The Town of Nashville’s utility coordinator has resigned, and it’s unknown if the town will rehire for that job yet.
Sean Cassiday’s resignation was announced and accepted at the April 16 Nashville Town Council meeting. He had worked in that role since the summer of 2015.
No council members asked any questions about it. When a reporter asked why, council President Jane Gore replied, “We don’t know; he just resigned,” and council member Nancy Crocker said, “You’ll have to ask him.”
“It was just time to part ways,” Cassiday said last week. He said he was currently collecting unemployment. His last day as a town employee was April 17.
Cassiday managed the town’s water, wastewater and street departments and managed three to five people, Gore said.
“We haven’t decided about replacing Sean yet,” she said in an email April 17. “In the meantime, (Administration Manager) Phyllis (Carr) has taken on his duties and is doing a great job.”
Cassiday was a sitting town council member and was working as a department manager at Lowe’s in Bloomington when he was hired as town utility coordinator in July 2015. He was the first person to hold the title of “utility coordinator”; previously, the job was “town superintendent.” Cassiday, who grew up in Nashville, previously had served on the town council since October 2009; he had been appointed to the council to succeed his father, Dale, who died while in office.
Cassiday said he was proud that in his time leading the street department, the town had paved more roads than any previous supervisor had paved, largely thanks to successful Community Crossings grant applications. He also was proud of the town’s recent water system upgrade projects.
Before talking about his resignation, the council voted at the April 16 meeting to hire two more full-time people for the water/wastewater/street departments. “We’ve got too much work for too few of people,” said council member David Rudd.
Rudd said the staffing shortage was something they’d been dealing with for awhile.
“It will kind of kill two birds with one stone, though,” said strategic direction adviser Dax Norton, when asked if hiring the two new people was because the town was losing employees or if it was because of the town’s Indiana Department of Environmental Management violations.
Last fall, the town was cited by IDEM for having inadequate staffing levels at the wastewater treatment plant to ensure the plant was in compliance with state rules. IDEM also cited the town for an overflow at the plant which happened last February and was not promptly reported to the state; for having no preventative maintenance plan for the plant; for placing a road salt pile and disposing of sludge in a way that could have allowed them to enter Salt Creek; and for not responding to violation letters.
Carr said that anyone interested in a job with the town can call Town Hall to schedule a time to pick up an application, since the building is closed to the public right now. Applications are kept on file for a year.
One new person had been hired part-time in the water/wastewater/street departments as of last week and may go to full-time later, Carr said; the other full-time job had not yet been filled. See the ad in the Marketplace in the B section of this paper.
