Search continues for new Cerro Gordo County Planning & Zoning Administrator

MASON CITY — Cerro Gordo County has been looking for a new Planning & Zoning Administrator since May, but the county has been having a problem finding a replacement.

The County Board of Supervisors accepted the resignation of John Robbins from the position at their May 8th meeting. Robbins left the position after seven years to take a job as the senior planner with the North Iowa Area Council of Governments.  In the meantime, County Administrative Officer Tom Meyer and executive assistant Michelle Rush have been handling those duties, with Robbins being used on a contract basis when needed.

Meyer says Robbins has told him it could be a while before the county finds a suitable replacement.  He says Robbins told him there was a similar position in one of the southern counties of Iowa that took about two years to fill. “So it’s the type of field that it does takes time to fill these positions.”

Meyer says he would like to add an interim staff member to help out with things in his office since the county will have to deal with some issues in the near future that traditionally are not on the county’s docket, including the implementation of a new comprehensive plan.  “I think it’s important to have some consistency in place. Obviously we will be sharing a lot of duties if we did that, filled in, but I’m not sure what the long-term solution is in two, three, four years. Obviously we’ll do the best we can. It takes us more time to do things. Michelle probably knows more about the processes than I do at this point, but if we dive in, I would need another staff member though, a permanent staff member to absorb that. We couldn’t do it with just the two of us.”

During a workshop session held last week, the supervisors agreed to find a reasonable candidate to be a human resources assistant to help Meyer with his duties, as well as to continue trying to find a new full-time Planning & Zoning Administrator.   

 An agenda posted for their meeting this coming Monday shows they’ll approve job descriptions for those changes.