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Leader in city growth to move to Clearwater

By JOSH ZIMMER
Published January 30, 2005

TEMPLE TERRACE - The city is losing a veteran administrator.

Michael Delk, development services director for the past 10 years, will soon become assistant director of planning for Clearwater.

Delk, 48, said he found out last week, several months after applying for the job. He called it a "good career move" that will let him focus less on regulatory issues and spend more time on urban planning, which he prefers.

Clearwater, a much larger city of 108,000, has several large-scale downtown and beachfront redevelopment projects under consideration.

He expects to start in a couple of weeks at an annual salary of $78,000, said Clearwater's human resources director, Joe Roseto. That's $6,000 less than he earned in Temple Terrace.

"I've always been kind of interested in working toward a larger city," said Delk, a Missouri native. "It gets me kind of back to my first love."

He leaves at a critical juncture in Temple Terrace history. By late spring, city officials hope to pick a general contractor for a $150-million mixed-use redevelopment project at N 56th Street and Bullard Parkway.

Delk, who was city manager of Casselberry before coming to Temple Terrace, helped rezone that section of town for future redevelopment. In addition, he helped create a special district that could keep millions of project-related tax dollars from going to Hillsborough County.

Redevelopment is off to a good start, he said. City planner Ann Scheller will take over his job until the city chooses a new director.

"It's been a wonderful 10 years," he said.

[Last modified January 29, 2005, 09:18:06]