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City names community development director

Safety Harbor's replacement for planner Ron Pianta currently works in Bradenton.

By EILEEN SCHULTE
Published October 4, 2006

SAFETY HARBOR - This town will welcome not only a new city manager on Oct. 23, but a new community development director as well.

Billy Beckett, who will replace outgoing City Manager Wayne Logan, and Matthew J. McLachlan, who replaces former assistant city manager and planner Ron Pianta, will start work on the same day.

McLachlan, 33, will be the community development director, overseeing the planning and zoning division, the Building Department and code enforcement. His salary will be $73,200 per year.

Since 2004, he has been the assistant director for the Department of Planning and Community Development for Bradenton, a city of more than 53,000 in Manatee County.

McLachlan grew up one of five children in Livonia, Mich., a suburb of metro Detroit.

He earned his bachelor of science degree in land use planning and management from Northern Michigan University in 1996. He is currently taking online courses through California State University toward his master's degree in public administration. He is scheduled to graduate in December.

He and his wife, Christine, 28, who works at an engineering firm, have a daughter, Amelia, 2.

They live in downtown St. Petersburg.

McLachlan said he liked Safety Harbor from the start, calling it "a unique enclave within the Tampa Bay area with a beautiful tree canopy."

He said he and his family would like to move to the city in the near future.

Logan and Pianta both resigned in June, though for different reasons. Logan relinquished his job after commissioners told him he should have let them know immediately that city employees were trying to join a union.

Pianta left to become the planning director for Hernando County.

Eileen Schulte can be reached at 727 445-4153 or schulte@sptimes.com.

[Last modified October 4, 2006, 12:15:19]