A Jacksonville public servant will be retiring in May after almost four decades of work for the city. Kelly Hall, the city planner and former member of the Fire Department, had his retirement announced at the Jacksonville City Council meeting on Monday by Mayor Andy Ezard. Hall says he’s been fortunate to work for the city for so long and he’s seen many great changes come to the city during that time. “I came to the Public Planning Department from the fire department. The inspection at that time had a full-time superintendent, a part-time plumbing inspector, and a part-time secretary. That encompassed the whole department of public planning. We’ve gone now to a staff of 8 and moved the fire inspector up here and made Jacksonville a progress community with their development department. I’m kind of proud of that. We’ve seen a lot of changes and been through 4 mayors. In 39 years, you see a lot of different things take place.”
Hall says he’s really proud of being involved in the development of the GIS system for the city and county. “The city and the county were all involved with the GIS system starting years ago when prices were so high. It was almost prohibitive to get involved, but we did anyway. We developed, what I’m proud of, is a good system for Jacksonville and Morgan County for properties as well as getting computerized. Back when I started, we all worked out of an index file system with index cards for every property in Morgan County and the city. Permits and other things were kept track of that way. Getting the office computerized and brought into the 21st Century, I think, has been a great achievement.”
Hall says he’s been involved with Parks & Lakes as an administrator for the last 7 years. He says he’s confident that the department is in good hands once he retires with Adam Fletcher managing parks and Brett Gilbreth managing lakes. He’s been happy with the creation of the new Jacksonville Lake trails and is looking forward to the new boat docks possibly coming in the near future to Lake Mauvaistarre. From a city planning perspective, he said that he’s glad to have been a part of the revitalization of the Downtown Square as well as continuing to preserve the city’s history through the preservation of several buildings and proper city planning projects.
He hopes to take some time off and travel and relax before moving on to something else to keep himself busy after retirement.