Jun 4, 2024 By Jon Andreassi 2 min read

The South Strabane Township board of supervisors hired a new director of public works and began the process for finding a new head for planning and zoning at a meeting Friday evening.

The board met on Friday after the regularly scheduled meeting on Tuesday was canceled due to the agenda not being publicly available far enough in advance.

“It was a clerical error,” said Township Manager Jeffrey Ziegler. “We didn’t get our agenda posted on the website within 24 hours of the regular meeting, so we needed to reschedule.”

At the meeting, the board voted to name Kevin Montgomery as the new director of public works. He succeeds Supervisor Russ Grego, who retired from the role at the end of 2023. Montgomery has worked in the department since January 2020.

According to Ziegler, Montgomery emerged as a candidate after the township struggled to recruit suitable applicants.

“We had six candidates. Three of them were qualified. One of them was living out of state – not a real viable candidate. The other two were going to be priced out of our market,” Ziegler said. “That’s when Kevin stepped up, and said he would be interested.”

Montgomery began in a six month interim role, and now officially has the job.

“He really rose to the occasion and did a great job for us,” Ziegler said.

Also at Friday’s meeting, the board approved a motion to have Ziegler develop a job description for a director of township planning and zoning. Officials also formed a hiring committee to begin seeking candidates.

Ziegler explained that this role previously fell under the purview of an assistant township manager.

“Planning jobs are really tough to find good candidates for,” Ziegler said.

The next board of supervisors meeting will be 6 p.m. June 25.