Regional Planning Council shaken up

The chairman of the Southwest Florida Regional Planning Council recently resigned, and the executive director of the organization appears next to leave after a $220,000 state budget cut.

Ken Heatherington, the executive director since October 2007 and an employee since 1999, received a vote of no confidence at the council's July 30 meeting based on his decision-making for next year's budget. The council directed the executive committee to work on negotiating an exit plan for Heatherington while he remains in charge.

Sarasota County Commissioner Carolyn Mason, a member of the executive committee, explains following the meeting: “We feel that people have lost some confidence in the council due to the leadership issue. We want to look at all that when we look at our budget options.”

According to Mason, the council did not have the necessary two-thirds vote to fire Heatherington, so instead proceeded with the plan to negotiate a severance package.

Following the 19-5 vote, council Chairman Chuck Kiester, who supported the no-confidence motion, resigned as the city of Marco Island's representative on the council effective July 1. Kiester's term was set to expire in January. Hendry County Commissioner Karson Turner takes over as chairman.

The controversy began at the council's June 16 meeting when Heatherington's budget proposal caught council members by surprise. That budget called for laying off three employees and suspending another for violating council policies.

Those four employees were subsequently reinstated at the request of executive committee members at a June 23 meeting called by Kiester, who sought to suspend Heatherington then. But the rest of the executive committee did not support Kiester at the time, and instead voted to allow Heatherington to present various budget alternatives at the June 30 meeting.

At that meeting, the council rejected Heatherington's proposals and took him to task for not cutting his own $116,501 salary. The council meets next at 9 a.m. July 21 to review and possibly adopt the fiscal year 2012 budget.