Summerfield Town Planner Chris York has been suspended for “inappropriate” remarks he texted about a citizen and a Summerfield Town Council member.
The suspension comes after a similar incident in 2020 which caused York to have his key professional planning certification suspended.
The new texts from York have been described as abrasive and derogatory by those who’ve seen them – and York has now been suspended for a week. He’s scheduled to return to work on Tuesday, July 6.
Summerfield Town Council members have been advised by the town’s attorney not to comment on the situation beyond what’s included in an email sent from Summerfield Town Manager Scott Whitaker to the Town Council members. That email stated that the suspension was due to “recent communication with a citizen about town business that was in appropriate given his position.”
The citizens in Summerfield are very divided regarding the future of development in the town of about 12,000 people, and those issues often lead to heated arguments and to hostile behavior and comments by one side toward the other. York, as the town planner, is often at odds with those who believe the town is experiencing too much development too fast.
Summerfield residents who’ve seen the texts say the comments that York was suspended for include a derogatory remark about Summerfield Town Council Member Teresa Perryman (who was Teresa Pegram before recently getting married).
A community meeting on the future of development in the town was held recently in Summerfield, and the meeting, which included comments by Perryman, was posted online. York began texting later that night – presumably while watching the video of the meeting on Facebook.
In 2020, York had his certification suspended from the American Planning Association’s professional institute, which is the main professional certification for the planning profession and one that planners at the top levels of planning are expected to have.
The ruling against York last year resulted from a February 2020 incident when an able-bodied town employee parked in a handicapped spot at the Summerfield Community Center where the Town Council was holding a meeting.
Don Wendelken – who runs the Summerfield Scoop Facebook page and now puts out a town newspaper with the same “Scoop” name – took a picture of the employee’s car parked in the handicapped space and posted it on his Facebook page. Wendelken didn’t state the name of the employee who parked illegally, but York, who’s has often at odds with Wendelken, came to his fellow town employee’s defense using an assumed name.
Under the online alias “Bobby Christopher,” York defended the employee who parked in the space, called Wendelken a “stalker” and used profanity.
After that 2020 incident, Whitaker apologized for York’s remarks and stated that the town planner’s comments were regrettable.
The suspension this week comes at a time when the town has a number of important planning and development questions on the table.
Though York’s suspension is for a week, some in the town are pushing Whitaker to offer a stronger punishment since York was previously warned not to engage in this type of behavior.
How petty.
CHILDREN!!!! GROW UP!!!
The town leaders in Summerfield need a wake up call obviously. The article doesn’t state exactly what was said against the town Council woman but words like abusive, derogatory and inappropriate mean it must be bad. If an employee in any other business had multiple offenses and then made terrible texts against his boss, he would get fired. One week off? A joke.
If what the planner said was bad enough, especially if it was a bad statement against a woman, would Teresa Perryman be able to sue? Especially since it looks like this planner has had problems in the town in the past and he still works there.
It’s not surprising though because leaders in Summerfield have been doing things the wrong way lately. Everyone is talking about how they didn’t listen to years of work by citizens and zoning people about development and changed things so Summerfield went from 73 families in 100 acres to 500 families in 100 acres.
Now they are pushing planned development on us after we all said we did not want it a few years ago. And when they ran for Council they said they would vote against planned development. They lied and aren’t doing what they told us they would do.
The leaders just don’t care about people who got them in office and they don’t care about this council person either. It’s a shame they act more like typical politicians helping the big guys instead of small town people helping us who live there. I hope Mrs Perryman gets treated better than this.
Teresa Perryman is a virus amongst Summerfield. She violated an employees rights sharing confidential personnel information. Just because she is an elected official, does not make her above the law. I don’t know for sure that she shared the information, but ask yourself, how did Don Wendelken and The Rhino Times get this leaked information? It came from someone and that someone was more than likely Teresa. She is the only council member that is a little too chummy with the opposition. She should also start treating everyone better as well. She is no angel to her fellow council members nor town staff.
Crickets…
Don whomever is clearly within his rights to post a photograph of some town employee being a selfish ass. What jerk parks in a handicapped space?
York seems to take exception to the truth – and in a foul mouthed fashion.
If I lived in Summerfield I would expect York to offer his resignation.
Immediately.
This young man has no respect for professionalism and is a sore on the Town of Summerfield. Why is he still there
This fella probably kisses the right ass(es) & is a member in good standing of ye local lodge. I’ve seen it locally for decades. A hard working man can’t get anywhere on merit in local government. The incompetent and lying jerks rule the roost because they rub shoulders with those who have done the same before them.