Audit finds lots of blame in Salt Lake planning woes

Heavy turnover, long-term vacancies and meddlesome elected officials in Salt Lake City's planning division have contributed to a decadelong decline into dysfunction, according to an audit released Friday.

The 125-page report by management consultant company Citygate Associates outlines problems that have plagued the city's land-use and permitting processes for at least 10 years and offers a laundry list of recommendations to solve them.

"The city's customers are for the most part not very satisfied," the report states. "A message needs to be sent to the development-related customers and stakeholders, in no uncertain terms, that the status quo is not acceptable."

The report, commissioned by the city to evaluate its planning programs, will be presented to the Salt Lake City Council during an afternoon work session Tuesday.

New Mayor Ralph Becker began sending a warning message in December, before he took office, by announcing he would not retain Luis Zunguze, who oversaw planning and zoning as the city's director of community development.

Other changes attributed to an early draft of the Citygate report were announced last month by Becker, who during his campaign for mayor promised a retooling of the city's planning division. The most significant of those changes was the March 3 dismissal of George Shaw after a little more than a year as the city's planning director. The Citygate report cites a lack of leadership in the department, though it doesn't put all of the blame on Shaw.

"The city's planning director assumed leadership of a highly dysfunctional work environment," the report states. "Several of these major dysfunctions ... are beyond the control of the planning director."

Shaw's job performance was hindered by his inability to be out in the community working with stakeholders, community leaders and others investing in the city's future because he was forced to focus on day-to-day operational issues of the department, the report said.

Elected officials' expectations of the planning director also were not made clear, according to the report.

According to documents obtained by the newspaper through the Government Records Access and Management Act, Shaw received an executive severance of $32,000 — a little more than one-third of his $94,822 annual salary. Zunguze was given a $10,886 severance package.

A nationwide search is under way for a new city planning director. Becker has appointed a leadership team to head the division in the meantime, and has created a new organizational structure that incorporates Citygate recommendations.