City engineer recommends creating assistant city engineer and city planner positions to handle growth
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Summary
Enterprise’s city engineer told council that increasing development and program workloads require creating two positions — a licensed assistant city engineer focused on engineering and a city planner focused on zoning and permitting — that staff say were budgeted and would improve in‑house capacity.
Enterprise’s city engineer and public works director, Barry Mott, asked the council to create two staff positions — an assistant city engineer and a city planner — to handle increased development workload and to separate engineering tasks from planning duties.
Mott said the city’s growth, more complex subdivisions and added programs such as nuisance property enforcement have stressed existing staff capacity. "It's my recommendation at this point that we go ahead and create these two positions and separate those roles so that the assistant city engineer would be a licensed engineer ... and the city planner would be focused on zoning, permitting, inspections," Mott said.
Why it matters: City staff said having a licensed engineer on staff would allow the city to perform stormwater calculations, review construction plans and support subdivision reviews in‑house instead of outsourcing those tasks. Staff also said the planner will free technical staff from zoning and planning duties and focus on permitting and enforcement programs.
Details and budget: Jonathan (staff member) told the council the positions were contemplated in prior budget conversations and were included in the budget packet. Barry Mott said the change could be a net head‑count increase of one depending on how current positions are restructured: it would replace the assistant city assistant director of engineering services with two focused roles.
Council action: Council members asked clarifying questions but did not take final action; staff said the positions would be covered in upcoming budget hearings and asked for support to proceed with job descriptions and recruitment steps.
Context: Mott noted past examples where in‑house engineering work, such as at Peavy Park, led to substantial cost savings and that similar capabilities will likely produce savings and faster review timelines for future projects.
