by William Skink

A reader of this blog tipped me off to some breaking news I haven’t seen reported yet in any local media: Josh Martin is NOT going to be the new Director of Development Services in Missoula, according to this report from six days ago in the Palm Beach Daily News:

Two weeks ago the town parted ways with Josh Martin, who resigned as zoning director Feb. 7 after accepting a job in Montana.

But Martin, it turns out, isn’t leaving town. He declined the job as development director in Missoula, Mont., he said, and will be working as a consultant, mainly to developer Todd Michael Glaser, on projects in Palm Beach, Miami Beach and elsewhere in South Florida.

So what happened?

I would like to think that, like cockroaches, shining a light on certain aspects of a slick operator like Martin causes them to scurry away.

Back in January, when the Missoula Current reported the hiring of Josh Martin, I quickly took a look at the two most recent locales where Martin had left his mark as a city planner–Charleston, South Carolina and Palm Beach, Florida. I was looking with a critical eye for evidence of gentrification lurking behind the cult of New Urbanism and found plenty of it.

While that first post certainly didn’t portray Martin in a good light, the second post I wrote, which highlighted a past business relationship between Martin and a Florida consulting company, Dover and Kohl, may have been enough light to send this proponent of New Urbanism scurrying back to Palm Beach.

And remember, that’s the same Dover and Kohl that will STILL be getting $25,000 in public TIF money to “study” the potential uses of the land where the old library building currently stands downtown.

So far local media hasn’t caught wind of Martin’s cold feet. I’m very interested to see how the Mayor’s office spins this. Stay tuned…