Salt Lake City has a new planning director, one who is more in line with Mayor Rocky Anderson's vision for the city.
Anderson on Saturday fired Planning Director William Wright, replacing him with artist and Artspace founder Stephen Goldsmith.
"It had more to do with a difference in outlook more than anything," Anderson said. "Even during the campaign I spoke about how wonderful it would be to bring (Goldsmith) in and help him redirect our planning efforts in Salt Lake City."
"It's a simple political change," Wright agreed. "He wanted someone whose vision was more consistent with his."
Wright had been planning director for 19 years, starting with then-mayor Palmer DePaulis. He was a primary architect for many of Mayor Deedee Corradini's initiatives in the Gateway area and elsewhere. Anderson disagreed with the general direction of many of those plans, especially Gateway. Wright said he had tried to help Anderson implement his own vision, but it has been clear for some time that Anderson wanted someone else. Anderson has been talking to Goldsmith off and on about the position for months.
Wright was a political appointee. He will receive $42,000 in severance pay, with an additional $15,500 in accumulated vacation and leave time.
"We (appointees) all serve at the pleasure of the mayor," said Alison Gregersen, acting director of Community and Economic Development and Wright's immediate boss. "The mayor wants to set a new course for the city, and to do that he feels he needs to make some major changes in city government. There's no question that Stephen is a great visionary. It will be a whole new direction."
A direction that not all agree with.
"I think it's a shame," said City Councilwoman Nancy Saxton. "Bill was a good planner. But the mayor can do as he wants, obviously. Bill had come in lots of extra hours, and I don't know why the mayor would do this. He was doing a good job."
Goldsmith has been involved in various nonprofit housing and mixed-use developments in the Gateway area, including the in-process Bridges project, and has worked on zoning rewrites and other projects for the city. In his new position he is disassociating himself from those entities, though "I'll always have emotional ties," he said.
He will come on board in June in order to finish a Loeb fellowship at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. Assistant planning director Brent Wilde will be acting director until then.
Goldsmith's training is as an artist, but Anderson said his long involvement in development projects and keen interest in urban planning issues qualifies him.
"His expertise and competence have been recognized by the very best," Anderson said. "He has been intensely studying urban design and planning issues during the course of his fellowship, and I think he brings the very best in terms of hands-on experience."
"To be on the other side of the counter is a natural evolution," Goldsmith said.
The announcement was made now in order to give Goldsmith time to give notice to the Artspace board before he takes the position.