The City of Knox will soon have a new planning administrator, building inspector and code enforcement officer. The Plan Commission voted Tuesday night to terminate Bruce Williams, at the recommendation of Mayor Dennis Estok. He’s expressed frustrations on several occasions with the slow progress of code enforcement efforts and says he decided to go in another direction.
Estok says he has a candidate in mind for the job and hopes to have the position filled within two to three weeks. The mayor appoints the city building commissioner and code enforcement officer and presents a planning administrator nominee to the plan commission for approval. They blessed his choice when they met Tuesday evening.
Estok says he needs a team player with the right temperament for the job.
“You make no friends doing code enforcement, but there’s a way to go about it. This person has that personality, and he has that forwardness about him that I think he’s going to be successful out there.”
Estok says it’s also important for people to understand why the city is doing code enforcement. He says the code enforcement officer needs to really study the unsafe building ordinance.
“Everything has to be done the right way, because when you are affecting people’s lives, whether making them take the house down or rehabilitate it and all that, it is a law, and you have to make sure everything is done the right way.”
Estok says he’s confident the candidate he’s chosen can do all of those things.
