Sean Pritchard is many things: 35 years old, a father of five, a lifelong northender and, as of this month, the first city planner in Springfield’s 203-year history.
His appointment to the post within the city’s Office of Planning and Economic Development, which garners a salary of nearly $90,000, raised eyebrows among some in the planning profession.
“The typical planner in a mid-sized city of around 100,000 would be someone with a master’s degree in urban planning,” said Andrew Greenlee, a professor of urban and regional planning at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “Many local government planners also choose to become certified planners and pursue the American Institute of Certified Planner’s credential.”
Pritchard doesn’t have a college degree. He attended Lincoln Land Community College but never earned an associate’s degree.
Stephanie Brown, president of the Illinois chapter of the American Planning Association, said the capital city has been an outlier among Illinois municipalities in that it has not had a planner on staff.
Since the 1970s, the city has contracted with the Springfield-Sangamon County Regional Planning Commission for its planning work. The closest Springfield has come to having a city planner was when then-Mayor Tim Davlin hired Paul O’Shea in 2006 to serve as the city’s planning and design coordinator. O’Shea, an architect who also had extensive experience in historic preservation, held the position until 2015. However, he was clear that his role was not the same as that of a true city planner.
In a Guestwork column O’Shea wrote for Illinois Times, he recounted the conversation he had with Davlin when he was first asked to come work for the city (“Springfield needs a city planner,” June 2, 2016).
“…I’m an architect and I respect those who possess the education, formal training, experience and expertise of a city planner, so it’s best for me not to assume the expectations of that role,” O’Shea told Davlin, explaining why he didn’t want the title of city planner.
Brown said there is no precise qualification to be a part of the profession.
“For the most part, we either have a four-year bachelor’s degree in urban planning or a bachelor’s degree in some related fields like geography, political science, architecture or landscape architecture, and then a master’s degree in urban and regional planning,” she said.
But she added since urban planners are not a licensed profession, there are no minimum educational credentials that must be met, unlike architects or engineers.
“Urban planning is hard to define sometimes because it is so diverse… where people come from. It could be more the advocacy side of things to the technical economic development. You can have a wide range of backgrounds and still find your way into urban planning,” Brown said.
“There are people who serve as urban planners across the state who did not get an education specifically in urban planning. But they kind of found their way into the profession one way or the other,” she said.
Pritchard said he left college because he became a father at a young age.
“I started a degree, but I had a child at a young age,” he said. “I’m so proud of her. She’s going to be a freshman next year.”
Early in his career, Pritchard sold insurance for Horace Mann and later did underwriting and internal audits for the company. In between stints at Horace Mann, he was a financial sales consultant at PNC bank and a business development manager at Barnes & Noble.
Pritchard joined the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity in February 2020. One of the positions he served in was acting deputy director of business development, where he played a role in developing and managing incentive programs that generated business investments across Illinois.
Pritchard noted that he has acquired “a multitude of designations” throughout his employment experiences.
“Not only do I have certifications in cybersecurity, but I have multiple designations and certifications across the gamut. I’m certified as a women’s business advocate through one of the banks that I worked with. I’m an associate of customer service through what was called LOMA, a nationally recognized designation of insurance companies,” he said.
Val Yazell, the city’s director of planning and economic development, said she is not concerned that Pritchard does not have a degree. Both Yazell and Mayor Misty Buscher’s chief of staff, Mike Disco, interviewed Pritchard for the job.
“For me, what was appealing was his experience with DCEO, understanding resources for the community, and he just kind of thinks outside the box, which is something that I think we need. We need to rethink how to approach development in the city,” Yazell said.
Pritchard said two priority areas for revitalization are Springfield’s impoverished east side and the city’s downtown.
“(I) want to focus on the east side and downtown – piggybacking off of the work of the Medical District plan – just understanding how we can bring more businesses, more affordable housing to both downtown and east side,” he said.
Yazell, who will retire at the end of this month, described the planner as someone who will “fine-tune” the vision for the city.
“I think this is someone who will be working in economic development but also help the mayor fine-tune her vision, focus on the areas where she’s putting out fires. … This will be someone who will have a dedicated amount of time to spend looking at the city and evaluating where land development should be (and) analyzing some of the data that we have that, unfortunately, sometimes just sits on the shelves.”
Scott Reeder, a staff writer for Illinois Times, can be reached at sreeder@illinoistimes.com.
This article appears in Project censored 2024.
I agree that credentials (I have several) are important but not determinative. And it can help to “think outside the box,” as Ms. Yazell says; this is also known as thinking all the way through the problem. BUT: why not require the city planner to get promptly well-educated in the field, as a condition of continued employment? Or should the city just accept mistakes caused by lack of knowledge of the job?
Not having a college degree is a huge plus for this guy. He spent those years working and engaging with reality instead of learning to hate America while fostering the woke mind virus.
Obviously, elitist snob college professors believe that everyone with no college degree is below them. No surprise there.
The article writes, “Urban planning is hard to define sometimes because it is so diverse”
It’s hard to define because it’s not a real job and cities don’t actually need one. Cities properly develop organically according to the needs of the people and the needs of the geography. Not according to one bureaucrat making proclamations from on high. There is no part of this job that the city council couldn’t just handle themselves.
I don’t need to know anything about the “American Institute of Certified Planners” to know that their goal is to promote woke ideology and to “transform” America so that it looks more like Europe.
Typical “urban planners” hate cars and they love public transportation, bicycles, and pedestrians. Not because cars are bad and low-mobility transportation is good. They hate cars because cars are a symbol of America itself and a symbol of FREEDOM.
Donald Trump is president. That makes it kind of hard for me to worry too much about this guy’s credentials. At least Mr. Pritchard doesn’t have the launch codes. But if I hear him talk about bringing back Lincoln Fest, I may change my mind.
I’d like to respond to Burger Addict:
I do hear you but I don’t agree with some–perhaps much–of what you say. College is, on balance, a plus, and so is education. There are jobs, including city planner, that require understanding the specific questions, gathering relevant information, and thinking through the problem–often with the help of others–to reach the best solution. When you want a city planner or a mechanic or a plumber or a doctor, you will do better if the planner–mechanic–plumber–doctor is well-educated, well-trained, well-experienced. And one thing you may and often do learn in schools is to not assume, not prejudge, but actually find out some facts before jumping to conclusions. So please, Mr. Burger Addict, slow down, think this through, and I hope you will conclude that Springfield’s city planner should have as much continuing education as he needs, to do his job well.
The city has evidently lacked municipal planning foresight for 30 years, with the exception of Mr. O’Shea. The absence of primary thoroughfares in this municipality signifies inadequate planning. For the city to progress in the future, it is essential for this candidate to establish a rapport with an adept individual who can perform the tasks on his behalf and comprehend the intricacies of municipal code. The traffic congestion near Koke Mill and the mall is catastrophic, reflecting a deficiency in planning. The urban sprawl expansion in Koke Mill during the past five years has been disastrous since Paul departed. In my view, the complexities of this position cannot be fully understood without an individual possessing a background in architectural engineering.
Hi JimmyL,
Thank you for your reply. I wrote you a very lengthy response but it keeps getting deleted for some reason. Maybe because I included hyperlinks or maybe it’s too long. I’ll try posting in two parts and removing the links.
You wrote, “College is, on balance, a plus, and so is education.”
I probably would have agreed with this statement 20 years ago but today I’m afraid it’s no longer true. Obviously, education itself is inherently positive but unfortunately education is a service that many universities today no longer provide.
Today, their main goal is to churn out communist social justice warriors. They rob their students of a proper education while selling them to the salt mines via an insurmountable amount of debt.
But it does depend on where exactly you attend college as some are much better than others at actually educating their students. Since UIUC was mentioned in this article, let’s use that as an example.
Using archive-dot-org I was able to view the illinois-dot-edu website back in 2002, which was the first time it was archived. Here is the statement in their “diversity” section:
“The commitment of the University of Illinois to the most fundamental principles of academic freedom, equality of opportunity, and human dignity requires that decisions involving students and employees be based on individual merit and be free from invidious discrimination in all its forms.”
There are a few very key phrases here: Equality of opportunity and individual merit. Do you think that today, UIUC embraces equality of opportunity and individual merit? They certainly do NOT.
Today, UIUC embraces “Equity” which is vastly different from “Equality of opportunity”. Equity DESTROYS equality of opportunity. And not only does UIUC NOT promote individual merit, they BLAME individual merit for a litany of societal problems.
If you search the illinois-dot-edu website for the phrase “individual merit”, the first thing that comes up is a blog post from a “professor of labor and employment relations” entitled:
“Merit-based employment practices contribute to gender pay gap, study says”
This is one tiny example of the disease which has infected the entire university at every level. You will never stop finding more examples as long as you are looking for them. Perform a search for “equity” and you will get many results. “Diversity and Equity in engineering…Diversity and equity in physics…” Every single department at the university has an office of DEI.
If you look at the specific field of Urban Planning, I dare you to find one single recent graduate of an Urban Planning program from ANY school who does not believe that America needs to be fundamentally transformed. You WILL NOT FIND ONE. To the last student, urban planning degree holders are all woke social justice warriors. All of them. This is because the universities do not educate – they indoctrinate into a specific collectivist political ideology.
In fact, the conservative and libertarian viewpoints on development are at odds with the very idea that a city needs a “plan” to develop. Cities don’t need a plan. If cities want to develop, they need to give their citizens as much freedom and autonomy as possible. Control and regulation stifles development. That doesn’t mean the city should allow someone to put a polluting factory in the middle of a residential neighborhood.
The city only needs to allow common sense to prevail in topics such as zoning, regulation, and development. Nobody needs a college degree for common sense. In fact, in today’s world, having a degree destroys your common sense.
You also wrote, “And one thing you may and often do learn in schools is to not assume, not prejudge, but actually find out some facts before jumping to conclusions.”
It’s interesting that you say that, because today’s universities do assume their conclusions and then present students a very specific set of curated “facts” to conform to their assumptions. For example, they start with conclusions such as “America is evil” and “white people are racist” and then they work backwards from there. Every college student is taught this no matter what concentration they are studying.
Another stupid unqualified hire Another Musty fail
Just Wow, I think Burger Addict needs a snickers bar. Hating on people with a college degree that way. I think you struggle to understand that diversity is a good thing. I am a minority in my field and have had to work twice as hard to prove I was capable of doing the same job because I don’t look like my peers. You go to college to get an education that will help prepare you for the career field you choose to go into. I would not see a doctor without proper education or hire a lawyer that didn’t get credentials or an accountant that isn’t educated. Of course, I also appreciate the value that professionals bring to the table and don’t minimize everyone else in the work. Be a kind human!
The key is that he lacks experience in planning. He doesn’t NEED to have a college degree but having a background specifically in planning should be a requirement for this job. If you want to hire people to handle business development and grants oversight than hire for those positions.
Hi Be a Kind Person,
Thank you for your comment.
You wrote, “Just Wow, I think Burger Addict needs a snickers bar. Hating on people with a college degree that way.”
I am not hating on people with a college degree. I am hating on the universities who have failed their students so badly and who have destroyed the value of a college degree.
You also wrote, “I think you struggle to understand that diversity is a good thing.”
No, I’m not struggling to understand anything. Diversity for the sake of diversity is a bad thing because it lowers the standards of competency in favor of skin color. At best, “diversity” is morally neutral because I don’t judge people by the color of their skin. I judge people by the content of their character as MLK Jr. correctly preached about.
Even though the woke movement still pays him lip service, they have destroyed the legacy of MLK Jr, because the woke movement can only see skin color and they pay no bother to the content of someone’s character.
Today, universities teach their students to judge others by skin color. It’s horrible and EVIL!
You wrote, “I am a minority in my field and have had to work twice as hard to prove I was capable of doing the same job because I don’t look like my peers.”
Congratulations on your career, whatever career that is, but your victim mentality isn’t doing you any favors. Stop blaming and accusing your peers who are of a different race. They did nothing to you. Be a “victor” instead of a “victim”.
You wrote, “You go to college to get an education that will help prepare you for the career field you choose to go into.”
No, college is supposed to be much more than career training. That’s why they require you to take a bunch of classes which have nothing to do with your career. A proper education also includes moral and ethical teaching and that’s where the universities have totally failed.
Today, the morals that universities teach today are “white people are inherently racist”, “men are toxic”, and “America is evil”.
You wrote, “I would not see a doctor without proper education or hire a lawyer that didn’t get credentials or an accountant that isn’t educated.”
Funny you say that because DEI admissions into college lowers the standards of competency for the sake of superficial characteristics such as skin color. I’m guessing that when you see a doctor you want that doctor to have earned their position because they know what they are doing. I’m guessing you want the best doctor that is available to you and not one who simply matches your skin color.
Ironically, DEI actually hurts many of the people who it purports to help. Because now, when a minority has properly earned their position because they are highly competent, they might be unfairly suspected of being a “diversity hire”. If the standards of competency were based only on individual merit, with skin color playing no role, everyone would know that they are not a “diversity hire” but that they have properly earned their position.
You wrote, “I also appreciate the value that professionals bring to the table and don’t minimize everyone else in the work.”
I also appreciate the value that qualified professionals bring to the table. Unfortunately, in today’s world, a college degree makes you less qualified because you have been taught many lessons which are completely wrong and immoral. Which is why our new city planner having no college degree is a huge positive. He will be able to utilize his common sense to properly fulfill the duties of his job.
According to the article, Springfield has NEVER had a city planner. This man is hired with plenty of work experience and now he must deal with a negative article written about him because he doesn’t have a fancy college degree. It’s shameful. Obviously a college degree is not necessary because there was NOBODY in the position before him. Prior to now, Springfield’s city planner was an EMPTY CHAIR. Does the EMPTY CHAIR have a masters degree?
This is a very disappointing hire for the City of Springfield. Our downtown needs an expert who can propose ideas that have worked for other municipalities with similar census data. I am unsure that experience in insurance, book sales, and a women’s business advocate will benefit this job. Misty should have utilized her professional connections to the local universities, multiple Springfield master plan consultants, and relationships with state officials to make a better selection.
I am a firm believer that just because you have degrees doesn’t mean you have any common sense. There is no education for common sense, you are either born with it or you are not. Give him a chance to see what he can do before disparaging his reputation. He might be the best thing that happened to your City