|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
December 27, 2005County has a plannerJohn Sych of Kalamazoo will start Jan. 23TRAVERSE CITY - Grand Traverse County has hired a county planner after three years and one failed attempt.John Sych, currently the director of planning for Kalamazoo County, will start work here Jan. 23. He will earn $60,500 a year, county administrator Dennis Aloia said. "Everybody said this guy can do great things for us," Aloia said. "He was our first choice and I was really glad we got him." The county failed to land even one of its top three choices in its previous application process last spring. Sych, 40, didn't apply then, but Russ Soyring, Traverse City's planner, said he urged Sych to apply for the position after Roger Williams retired in 2002. Soyring served with Sych for several years on the Michigan Association of Planning Board of Directors. "I wasn't looking for any other position," said Sych, who was with Kalamazoo County for 13 years, the last two as director of planning. Soyring didn't give up. "I kept on talking to him and he started to warm up to the idea and found out how much this area appreciates and supports good community planning," Soyring said. Aloia said Kalamazoo County's budget cuts to its planning department probably helped changed Sych's mind. Sych's parents live on Old Mission Peninsula, so he's familiar with the area and attracted to it "for all the obvious reasons," he said, but it was the community's attitude toward planning that prompted him to apply. "There are a lot of challenges to be met here but the people are approaching them in a progressive-minded way," he said. "There is an opportunity for this to be one of the best planning counties in the state." Area planners who met with Sych gave him high marks, Aloia said. "I felt he was very appropriate for a county planning position; he seemed to be a strong advocate of coordination and networking as opposed to dictating," said Michelle Haugen, deputy director of planning for Garfield Township. Jim Lively of the Michigan Land Use Institute said Sych will be good for the county. "Technically, he's very competent but he also understands what a county planner can do and should do to work with the local governments," he said.
|
|
