Snoqualmie committee confirms planner hires, combines technician roles to rebuild department capacity

Chair Louis Washington opened the Snoqualmie Community Development Committee meeting and turned the discussion to staffing changes in the Community Development department. Director Davis told the committee the department currently has one director, no planners on staff, an associate planner recruitment in process and a vacant senior planner role, while a long-serving building official is covering inspections, plan review and fire-marshal duties.

The change the administration described replaces one of two technician positions by combining the permit and planning technician into a single role and redeploys the other authorized slot to create an associate planner. "We shifted that position to the associate planner position," the mayor said, describing a process that included negotiations with the Teamsters and agreement by affected employees. The mayor and Director Davis said the reconfiguration is within the positions and budget the council previously authorized and does not require additional ongoing budget authority.

Committee members emphasized the department's loss of institutional knowledge after staffing fell from seven positions in 2019–2023 to just a few today. Director Davis said the building official has become the department’s institutional knowledge and that the combined permit-and-planning technician (Ashley) now handles both permit and planning counter duties. "For a long time, we had a permit technician and a planning technician. So we've combined her title, and she's able to do both of those jobs as one job," Director Davis said.

Council members pressed about consultant reliance and whether the city intends to bring more work in-house as staffing returns. The mayor acknowledged consultants will still be part of some projects (for example, the zoning and comprehensive-plan work) but said filling the two planner positions will create capacity to evaluate which tasks should be done in-house versus by contractors. He also flagged grant-writing as an expected part of the new planners’ duties and a potential source to offset program costs.

The administration said interviews are underway for one planner offer and that recruitment for remaining vacancies will continue. The committee did not take a formal vote; next steps are continuing hires and aligning incoming staff to the department work plan, including support for planning-commission tasks and consultant-managed projects such as the upcoming zoning amendments.

The committee adjourned at 6:59 p.m.