, but a certified planner is just essential," McMasters said. "I'm not saying that just because a person has an AICP they're right all of the time, but they understand the position and the needs of the city."
McMasters said he's interested in the candidates' views on the zoning ordinance rewrite the city has been working on for several years. He also wants to know their vision on residential growth "and how to make Decatur more inviting."
Ladner said he's looking for the candidates' "vision and methodology from a growing city's standpoint. I want to know their thoughts on developers, and how hard or easy should we make it for developers."
"My stance has always been pretty clear on developers, and that's go, go, go, especially when it comes to residential growth. Part of my questioning is where do they stand on a city that needs to be really aggressive on residential growth," Ladner said.
Councilmen Kyle Pike and Hunter Pepper were absent from Monday's council meeting.
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