Liam Devine last Planning Commission
What the county recorded
This item is not from the published agenda
It is a stretch of the recording that this archive identified as a separate matter — a call to order, a recess, or something taken up that the agenda does not list. There is no official title, no staff recommendation and no disposition, because the county never recorded one. Everything below is inferred.
The source document
The county’s agenda for Planning Commission, Mar 20, 2025
The published PDF, as served by the county. This item is one entry in it.
What was said
Machine transcription of 7m of recording, with speaker names inferred from voice matching. 85% of 34 lines carry a name. It shows what was said, not what was decided, and both the words and the names can be wrong.
Okay, before we conclude though, I'd like to ask the Mr. Devine to come forward please. Uh oh.
Yeah. Liam Devine, Planning Development, Economic Growth Department. Um I know some of you may have already heard or are aware this is my last planning commission with Pasco County. Um I have accepted a different position and that will be with the Pasco County School Board. I'm working with Chris Williams and Richard Tonello.
Yeah.
Um but I do want to say a couple words. Um I have loved my time here working with all of you. I will greatly miss it. I loved our short meetings that were less than maybe five minutes and our long ones that have gone to 9 PM Um but I remember starting here four and a half years ago and I actually worked during COVID and I actually worked the kiosk for planning commission. So that's when we actually had public comment from a different location and they came in through a a kiosk and then I started presenting as a planner.
And I have facilitated and filled in for our Dendor Coordinator multiple times. And I have absolutely loved my time with you guys, and I will certainly miss you. Um but I hopefully will have a new role with Planning Commission in the future, which I'm excited about and may be able to sit up there alongside of you at some point. Um but there are certain individuals that I want to call out. Denise Hernandez, my mentor and probably favorite person, besides David Goldstein at the county. Um, County Attorney's Office, Carly and Linda from the County Attorney's Office, as
well as David and Elizabeth. I have Learn so much for those individuals and continue to do so. My zoning team, Fred, Krista, Jody, and Ruth Ann. Um could not be Who I am today in zoning without them. They have definitely taught me a lot. And I will actually say Barbara Wilhite, because she has been an excellent companion in the development community as well. Always very understanding of staff's limitations on certain things, and she's always
worked well with us, or myself, I will say. So I Hope to see you guys soon.
So I d I do wanna say um Damn you, Chris.
You know, I I do think that yes, it's a tremendous opportunity for the school board to get Liam, um, but it is a tremendous loss for the planning department. Tremendous loss for me personally. um who reviews a lot of these zoning items. Liam was an extraordinary employee. Very quick turnaround on Items, um you know, always found solutions to issues, ways to get across things across the finish line. Um very sad to see him go.
Damn you, Chris. That's all I'm gonna say.
So yes, I'm gonna miss Liam tremendously. But glad Elise will still be Yes. Yeah.
Liam, I I've come to uh know you and appreciate you. tremendously over these last few years. And uh and I'm gonna miss you too. Damn it.
But I'm glad to know that you're gonna be close by and and hopefully we'll see you uh Sitting up here occasionally and Yeah, no he'll be breaking ties. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Breaking ties, that's right. So we we alm we could have had one today, you never know. They could be back
here on the special exception.
So thank you for all you've done and uh for being so help me helpful to me. particularly. And I think I speak on behalf of all of us when uh when I say that you know we had a great admiration For you and uh Look forward to working with you in the future.
Thank you.
Thanks, Lamb.
Anybody else have a comment? I'd say the same thing.
Yeah.
It has nothing to do well. One, my experience with you at the Planning Commission has been an absolute pleasure, but my experience with you in My profession.
has also been a pleasure and you are truly or have been an extraordinary emplo just as David said, an extraordinary employee with the county. I've never had anybody more professional Call me back. within fifteen minutes or an hour if you were tied up in a meeting. I can count on if Liam didn't call me that day, he was going to email me or text me to let me know I'll be in touch with you first thing in the morning and we were going to get the issue the answer needed and the issue resolved. So and I appreciate that.
I will say Denise used to um scold me a little bit because I will be on vacation on a boat um messaging people back and she used to note that and um certainly tell me off a little bit sometimes for why are you answering when you're on a boat so um and on vacation. But I absolutely love what I do. My colleagues will note that I come in every single day super happy, you know, joyful every single day because I absolutely loved it and I'm going to greatly miss it. But I do look forward to my new opportunities
with the school board.
All right. Thank you
again.
Do you have any apologies to make?
Those Those are the qualities we saw and that's why we're excited to have Liam join our team. But just so you know, Richard and I are not gonna be here forever. And so I'm probably retiring in about two to three years. Richard is I'm not sure. He changes from day to day, but he's probably two to five years and so we're trying to do succession planning. So we're excited to get somebody who's a lot younger than us old guys, who can maybe come in in the next couple of
years and and figure out what the heck we do and and do a better job of it than we do. Um and so that's our That's our plan is to real and the reality too is that Prior to 2010, we actually had five people in our department. We recently just got back to four. Full time people in our department. This'll bring us back to five. Um, you know, and obviously the county has grown a lot in the last um
fifteen years. So We're drowning, so we're happy to get another person on board to help us and and learn some of the things we're doing, but also um continue with those connections with the development community as well as with the county. Thanks, Chris.
So Chris will send you to the long meetings now.
Yes, that's right. Another person. Because April April meetings looking pretty long. April seventeenth.
Thank
you. Oh thank you Lam.
Thank you, Lam. Thanks.