Woodfin's new 'fearless' town manager righting ship ahead of Wave
WOODFIN - Last year, this town of about 10square miles just outside of Asheville was experiencing what some might say was big-city growth with unprecedented pains.
At issue then: an upcoming $29.9 million Greenway Blueway project, a Board of Commissioners at odds and outdated zoning ordinances that admittedly caused fear for some town administrators. There was also the controversial Bluffs development, a project that sought to construct nearly 1,400 units on an 82-acre riverfront property near Richmond Hill Park.
The fix, town officials thought, was hiring Shannon Tuch, then Asheville city planner, to take over as town manager, and though she lacked the experience, town brass thought she was up for the task. Now, six months in, Tuch already has a completed to-do list, a 5% pay raise and town officials talking about a long-term stay.
She "hit the ground running" and is "fearless" in her work, Vice Mayor Jim McAllister said, tackling tough issues and projects that she could have avoided or put off until she had more experience.
Tuch's contract — a base of $120,000 annually to start— called for her to meet the council's five outlined expectations: evaluate the 2022 Comprehensive Plan strategy, then continue it or advise a new strategy; perform an inventory of all development applications in the town's system; assess current staff capabilities and identify key needs for improvement; review current zoning ordinances to recommend changes and improvements and build relationships with key stakeholders in Woodfin.
"The amount of things that she's been able to tackle in just that six-month period is remarkable, and I don't think there's any member of Town Council that would disagree with this. I think we're all just thrilled with her performance so far and certain that we made the right choice," council member Eric Edgerton said.
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Woodfin's biggest project, the Greenway and Blueway, is steadily progressing, with plans for the Riverside Park expansion and Whitewater Wave at the 90% planning stage and construction fully funded. According to McAllister, many of the grants awarded for the project would not have been given so quickly if not for Tuch.
"Under her tenure, we've now bridged the remaining funding gap, so that project is fully moving ahead. I think that's in large part to her credit," Edgerton said. "Her expertise in terms of her land use background is very helpful in that planning process. We've had a number of tweaks to the plans, and I think we're gonna end up with a really good product, which is important given the scale."
Tuch, who worked with the Asheville Planning Department for nearly 20 years before taking the new position on March 21, gave credit to those who came before her but said there was still work to be done.
"The town made some really important steps before I arrived to … modernize themselves a little bit, and when I say the town, I mean the government," she said. "I was a little surprised to see how much work still needs to happen, but we have a plan, and I think we'll get there."
One of the top priorities the council gave Tuch was to right the 2022 Comprehensive Plan process that had "gone sideways," McAllister said. Tuch has helped the council select a new consultant team for the project and is reassembling the Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee to get the project moving forward again, McAllister said.
A municipality's comprehensive plan informs everything it does relating to land use, Edgerton said, but Woodfin went without one for "a long period of time" due to a clerical oversight.
"Having a quality product there that is something that we can truly rely on for an extended period of time is more important for us than it might be for other municipalities, just given the kind of quirky background that we're dealing with," Edgerton said.
Secondly, the council asked Tuch to identify and assess all open development projects pending in the town, he said. Tuch was not only able to complete the assessments but also created a unified development project application process to categorize and assess future projects.
"We just as a council didn't know what was out there and what applications were pending because the record-keeping for the town was not the best up until the time she came," McAllister said.
A full town staff evaluation was also requested by the council, McAllister said, so Tuch sat down one-on-one with every employee and made some "critical" personnel changes. The Planning Board and Board of Adjustments was assessed and trained by Tuch at the council's request, according to McAllister.
A major factor in Tuch's hiring was her knowledge of zoning ordinances, McAllister said. It was what led Town Council to vote 5-1 in favor of hiring her, and she met the council's expectations to review and recommend changes to some "low hanging fruit" in ordinances that presented problems for the town in the past.
"Luckily, she's helped us refine steep slope ordinances that were passed early on before she came on board," McAllister said. "As lay people, we didn't do it exactly the best way. She's helped to straighten it out."
Tuch is now moving on to the harder parts of zoning plans, according to McAllister, like deciding how the town, which grew by almost 30% between 2010-2020, from 6,123 residents to 7,936 according to U.S. Census estimates, will deal with short-term rentals.
Between Tuch and new legal advisement, the Town Council no longer feels intimidated by large developments, McAllister said. The council did not deal with controversial developments head-on in the past, he said, because it did not know what it could and could not do.
"We're not afraid of them anymore because we have an expert on our side," he said.
In addition to priorities set by the council, Tuch is working on other projects to update and modernize the town, including a trash and recycling initiative, a $3 million street repaving project, a soon-to-be-launched stormwater infrastructure engineering study and the ambitious $29.9 million Greenway and Blueway project, she said.
The current trash and recycling initiative is also "pretty involved," Tuch said, as it involves a lot of communication with the public.
"Before I arrived, the town had some very old, aging garbage collection trucks, and they needed to be replaced," she said. "The previous council, and I think our current council as well, made the decision and the investment in these new trucks that have some automation."
Previously, trucks were loaded by hand without town-issued trash bins, McAllister said, which led to some residents leaving trash bags on the road and to some sanitation workers being cut or stabbed by objects in loose bags. Now, the town is issuing trash and recycling bins that can be picked up by the truck.
"No more excuses for throwing trash in front of your house and expecting the town to pick it up," McAllister said. "And I know that sounds far-fetched, but it was happening all over town, and it just needed to stop. It was a sanitation problem and a health and safety issue."
Woodfin's biggest project, the Greenway and Blueway, is steadily progressing, with plans for the Riverside Park expansion and Whitewater Wave at the 90% planning stage and construction fully funded. According to McAllister, many of the grants awarded for the project would not have been given so quickly if not for Tuch.
"Under her tenure, we've now bridged the remaining funding gap, so that project is fully moving ahead. I think that's in large part to her credit," Edgerton said. "Her expertise in terms of her land use background is very helpful in that planning process. We've had a number of tweaks to the plans, and I think we're gonna end up with a really good product, which is important given the scale."
Tuch said the move from Asheville's planning department has been "really positive," and that while being town manager is different from her past jobs, it is not "completely foreign territory."
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"I've always been a little bit of a generalist, and so having the opportunity to learn more about other functions of municipal government has been really rewarding," she said. "There are aspects of being a town manager that are things I never had to deal with working in the planning department in Asheville in more focused roles."
Though the last town administrator (the job title now changed to town manager when the town restructured) resigned late last year citing "hostility" and "conspiracy theories," Tuch said she has experienced none of that.
"I really enjoy our leadership that we have with the town now, and I think we have a nice balance on the council," she said. "They have their focus areas and their special interests, but that's normal, and I think for the most part they work well together."
Tuch has not considered what the future may hold for her, she said, because she is not thinking of anything beyond continuing her work in Woodfin.
"I really enjoy the staff and the leadership here," she said. "Everybody's been very welcoming and helpful, and it just has made the transition very easy and comfortable."
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Woodfin's new town manager receives pay raise for 'fearless' work
