Bradenton City Council admits lack of progress in creating economic development department

It’s been eight months since the Bradenton City Council assumed control of the city’s three community redevelopment agencies with the primary goal to create an economic development department to consolidate CRA activities under one director.

Officials now wonder if it has been an effective effort.

“We set a course nearly a year ago,” said Councilman Bemis Smith. “I think it’s important to start addressing that point.”

Several months ago, the city advertised for a new economic development director. Applications were received, but no one was hired. City administrator Carl Callahan has been acting as the economic development director for a department that doesn’t officially exist. He oversees CRA advisory board meetings that are a rare occasion these days.

The council has held a few CRA meetings, but the primary reason for the takeover has not seen much discussion in recent months. Frustrations boiled over on Wednesday with Smith and Vice Mayor Gene Gallo saying they want the process expedited. Callahan said funds would be allocated in the 2016-17 fiscal year budget’s final version for the creation of the new department, but no funding was allocated to hire a new director.

“The potential hiring of that should be down the road,” Callahan said. “The creation of the economic development department starts us off, and it’s still a work in progress.”

Callahan said it didn’t make sense to spend money on a position until the department is created and organized.

“We made a quite a few changes in the last year, but all we’ve done is instead of expanding our economic development opportunities, we’ve reduced those opportunities,” said Smith. “We were hoping to have more people promoting economic development. We used to have two CRA executive directors and now we don’t have any of those people meeting with people, and meanwhile you’re still having to do your job.

“We’re not moving fast enough.”

Callahan said he was organizing the city clerk’s office in a way that would allow him to focus more as the economic development director, but Smith said Callahan being the permanent director is not the vision.

“We’re not getting what we voted for and took a lot of heat over,” Smith said. “We are not getting the bang I’m looking for.”

Gallo agreed, noting, “We don’t need to steamroll this, but we do need to move quicker than we are moving toward getting an economic development director, because that is what we voted for.”

Councilman Patrick Roff believes the CRAs are “functioning well, but I know what our vision was when we supported this, and I do not see that happening right now. I do believe it’s not what we voted on.”

Roff said he’s comfortable with waiting another year, however. If an economic development director is not in this year’s budget, Roff said the council could tap into the reserves at a point when a director was ready to get a functioning department underway. Callahan said council members could discuss their wishes before presenting a final budget in September.

This story was originally published August 24, 2016 at 1:49 PM with the headline "Bradenton City Council admits lack of progress in creating economic development department."