Asheville’s Development Services Department loses another director

Jason Nortz, former director of Asheville's Development Services Department. Photo by Hayley Benton

Jason Nortz, Asheville’s most recent development services director, vacated his post in late December. Diane Meek, who formerly served as the department’s business technology project manager, was appointed interim director.

According to both Meek and city spokesperson Polly McDaniel, Nortz left Asheville to accept a job opportunity closer to his extended family on the West Coast.

The Development Services Department oversees a range of business and construction activities. Permitting, inspections, stormwater, ordinances and enforcement all fall under its purview. At the City Manager’s Development Forum on Nov. 18, 2016, Nortz reported that the department serves an average of nearly 100 customers a day in its Development Center on South Charlotte Street. To shorten wait times, the department has issued a request for proposals for an electronic document review system, he said.

Nortz joined the city in March 2015 from Palo Alto, Calif. Wayne Clark was hired from Port Orange, Fla. to lead the department in November 2015, but left to return to his previous employer in January. Nortz then served as director from Jan. 22 until announcing his departure in December.

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About Virginia Daffron
Managing editor, lover of mountains, native of WNC. Follow me @virginiadaffron

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9 thoughts on “Asheville’s Development Services Department loses another director

  1. Deplorable Infidel

    Asheville citizens have NO idea what a HUGE MESS the ‘city’ development services department really is! So many people jobs to be justified there that it takes ‘forever’ to get anything accomplished…we waited all year last year for ‘permission’ to put in a few feetof access to 3 new building lots…they wasted a WHOLE YEAR OF OUR TIME ON THIS ! ! ! The year before that I pulled/cancelled a permit application after 9 months, and built what I needed anyway on my own property!

    This is just ONE city department…yesterday I received 3 late notices for city water bill services that were paid on the due date last week. They initiate LATE letters within 24 hours if THEY don’t process the check on the due date. Total incompetency at the city.
    THE MOST pathetically run city on the east coast, I am sure.

    Oh, and what about the CODE enforcement department for cleaning up the city ? ROFLMAO ! total JOKE. You people living outside this cesspool of sin have NO idea what city dweller property owners endure from the city ‘controllers’.

    • hauntedheadnc

      Maybe you should move, Mr. Caudle. There’s nothing that you like about living here anyway. Maybe someplace like Wheeler County, Georgia would be more your style. Or Wilcox County, Alabama… Yes, they may be among the poorest in America, but they’re as Republican as the day is long, and they don’t need no damgummint to help them, no sir!

      Go preach your… unique… gospel there, Mr. Caudle. I’m sure you’d find them a paradise.

  2. Deplorable Infidel

    The TRUTH seems to BOTHER ‘hauntedheadnc’ … GOOD! It NEEDS TO ! ! !

    • Hauntedheadnc

      But YOU don’t TELL the TRUTH. All YOU do IS complain INCESSANTLY and RANDOMLY capitalize WORDS. Your TYPICAL contribution TO a DISCUSSION is ABOUT as DEEP and MEANINGFUL as BATHROOM stall GRAFFITI. It ALSO becomes EXCEEDINGLY tiresome TO hear YOUR never-ending WHINING. Seriously, IS there ANYTHING at ALL that YOU do NOT hate ABOUT living IN Asheville? YOU have NEVER had A single POSITIVE word TO say ABOUT this CITY. If YOU hate IT here SO badly, WHY in GOD’S name DO you STAY here?

      • Deplorable Infidel

        Because I’m heavily invested and stuck with property to manage and I keep HOPING beyond HOPE that conditions in the City OUTSIDE of downtown will improve, but NON leadership gets NOTHING done of real importance while Asheville stays stuck with problems like they’ve always had…nothing never really improves, while elected criminals waste MILLION$$$ on unnecessary crap like hiring a new ‘equity manager’ to dole out bond scam money…but NO NEW leaf vacuum trucks that’s for sure, and just look at all the potholed streets. Decades of potholes and nastiness all around.
        I would like to enjoy living here more, but city government does not allow that. Too much inbred control. I do like the food resource scene in Asheville so that’s one good thing, noting that I actually do pay for my own food -AND REAL HIGH TAXES- out of my own pocket.

        • hauntedheadnc

          You stay because you’re HEAVILY invested?

          Sounds like a PERSONAL problem to me. You seem to be asking the government to fix your problem, said problem being that you HEAVILY invested in a city that is not RIGHT for YOU.

      • Phil Williams

        Mr. Infidel reminds me of the following exchange between Mattie Ross and Colonel Stonehill from “True Grit” by Charles Portis: “I would rather be a county road overseer in Tennessee than governor of this benighted state. There is more honor in it. ”
        “If you don’t like it here you should pack your traps and go back where you came from!”
        “Would that I could get out from under!” said he. “I would be aboard the Friday morning packet with a song of thanksgiving on my lips.”
        “People who don’t like Arkansas can go to the devil!” said I “What did you come here for?”
        “I was sold a bill of goods.”

  3. Deplorable Infidel

    the city could be WAY more IDEAL for WAY more people if the elected ‘officials’ had managed the city properly for the past 50 years! just LOOK at the infrastructure problems !!! we’ve had ZERO LEADERSHIP for WAY too many years thru the present!
    anyone with half a brain can look around and see that!

  4. James L. Smith

    I already know who Fisher Caudle is, and am not bothered that he complains because he’s accurate about city corruption and slovenliness in Asheville City Hall.

    Several of us like Chris Peterson, Reid Thompson, and so many others could write books about scurvy, slouchy, sleazy city of Asheville.

    Now who is the anonymous coward, Haunted Head?

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