Emily Rabbe, the new executive director of the Lincoln County Regional Planning Commission. (Courtesy photo)
Following an executive session Tuesday, Jan. 2, the Lincoln County Board of Commissioners unanimously voted to appoint Emily Rabbe as the next executive director of the Lincoln County Regional Planning Commission.
Rabbe was formerly serving the regional planning commission as Lincoln County’s planner. Her appointment is retroactive to Jan. 1.
Rabbe’s appointment follows the retirement of former Executive Director Mary Ellen Barnes Dec. 31, 2023. Barnes will stay on with the commission, serving as a broadband and economic development consultant, according to Lincoln County’s Administrator Carrie Kipfer.
Since joining the regional planning commission in September 2020, Rabbe has worked with county officials and Lincoln County towns to provide land use, transportation, and environmental sustainability planning assistance. She has also assisted the municipalities accessing funding for climate resilience planning.
Among other projects, she worked on the county’s housing needs assessment, which was released in May 2023, and worked with the Lincoln County Emergency Management Agency on the 2021 hazard mitigation plan update.
“I appreciate the opportunity the commissioners have given me to serve as executive director of the [planning commission] and look forward to continuing (and hopefully expanding) the work the [commission] does on behalf of the county and municipalities,” Rabbe said in an email. “The past three years I’ve had the opportunity and pleasure to work with municipal staff, committees, and boards on a number of projects and I hope to continue to grow those relationships and find other ways we at the LCRPC can assist municipalities with their local and regional priorities.”
Prior to working with the Lincoln County Regional Planning Commission, Rabbe worked for nearly a decade as an environmental planner for a consulting firm on the eastern end of Long Island, N.Y. In that position she specialized in project planning and development and a significant amount of her work focused on land use for coastal and wetland areas.
Rabbe graduated from Westfield State University in Westfield, Mass. in 2009 with a Bachelor of Science degree in regional planning and a minor in geographic information systems.
