Henderson Planning Director Grace Smith submitted her resignation Monday, effective May 20.
“I have a youngster at home, a husband that works a lot of nights, and it’s not been very easy for me to keep the pace I’ve kept the past eight years, but I need to try to put them first,” Smith told the Planning Board after her last regular meeting with the group Monday afternoon.
Smith, a Granville County resident who started as a Planning and Community Development Department staffer when Mark Warren was planning director and moved up to head the department when Warren became assistant city manager, has taken a job as a planning supervisor with the city of Durham.
“I’ll be a few steps down from a director, which is perfectly OK with me,” Smith said. She said it’s a good move for her professionally, but that wasn’t foremost in her mind.
As she explained her decision to the Planning Board, Smith is eager for more time with her family, including a young child. “I’ll miss you all very, very much. I love you. But I need to make a change, something that will be much better for me and my family.”
In addition to staffing Planning Board and Zoning Board of Adjustment meetings at least once a month, Smith often spends hours sitting through City Council meetings to be present for one or two agenda items. That time is in addition to the hours she works in the office, where she heads a department that includes four other people.
“I choose not to run that race anymore,” Smith said. “I’m tired.”
Smith has seen the Planning Department take on increasing responsibilities in recent years. Planning Board Chairman Gray Faulkner estimated that her workload has tripled the past two years as the city has undertaken its aggressive cleanup campaign.
“I’ve been keeping up a pretty steady pace for a while, and it’s taken its toll on me as far as my ability to take care of my child,” Smith said.
The Clean Up Henderson Committee initially relied heavily on Smith and her department. The creation of a separate Code Compliance Department relieved much of that burden, but the personnel for that department came out of the Planning Department, leaving fewer people to handle the remaining work.
“It’s just been difficult, but I don’t blame the administration. We’ve just had a lot going on, and the city has a lot of issues,” Smith said.
The issues most recently have included extensive work on a proposed amortization ordinance dealing with junkyards and auto repair facilities in the city and its Extra-Territorial Jurisdiction. Smith’s department also has prepared for a major Community Development Block Grant project on David Street and is bringing in consultants from the state Division of Community Assistance to revise a land-use plan that is more than 30 years old.
In addition, the city has moved toward more enforcement of minimum-housing standards, an area that falls under the Planning Department. And Smith has been involved in regional transportation planning and the effort to bring Henderson a station on the planned high-speed rail line.
Smith said she does not blame anyone in the city government for his disenchantment with her job. “I hold the staff and the administration and the city manager in the highest regard. I put them up at the top,” she said. “It had nothing to do with anybody or anyone.”
She said she’ll try to leave everything as orderly as she can “so things don’t fall through the cracks.”
Smith said she’s not sure exactly when her last day on the job will be because she has some vacation time, but it will be the week of May 16 to 20. Whatever day, she said, it will be sad.
“It’s going to be a sad day for us also,” Faulkner said.
“You have been such an asset to the city for as long as I’ve known you, Grace, which has been a number of years,” Planning Board member Roberta Douglas said. “I’m really sad that we couldn’t make this position that you’re in workable for you.”