FAIRHOPE, Ala. — The first meeting of the full Strategic Planning Committee took place last Wednesday.

But Thursday morning, one of three remaining “citizen” members appointed at the Nov. 24 City Council meeting said he would be resigning from the committee.

“It sounds like it’s going to be very labor intensive,” said John Brown, a local financial planner. “I didn’t think I was going to be able to hold my end up.”

Brown said other personal and professional time commitments would prevent his effective service on the committee based on what he learned in Wednesday’s meeting.

“It seems like that is more work than you can do with nonprofessional persons,” Brown said during Wednesday’s meeting.

His comment followed a committee discussion that outlined a plan to have committee members help train all departments heads and key staff in the strategic planning process. The discussion considered having committee members work individually with each department to assist them in the process of developing their own strategic plans.

“I share your concerns,” said committee member Harvey Joanning. “What’s being discussed here is a huge process. The council should consider hiring a competent professional to come in and do this.”

The nine-person committee consists of seven citizen members, as well as the mayor and one council member appointed by the council president.

Council President Debbie Quinn appointed Councilman Lonnie Mixon to the committee during a recent council meeting.

The council will probably take up the issue regarding how to fill Brown’s vacancy at Monday’s council meeting, Quinn said Thursday, noting she had not yet received notice of Brown’s resignation.

The current committee is comprised of Pamela Caudill, John Gutknecht, Harvey Joanning, Ron Heveran, Mixon, Diane Thomas, Marvin Wilder and Mayor Tim Kant, who was absent from Wednesday’s meeting.

“Our objective is to have a strategic plan in time for the fiscal 2010 budget process,” said John Gutknecht, one of four citizen members appointed to the committee in September. “We were (all) supposed to be appointed three months ago, but that didn’t happen, so our time (frame) is compressed.”

The committee decided Wednesday to meet regularly on Thursday afternoons to move forward with the city’s strategic planning process, emphasizing the delay in its work caused when not all members were appointed in September.

“At the first (council) meeting in September, the council will approve seven ‘citizen’ members to the Strategic Planning Steering Committee, one of whom would be chairman,” stated the final report of the Strategic Planning Process Committee which the council accepted in July. “The committee would actually have a total of nine members, the other two being the Mayor and a Council Member (named by the Council President). The Committee Chairman will also serve as facilitator in meetings, as required.”

During Wednesday’s meeting, Mixon served as chair and appointed Gutknecht as co-chair. Mixon said the council appointed him as chair of the committee, but Quinn said Thursday the council appointed him to the committee, not as chair of the committee.

The Strategic Planning Process Committee, which outlined a process for accomplishing a strategic plan for the city, was created by council resolution in April, following a report by the Government Structure Committee, which the council accepted in October 2007. Of the report’s 14 recommendations to improve city government operations, three addressed strategic planning.

“Lack of a five-year strategic and financial plan is the largest risk factor affecting the future financial integrity of the City of Fairhope and its utilities,” that October 2007 report stated, copies of which are available in the Fairhope Public Library.

The Strategic Planning Committee decided Wednesday that its next meeting would include a briefing by Chuck Zunk regarding the final report of the Strategic Planning Process Committee, which he chaired.

“Any meeting that this group will have will be an open meeting,” Gutknecht said during the Wednesday meeting which was attended by only two people not on the committee.

The Strategic Planning Committee will meet again at 2:30 p.m., Thursday, Dec. 11, at the James P. Nix Center.