(March 22)  San Bernardino Community Development Director Margo Wheeler is leaving her position on March 28 to accept an appointment as director of Planning Services for Palm Springs.
Wheeler was selected by Palm Springs following a nationwide recruitment effort that attracted more than two dozen applicants.
Wheeler, the former planning director of Las Vegas, has been with the city of San Bernardino since December 2010 and is credited with attracting projects entailing more than 6 million square feet of industrial space and 660,000 square feet of commercial space including the Amazon distribution center and an accompanying $1.4 million in permit fees during her tenure, during which the city streamlined its application and fee scheduling processes.
Despite Wheeler’s time in San Bernardino coinciding with the lead-in to the city’s August 2012 bankruptcy filing, the city added more than $1 billion in building space while she headed the community development division.
Mayor Pat Morris called her departure a “huge loss for the city. She is practically irreplaceable.”
Wheeler joins the ranks of several high ranking municipal officials who have left San Bernardino since the filing of bankruptcy, including the city manager, interim city manager, fire chief, interim fire chief and the finance, human resources, public works, and refuse division directors.