by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
If the strategic plan presented to the JEDC board last month was a rough draft, then its authors will present the first revision at today’s general meeting.
The Jacksonville Economic Development Commission’s leadership has spent the interim reshaping the plan to conform more closely to what its board members want to see. JEDC chair Ceree Harden presented the plan originally as a work in progress, and board members spent most of the August meeting debating its merits before unanimously approving the working document. Executive Director Kirk Wendland said some modifications had been made based on their comments and said additional changes would likely be made following today’s meeting.
“There were a lot of comments at the last meeting and we restructured some things around what we heard,” said Wendland. “We’ll get some more feedback on Thursday, and probably tweak things a little more.
“We don’t want to start from scratch, but we want to get to a consensus from the board.”
Of course the most important opinion belongs to Mayor John Peyton. He ordered the JEDC to essentially shut down for two months to evaluate its operations and staff. Peyton has yet to give his stamp of approval to either the strategic plan or a streamlined staff structure.
Wendland said Peyton requested minor changes to the new staff structure, which had already been changed to a flatter, corporate structure reminiscent of the one Peyton put in place at City Hall. Wendland said that structure remains largely intact. Some titles and job descriptions have changed and some of the positions have been shuffled into different areas.
The JEDC’s staff will still be 20 percent trimmer. Again following Peyton’s instructions, the JEDC eliminated eight jobs and opened nearly all of its staff positions for interviews. A workforce consultant helping with the search was inundated with more than 1,000 resumes for the 31 openings. The consultant, Worksource, will provide the JEDC with a list of qualified applicants within the next two weeks and interviews with the top candidates will follow.
Most of the debate at the last meeting was sparked by board members who had also chaired the subcommittees formed by Wendland to evaluate the commission. Board member Susan Hartley, who chaired the Small Business Advisory Committee, wanted small businesses included on scorecards that the JEDC will use to evaluate incentive deals.
Charles Appleby, a board member who chaired the Finance Advisory Committee, also questioned the scorecards. Specifically, Appleby questioned how the scorecards evaluated distressed areas after a J. Turner Butler Boulevard office project was scored as distressed.
However, Wendland said the changes presented today wouldn’t affect the scorecards.