PINEDALE – Sublette County commissioners visited with Dennis Fornstrom, the county’s new planning and zoning administrator, at their Oct. 17 meeting, telling him to focus on adjusting to the new job before taking up some of the county’s unfinished zoning issues.

He started his job Oct. 1.

“Make the job your own—it’s going to take a while,” Board Chairman Andy Nelson said. “We don’t want to inundate you at this point.”

Fornstrom is a 1989 graduate of Pinedale High School who earned a degree in drafting and design from Idaho State University in Pocatello. He has spent 27 years in the civil engineering and construction fields, including 11 years for Rio Verde Engineering, where he worked before taking on the county job.

Fornstrom fills the void left when longtime county planner Bart Myers died unexpectedly in June 2017. That death came just as the county was planning its budget for 2018, so county commissioners budgeted only enough $10,150 for that office, enough to keep necessary office functions going until the post was filled.

One of Fornstrom’s tasks will be to work with Sublette County Clerk Mary Lankford to build a new budget for the office, probably in early 2018.

Fornstrom said he worked with Myers while at Rio Verde, so he was aware of some of what the office did, but from the other side of the desk. Myers was good at what he did and left the office in good shape, Fornstrom said.

But as commissioners noted on Tuesday, in a normal transition, Fornstrom would have had a chance to work with his predecessor to learn where records were kept and how the office has handled different procedures.

The county’s next meeting of the Sublette County Planning and Zoning Board meeting is Nov. 16, at which members will take up a variance a proposed dog kennel at Big Sandy and the proposed Spirit Winds Subdivision in Bondurant.