ABOVE: Mike Schutz is the city of Fairmont’s new planning and zoning, code enforcement coordinator.

FAIRMONT– There’s a new face at city hall in Fairmont. Mike Schutz was added two weeks ago as the planning and zoning, code enforcement coordinator for the city.

While he may be new to city hall, he’s not new to the community. Schutz was born and raised here and graduated from Fairmont High School before joining the military in 1994.

“I was in the Navy for 15 years and the Army for seven,” Schutz said.

While he had a 22 year career in the military, after high school Schutz also went to the University of Minnesota-Mankato, where he got a bachelor of science degree in law enforcement. He started as a police officer with the city of Truman in 2005.

He ended up being deployed four time and actually lived in the Middle East for about five years. In 2016, Schutz retired from the military and focused on his everyday life as a police officer.

At the end of last year, Schutz left his position with Truman but said a few weeks ago his friend Brad Buhmann informed him that the city of Fairmont was hiring for this position.

“It’s down my alley with law enforcement. My job is to help people achieve their goals,” Schutz said.

Pat Oman, Fairmont’s Community Development Director, also spoke more about the role, which he said has recently changed as it was previously known as the planning and zoning technician.

“One of the biggest differences is… there’s a reemphasis on the code enforcement. That was being done by law enforcement but we feel that bringing that back in house and continuing to be productive as a department and as a division, we feel that the code compliance of all of our codes is going to be done most effectively in house under his (Schutz’s) leadership,” Oman said.

He said that with Schutz’s background in law enforcement, and experience dealing with different personalities and challenges, will serve him well in the role.

The city is currently engaged in a full charter review, a code review and a Chapter 26 zoning review with MSA that actually started back in 2022.

“We just had our kickoff meeting with the whole community development staff and that includes all of the departments plus Darcy (Jones), Matt York (Public Works Director) and Tyler Cowing (Engineer),” Oman said.

There’s a June 20 deadline to review the revisions and after that there will be a public engagement session on the Chapter 26 Zoning Ordinance and Chapter 24 Subdivision Ordinance. Following that there will be a public hearing with the planning commission and then with the city council.

“We’re looking at an end of summer approval for that,” Oman said.

He said that in his new role, Schutz will be a big part of this process. While there will be a learning curve for Schutz on the planning and zoning side, code enforcement is something he’s comfortable with.

“It’s about getting people educated to know what avenue of approach to do. There are a lot of people who don’t know how to make a complaint. You can go to the city’s website and navigate through the website to see how to do that. Also on the city website is all of our codes are for planning and zoning, nuisances and all codes are listed,” Schutz said.

He said that someone can also call law enforcement to launch a compliant, especially if it’s outside of normal business hours for the city.

“Whoever you talk to will get it forwarded to me and I’ll follow up,” Schutz said.

He acknowledged that a lot of people want to see progress and said that if there is a compliant that’s being looked into, the first response is usually, “what about them?” as they indicate their neighbors.

“We want people to understand when I’m talking to someone that it’s not about ‘them,’ it’s about you. If they have a complaint we educate them on how to launch it. That’s how we focus on problems versus it becoming unnecessary arguments. People like to draw the attention away from them when a complaint is launched but it’s about focusing on the problem at hand,” Schutz said.

Overall, Schutz believes his long experience in code enforcement, coupled with his knowledge of the community and its people, make him a good fit for the role.

“You just talk to people calm, cool and collected and with respect and help give them guidance. That will help the situation progress a lot better,” he said.

Schutz said he wants to see the city and the citizens have a good symbiotic relationship that will result in a good, clean city.

“There are problem areas within the city that we need to work on and I hope people understand that it’s a work in progress that will continue to be a work in progress. If something isn’t being addressed today or tomorrow, rest assured it’s going to be dealt with,” Schutz said.