Jeremy Evans speaks at a May meeting of the village of Saranac Lake's Development Board. (Enterprise photo — Chris Knight)

SARANAC LAKE — Village officials plan to separate the duties of the community development director position recently vacated by Jeremy Evans into at least two different jobs.

After more than nine years with the village, Evans resigned last week to become the new executive director for the Franklin County Industrial Development Agency. As community development director, he was the village’s lead planner, grant writer, liaison to the village Planning Board (now the Development Board) and other boards, and in charge of the code enforcement office.

It was such a big workload that Mayor Clyde Rabideau said it makes more sense to split up the position than to try and find someone who wears so many hats.

“I think there were too many responsibilities piled into that position to do all the responsibilities effectively,” he said.

Rabideau said the consensus right now, and the direction of village Manager John Sweeney, is to pull the code enforcement role and the Development Board liaison role from the community development director job. Those responsibilities would go to a new code enforcement officer, who would work with current code enforcement officer Patrick Giblin.

“The new codes officer we’d hire would do code enforcement and hopefully have experience and be the facilitator for the Development Board in all the applications that go heretofore for planning and zoning,” Rabideau said. “Pat’s position would be devoted exclusively to code enforcement, building permit applications and so forth.”

Under this new arrangement, the community development position’s primary task would be grant writing and grant administration, the mayor said. There wouldn’t necessarily be a community planner component to the job, as it was under Evans, he said.

“We went through a multi-year process of developing a new building code, which encompasses community planning, but that’s not something that’s done every day. We have a plan we adhere to every day. There’s a difference.

“I think because Jeremy had that unique skill set, people get confused. ‘Well, he’s the community planner.’ It would be nice to have (someone with) an urban planning background or education, but for a village our size, it doesn’t happen all the time. We have a great plan. Let’s put it to work.”

Asked who would spearhead any necessary amendments or changes to the village’s new Development Code or Comprehensive Plan, Rabideau said he doesn’t think it would take someone with a background as an urban planner.

“I think some good common sense, some practical experience would go a lot farther than just graduating with a degree in college in urban planning,” he said.

In the absence of a community development director right now, the village Board of Trustees has granted Giblin the authority to administer and enforce the village’s Development Code on a temporary basis.

At last week’s village board meeting, Downtown Advisory Board Chairman Tim Fortune asked the board to hire someone with planning experience to replace Evans.

“After working with Jeremy very closely with Jeremy for four years, I’ve really appreciated his expertise and his mentorship,” Fortune said. “Just reviewing what I’ve seen during that time, we could not have done it without Jeremy. When you’re looking for somehow to flesh out what you’re going to do, I would wish you’d seriously consider hiring a professional planner to keep our momentum going.”

The board went back and forth over the job description for the new community development director position at last week’s meeting.

Rabideau said he’d rather have a “Cracker Jack grant writer” for the job, but Trustees Paul Van Cott and Rich Shapiro said the community development job should be broader. They said the new director should bring people together on planning initiatives like with the village’s Parks and Trails Advisory Board, Downtown Advisory Board, Local Development Corporation and other community groups. Working with those groups will help identify projects that a grant writer could seek funding for, Van Cott said.

“But I think that’s part of the problem,” said Trustee Allie Pelletieri. “We have had this so broad, the poor guy or woman who has this job has too much on their plate and we can’t get things done.”

Van Cott said moving the Development Board liaison role away from the community development position will be a start toward relieving some of that burden.

“That might peel enough off the person’s plate that they can do it,” he said.

The mayor said the village is working through the civil service process for the two new positions. Candidates are being interviewed already for the new codes position, and a posting is being developed for the new community development director position, Rabideau said. Village staff are also canvassing the civil service list for an administrative assistant to replace Kelly Brunette, who resigned this spring as the community development assistant to take a job with the Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism.