The City of Zanesville’s Planning and Zoning Administrator resigned last Friday blaming his departure on alleged issues with procedures and management within the city’s Community Development department.

Though no longer a city employee, former director George Kagafas was present during the Zanesville City Council meeting to address ordinances on the agenda pertaining to what would have fallen under his former role.

However, being that he was not on the agenda, council members asked Kagafas to meet in executive session rather than speaking publicly.

After being dismissed from executive session and while Council was still privately meeting, Kagafas spoke to reporters outside City Hall, disclosing his complaints with the city.

“I found numerous, dozens of variances that city staff had signed off on against code, I said ‘illegally,’ you be the judge of it,” he said.

Rather than following the appointed process for variances outlined by Ohio Revised Code, Kagafas alleges city staff does not always present all variances to the Board of Zoning Appeals of for voted-approval.

In addition to activity that violates the ORC, Kagafas also cited poor management as one of the factors adding to his decision to resign.

“I can only speak for me, a staff member, a former staff member, every time I brought up these issues (to) management, their response wasn’t, ‘How can we fix this? How can we make it so it doesn’t happen again?’ That was not the response that I got,” he said. “The response that I got was, ‘Why are you trying to make the department look bad?’”

Additionally, Kagafas alleges hundreds of documents are missing under the department and the employee turnover rates are steadily increasing. He claims that three years ago the department saw roughly a 35 percent turnover rate, last year 80 percent and this year 100 percent.

Zanesville City Mayor Jeff Tilton said Council is going to look into the information that was presented tonight but could not comment further.

Zanesville City Council President Daniel Vincent echoed the mayor, saying Council will look into the allegations.

In the absence of Kagafas, Vincent said an interim Planning and Zoning Administrator will be appointed.