Monterey County planning leaders who helmed a controversial department leave amid reorganization.

1/21/21 10:45am: This story was updated with news that the county was hiring Mike Novo on an interim basis to run the Housing and Community Development Department.

Six months after a consultant’s report said the Monterey County Resource Management Agency had been performing poorly and needed to be thoroughly reorganized, two of the agency’s top staff members are leaving and taking senior jobs in smaller jurisdictions.

Carl Holm, the former RMA director, and Brandon Swanson, the county’s former acting chief of planning, stuck around to direct the splitting of RMA into two new county departments in November but they will not oversee additional reforms recommended by Citygate Associates.

Holm is retiring from Monterey County, where he has worked for nearly 20 years. He is moving with his family to Cedaredge, Colorado, and taking a job as the director of community development and natural resources in Delta County, with a population of around 31,000.

“It was a unique opportunity with this job. They just adopted their first land-use regulation,” Holm says. “I wasn’t looking for another job. When it came up I threw my hat in the ring and was successful.”

Holm says that his extended family had been long-established in California, anchored by property off River Road, but that everyone has left in recent years. The move will allow him to reunite with relatives.

Meanwhile, Swanson has begun working as director of community planning and building for the city of Carmel, overseeing a handful of staff members. Swanson did not return a phone message in time for the Weekly’s deadline.

Holm describes himself as a mentor to Swanson and says the new job will be an opportunity to “spread his wings” by taking a director job with a city.

“He’ll get involved in everything in the city and he has an interest to potentially be a city manager or city administrator,” Holm says. “That’s the route to go.”

The functions performed by RMA are now the job of two new departments. The Housing and Community Development Department, under interim director Mike Novo, a former county planning staffer who came out of retirement, manages regulatory and land use control, while the Public Works, Facilities and Parks Department, under former county public works Director Randy Ishii, is in charge of caretaking and fieldwork.

“It was kind of left brain/right brain,” Holm says. “It’s a lot easier to focus on one area of expertise at a time.”

Novo says his appointment to run the new department was made just a day ago. He is rushing to meet with Holm about the transitions and with County Counsel Wendy S. Strimling, of the county counsel’s office, about the ongoing lawsuits. 

“I wanted to help them out,” he says. “They not only lost [Holm], they lost one of their planning managers to the city of Carmel. I figured I'll help them out—it's going to be tough enough even with all the people.”

 Novo expects his appointment to last up to four months a permanent replacement is recruited.

It’s somewhat ironic that Holm and Swanson are leaving, considering that the splitting of RMA came on the heels of a report by Citygate that identified staffing shortages and employee turnover as two of the factors leading to “declining levels of customer service, increasing levels of employee apathy, and eroding stakeholder trust” in the department.

One of those stakeholders is Priscilla Walton, president of the Carmel Valley Association, which has been a harsh critic of the county’s land use and planning practices, launching lawsuits on occasion. “Historically, it seems, planners have not stayed long,” Walton says. “There has been an exodus. There is not a lot of continuity in projects.

“The restructuring is an enormously positive opportunity to bring in the right people who are free of the previous baggage and obligation to whatever special interests and can hold staff accountable for the work they do,” she says.