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Planning makeover County department copes with understaffing By CHRIS BRISTOL After mass resignations, help is on the way for the understaffed Jackson County Planning and Development department. County officials Tuesday confirmed that a makeover is under way at the planning department, where budget cuts and burnout has produced a huge and seemingly intractable backlog of land-use applications and a corresponding number of frustrated developers and property owners. Topping the to-do list is the pending reassignment of Planning Director Laurel Prairie-Kuntz and a campaign to hire a half-dozen new staffers, including the first department head since December 1994. Administrator Burke Raymond pronounced the department "my No. 1 personnel problem" and said he wants to see an overhaul set in motion by the time he retires Sept. 30 after 13 years as the county's top executive. "We're getting some help, is what it amounts to," he said. Three new recruits, including a program manager, have been added in recent weeks. Although budget cuts are to blame for staff shortages and high turnover, much of the department's woes stem directly from a land-development ordinance that is widely regarded as perhaps the most cumbersome "LDO" in Oregon. Meanwhile, the county has battled for years with a local land-use watchdog group and state officials over the perception that planners allow too much building on farm and forest lands -- a perception the county hotly denies, in and out of court. The upshot is a backlog of some 300 land-use applications. With 65 to 70 new applications every month, the county recently took the temporary measure of cutting the hours the department is open to the public. "We're up against it all the time with applications," Raymond said. "We're trying to get the decks cleared." Ultimately, Raymond would like to see a pending caseload of no more than 100 applications at a time. The county wants to hire two more planners -- for a staff of just under 20, counting clerks -- and recently contracted with a planning firm to help reduce the backlog as needed. In an effort to stabilize the department, Prairie-Kuntz has been reassigned to oversee a user-friendly rewrite of the ordinance. She also has the task of working with the state Land Conservation Development Commission to suspend a never-ending bureaucratic critique of the county's comprehensive plan -- known as "periodic review" -- and serve as a liaison to regional planning groups. Raymond and all three members of the board of commissioners insisted Tuesday the reassignment was a lateral move and not a demotion. Prairie-Kuntz was never hired to be a department head. "She was doing the jobs of three people, and it was just too much," Commissioner Sue Kupillas said, "so now we're going to hire three people." Prairie-Kuntz did not return a phone call Monday seeking comment and was out of the office Tuesday. She became planning director in 1996 with the retirement of longtime department head Kerry Lay. Restoring staff and revamping the LDO was long overdue, Kupillas said. "In any organization this big, there's always one department that's struggling," she said. "For us, Planning is that department." Today's Business Index Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA