Pinetop Lakeside council tables community development restructuring amid concerns, approves operations manager salary

A proposed restructuring to place the town’s community development function under public works and to create a new community development manager was tabled by the Pinetop Lakeside Town Council on May 7 after several council members said the item had been added to the agenda too recently.

Town Manager Christie, who introduced the proposal and said she had studied the concept for "about four or five months," described an organizational chart in which the community development manager would supervise engineering and code-enforcement staff and report to a public works director. Christie also said she had offered the public works director job to Frank Young and that the change would not add staff but would reassign existing employees.

Several council members expressed discomfort acting on the proposal with only four council members present and because the item had been posted the night before. "I feel like this is all of a sudden," one councilor said, urging more time for deliberation. The council moved to table the item until the next meeting, May 21, and the motion carried unanimously.

Separately, the council approved a starting salary range of 64,739 for a public works operations manager and authorized the town manager to add that salary to the council-approved salary scale. Christie said the salary item was to provide an intermediate manager to oversee daily public-works project scheduling and budgeting and to create internal career opportunities.

Council members said they valued both a deliberate review of organizational changes and the need to fill long-open operational positions. The restructured organizational chart and the community development manager job description will return for council consideration at the next meeting, and staff will proceed with posting the operations-manager opening under the approved salary.