YOUNGSTOWN — The Youngstown administration will choose the city’s chief planner from a group of four candidates who meet the requirements for the job with Eastgate Regional Council of Governments’ planner being the highest ranked.

The position, which pays $76,450 annually, has been vacant since March 2009.

Instead of giving a written exam, the city’s civil service commission reviewed the work, supervisory experience and education of the four applicants and ranked them. The city has used a ranking system for upper-management civil service positions for a number of years.

Tricia D’Avignon of Youngstown, Eastgate’s planner since October 2022, received the highest score of 108.31. D’Avignon’s raw score was 90.03, which would have placed her third. But D’Avignon received a 20% bonus for having certification from the American Institute of Certified Planners.

As a city resident, she would have received a 15% bonus, but couldn’t use both, Jonathan Huff, civil service commission administrator said. City voters approved the civil service residency bonus as a charter amendment in November 2012.

D’Avignon is the only candidate with the certification and a Youngstown resident. There was also a 20% bonus for being a military veteran, but none of the four candidates qualified.

Before joining Eastgate, D’Avignon worked as assistant director of zoning and development for Boardman from July 2017 to October 2022 and as housing stabilization coordinator for Westown Community Development Corp. in Cleveland from June 2016 to June 2017.

The chief planner is responsible for administering the city’s planning policies and adhering to zoning code and procedures as well as managing professional planning, research and analysis on matters related to city and regional planning, zoning, historic preservation and design review, according to the job description. The chief planner also collaborates with a number of community planning partners, including Eastgate.

Hunter Morrison has served as the city’s planning consultant since August 2019.

Second in the ranking, though having the highest raw score without bonuses, at 93.07 points is Shahrzad Takalloo, who has worked for Mississauga, Ontario, a Canadian city with about 700,000 residents, since April 2017. She was the city’s sign plans examiner from April 2017 to March 2019 and then promoted to zoning plans examiner, a position she still holds.

Craig Brown of Salem was ranked third at 90.29 points, which also is higher than D’Avignon’s raw score.

Since August 2019, Brown has served as community planning director for the Brooke Hancock Jefferson Metropolitan Planning Commission in Steubenville. Before that, he was a program coordinator for Family & Community Services Inc. from October 2017 to August 2019. He also was the elected Columbiana County recorder from 2005 to 2012.

Ranked fourth with a score of 88.65 is Saurabh Sinha of Ahmedabad, Gujarat, a city in India of about 6.3 million people. Sinha has worked as senior architect for S3M Design Consultants LLP in Ahmedabad since November 2022 and was senior architect / urban planner for PDC Architects, also in Ahmedabad, from June 2020 to October 2022.

The person hired as chief planner would work under Nikki Posterli, who serves as director of the community planning and economic development department and the mayor’s chief of staff.

In July, the city hired Stephanie Gilchrist as its economic development director as it reorganized the CPED department. That position was vacant for 14 months before the city hired Gilchrist, who was regional director of the Minority Business Assistance Center at the Youngstown Business Incubator.

Gilchrist’s annual salary of $76,450 is the same as what the chief planner will be paid.