Town’s slow approach will help new director

Congratulations to the Town of Berlin’s mayor and council for filling the vacant planning director slot and having the good sense to not set up new hire Ryan Hardesty to fail by lifting its planning moratorium all at once.

Working in any public capacity and dealing with unfamiliar circumstances is difficult enough without also having to swim against a flood of land use and zoning matters that require immediate attention.

As it is, the town’s elected officials agreed to reboot the planning department’s processes gradually, beginning with final site plan reviews.  In the meantime, the department won’t see any rezoning requests or annexation considerations for another month and a half.

That will allow some business to proceed without inundating the office and swamping its new director with business dating back to July. That’s when the moratorium was imposed, partially because of the directorship vacancy created by the passing in April of Dave Englehart.

Town officials have been looking for a replacement since that time and, after a course of resume screenings and interviews, selected Hardesty, who currently serves as the code enforcement officer for the City of Salisbury.

This is a bigger, much more complicated job. But in addition to council’s decision to allow Hardesty time to settle in, she will have the advantage of not being a complete newcomer to the community.

She grew up in the area and graduated from Stephen Decatur High School and therefore is well aware of the town’s style and the little quirks that make it what it is. Moreover, she will be backed up temporarily by consultant Rick Baldwin, Salisbury’s former planning and development director.

Clearly, the town’s elected officials have set up Hardesty to succeed in her new assignment. That is how all new employees ought to be treated, but in the case of a high-profile position like this one, it’s vital to long-term success.