A planner hired this summer by the Oregon Cascades West Council of Governments to work part-time for the cities of Yachats and Waldport has quit the organization to become a city of Waldport employee.
Holly Hamilton started Monday for Waldport, working three days a week as the city planner, said City Manager Dann Cutter.
Hamilton gave her notice last week in Yachats, saying she could work through mid-November. But she did not attend an online Yachats Planning Commission meeting Tuesday.
In her place was Justin Peterson, a council of goverments planner who had been helping out on Yachats planning projects since 2019 and temporarily filling the Yachats position for several months this summer.
Peterson already works for CoG as a part-time planner in Toledo and Sweet Home.
Yachats City Manager Shannon Beaucaire said she plans to meet with CoG officials this week to see how the position might be staffed. In the meantime, she said Peterson is familiar with city issues and CoG will have him fill in.
Hamilton moved to Waldport in June with her family. She was born and educated in Canada, then worked in the architecture and construction industry in New York, Colorado and California. She worked for the University of Colorado-Denver as a project manager and completed a masters degree in planning there.
Despite no direct Oregon planning experience, CoG hired her to do planning work in the two cities after advertising widely for the job. The two other finalists were former Yachats contract planner Dave Mattison and a recent college graduate. Mattison is now a Lincoln City employee.
Both Waldport and Yachats struggled to find someone after planner Larry Lewis of Newport began cutting back his contract work in those cities and in Depoe Bay in 2018. He had worked in those cities for 17 years.
Cutter said Hamilton indicated that working for the two cities, learning their issues and procedures, while also trying to learn Oregon planning regulation, was a bit too much and didn’t allow her to work on larger planning issues or projects. That’s when he and Hamilton worked out the idea to become a part-time Waldport employee – at virtually the same price as the city’s $65-an-hour contract with CoG.
“She’s done fantastic, impeccable work,” Cutter said. “We really do feel we’re getting a very qualified planner.”