going to call the Friday April 4th 2025 meeting of the economic and community development committee of the city council to order the clerk will please call the role council present present
present seeing as we have a quorum present we will proceed is anyone here recording today's meeting other than staff no council no one is recording the meeting we'll begin with item
11510 an order authorizing the creation of an economic development and finance manager for the position for the community development and planning department and approving the job description for said position so with this position I mean with this
item um this item was referred to the economic uh development and I'm sorry the economic and community development committee uh from the our previous city council meeting uh this is just for the public watching um so they know how this
came to our committee it was previously in the finance committee they reported out on it at our city council meeting um this at our last meeting and so I think you know from our perspective from this committee's
perspective um we're really going to be talking about kind of where this fits in the department and how it makes sense for your department uh there is a financial piece to it obviously the next item has to do with the um the salary and the compensation for and how that
works um so both items are on here because they both have to do with this position uh and so I think we may kind of overlap some of the discussion right now about the next item uh but the finance committee did already uh look at this from the financial standpoint and
and the paying compensation and we can certainly discuss that here as well but um I my kind of take and questions and things on it have to do with really um our oversight piece from what this committee's responsibilities are and
what kind of our mission is and where it fits in into um into your department so whereas we I just wanted to mention the next item because that may come up in this discussion as well and I don't think we have to separate the two discussions we can just acknowledge it
with the next item uh but I would like to first start with uh director Stevens with you just giving kind of a um summary of what the position is and how it came to be just for us and for the public watching as well and then I think we can go from there with our discussion
if the committee is in agreeance with that that's good okay so the position itself is a combination of both the budget/project manager which is more of a financial standpoint for the department as well as the economic
development coordinator which is a more I would say like front-facing um so the responsibilities of those two um actually com positions being uh combined uh together as as one so the responsibilities for both
um would be under under the same under the same purview um with my supervision um and um yeah I I don't actually have the the job description in front of me but um if you have any any questions
about the individual um responsibilities feel free to feel free to ask thank you i think and and we don't need to go over the job description i think we have all that information so I just wanted to be you know just to be clear from your perspective because that's my understanding was that it's the two positions there combined together um I
think there's an obvious um financial savings where we're not benefiting two positions we're benefiting one position there's obviously a little bit of savings on the compensation piece of it and again I think finance you know I've covered that
um so I would assume but I wanted to ask you the the combination of this position is this for more efficiency in your department like where do you see this kind of lying um as to as to kind of putting them together cuz we had two
previously what's going to be on this new this new person in this position so as I've taken the responsibilities myself on top of on top of my director role here I' I've taken the majority of responsibilities all of them for the the budget manager and and I would say like most of them for the economic
development coordinator so I'll be there to act both as a I would say floodgate for for what would be you know an acceptable level of responsibility to take things off my plate and offload that as a um reflection of of both the
compensation and kind of the expectations for the role so it's both for um you know productivity in within the department itself um a financial saving uh in case any professional services may
be needed um so that that money would be um available as well within the the financial savings of combining the two two positions um for any specialized needs that the department may um come up in the future
um but the the main goal would be um the general productivity for the department um and you know I would I would hope down the line that this would be someone who I could rely on to um you know if we
have any interns in the future through um either the mount um that would be something that that they along with myself would would be able to oversee um as as there are kind of a wide variety of responsibilities and and hopefully
get into a place where that could be delegated out as well um thank you uh and then just for my kind of followup to that and I'm going to open up to the committee as well but just my followup to that question so it sounds to me like kind of an analysis of
the processes of your department and where this position lies within the other positions within your department has really just been done and and feel free to add to this but it feels like it's been done by your experience in the position so far as you've really had to take on some of the other
responsibilities as um just kind of seeing it looks to me like just looking at what is done in your department so far you've gathered that this would be a better use this position to combine these two positions um but was there any other kind of formal just look at the um
the structure of the department and in in making decision to present this there i think previously with the roles being divided there was questions of um whether there was a sufficient
workload for for the pe for people who were who were in the position previously so trying to rectify that moving forward i think um I think this is a a really good move for making sure that the position itself
has enough responsibilities has enough um duties to to see a a sufficient workload for for what we would expect here for all city hall employees um but just from my experience taking on
I'm now the only signatory for for financials so all that is going through through myself on top of my general dayto-day so hopefully there hasn't been uh um well I could say there there hasn't been too much um that has has
overflowed outside of what I've been able to manage myself um maybe a couple of extra hours here and there during the week just cuz it is it is three people's responsibilities now now on myself but um you know I feel confident in saying that the two responsibilities uh for the
two positions being combined would be able to be completed sufficiently by one person at least under my supervision so I'm because I'm all about like you know we want to save money where we can and uh and obviously like I said the financial piece of this is pretty
obvious um but we also want to be sure that the person that you know you put in the position they can handle the workload they're compensated appropriately um we want to get you know a good applicant pool like all those other things i think looking over the um the job description and the other details and things that were in the
packet I'm confident with that um because you obviously you would think you try to set yourself up to be successful and I do think that you're doing that uh it just um the other piece of it too that I thought was really um that was great about seeing these two combined
positions without knowing everything that they do and just knowing what the new position would be is that I'm all about efficiency in city hall we get questions as city councils and I'm sure the mayor does as well and you will as a department head or maybe you already have about the efficiency of what you're doing in your department a big piece of
this committee is for oversight to make sure there's efficiency in the department that so that things get you know get done um and I know that's probably been said to you many times since you've been hired and in the circumstances you've been hired under so I I think this is a great idea i I love
the idea of doing it um and I just think on our piece just to make sure that there's anything you know that we haven't thought of or you haven't or whatever i think that's kind of what this discussion was about for for me um but I'm certainly open to um you know basically supporting whatever we can to
help you put your best foot forward so when this position goes out it um it gets to the people that may be interested and really qualified for it so that again the department can just be as efficient as it as it can be so I appreciate the information yeah uh at
least I I would say even this when we hired for a replacement for the assistant position within my department we did have um applicants apply that I had to say to them I think I think you're you're you would be a good a good fit
for like a fullfledged you know role within within a community development department we don't have an opening for that at the time because we we didn't have this this this opening but if we're getting applicants for said position uh that I had mentioned the assistant you
know I would I would think that with this in like you know bump in in both uh responsibility opportunity um over like uh guidance from myself and the rest of the team as well as as the as the monetary compensation i would hope that
you know we'd get at least that if not a a step up uh from what we were getting from from that applicant so it seems like there is a hunger for for these kinds of opportunities um for people you know new out of college or have a couple years under their belt or you know one
of them we had was was a real um real go-getter for between uh their experience trying to get as much as they could while they were in college themselves um so would hope to get some some applicants such as that and I've also put out a couple feelers with Fitsburg and Lemonster's uh HR
department to hopefully get some idea of um what they've gotten in terms of applicants um as well to get a good idea of of what they're experiencing with with the hiring process for a more um like full team role that this would
be um so I I look forward to hearing back from them i left a couple messages on their machines so I'll hope to hear back from them shortly and if there are any questions I can provide uh in terms of what they're able to answer I'll be able to forward that over to the committee thank you that's provides a
lot of clar clarifications for the questions that I had um any committee members and open up to the committee do we have questions i don't really have any questions i I um I do have a comment um I do appreciate the fact of you know the way that you're looking at this and
the way that you're going i I was kind of worried about you know making two two positions into one um but then seeing the savings and seeing exactly how you're looking at it and I I think this is a um I think this is the way that they're
going about you know not necessarily eliminating positions but combining um positions um even in my own personal job company things of such titles are have changed things and such for um accountability productivity and uh
efficiency so I I I like to see that come you know in front of us and um I'm excited to see the way that it's going to go president Harris thank you Madam Chair third meeting we did it the first time i know so not yet um uh first off I I just
want to acknowledge uh that we appreciate finance committee for send signing this over to to the echo death committee um obviously from a financial perspective like the chair said this makes a ton of sense i think uh and I've been curious the director's opinion as well the reason I believe this warrants
a bit more discussion um in this committee specifically is during the Mackie Park investigation there was certainly my observation that the two previous roles that this would be combined into had a lot of hands in that project between the economic development
um coordinator actually managing the project at one point and the budget project manager also managing like the bills and the payments the invoices working with contractors um and you could just see there was a lot of overlap a lot of I would say misalignment in terms of who who had ownership of certain responsibilities um
and I'm curious if the director thinks uh would that be an additional area where we'd see efficiencies gained in terms of more clarity around roles and responsibilities and how your your department structured because I think this is a pretty significant change for
the department that has suffered from pretty high turnover um and and major deficiencies when it comes to project completion so I'm curious in your I know it's still a brief time but in the few months that you've been with us what's your take on on that part piece of this
communication has been at the forefront of my mind in terms of restructuring how my department runs there's been I would say siloing of responsibilities lack of communication between people in my department um and that came from the top
right um me coming in there introducing the idea of one-on-one one meetings team meetings that happen weekly like this is just another example of us having increased communication and someone who can speak both to running a project
itself and financing it understanding both of those aspects of it and then having myself there as well with that understands both aspects of it can hopefully be a resource to um the rest of the rest of the team in terms of
having that knowledge of of multiple sides rather than the possibility of of them staying as as divided and then only one person understanding it and one person understanding the projects rather than having it it be it be one position
and and understanding it more um what would be would be the the word um holistically yeah cuz I I certainly saw there areas like you said where there was siloing where there was miscommunication where there were handoffs that that weren't completed and therefore timelines were
pushed out costs increased over the course of that project I think um again I'll be appreciative to you know your proverbial light being on at the end of the day and at night get putting the work in to reach out to Fitchburg One Star i think it's a good proactive move i'd be interested to hear how they're
structured the experiences they've had recruiting and retaining their talent um cuz I think when we change a department structure like this we want to make sure we have all the information at hand to make sure you know the changes that we're implementing are you know going to uh stand the test of time and give us
the value that we're hoping they give us so thank you for that proactive pitch um but I'd be curious to hear what what they have to say uh back to you thank you President Harris anything further Mr thank you Madam President um
as I said through the finance that Madam Chair thank you and someone was going to do it this meeting i was like it wasn't you probably uh thank you Madam Chair um as I said at the finance committee meeting this is something that I think is going to increase the efficiency with everything President Tyrros just said
um in the look between directors I think the siloing between staff members really was exposed a lot more and brought had a lot more light shined upon it and I think this breaks it down a bit more uh and then I think the only additional thing I'd say that hasn't been said yet is one of the biggest things that we've heard from people in this department as
they've left is concern about inadequate training going into the role uh that is something that we are looking at addressing right now the economic development side of the role itself that used to be held by the economic development coordinator that's something that's uh going to be addressed through the work in the master plan process that's currently being done as one of
the main processes in that is creating a city economic development plan um and the master plan itself and the sub sub chapters of the plan the economic development plan the housing production plan of all of that are meant to guide all of the city's projects and initiatives for the next 20 years and set that road up so that's how we're
planning on at least doing long-term professional development as long as short-term just working with the individual who gets hired and then on the financial side of things that used to be held by the budget project manager one of our former budget project managers who left us in 2019 Katie Medina has agreed to come back on a contract basis to train the new staff
member on how Intelligants work and the reporting and stuff and quite frankly um she's probably one of the more int uh informed people on how Intelligence which is the federal reporting software for CDBG and other federal grants uh actually works and
um it's going to help us with cleaning up the backlog that we have on certain things but also help training moving forward too so uh she's agreed to help that so that's how we're going to make sure that this person is set up for success in the long term too thank you thank you for all the info this is again like you know we just we're just trying
to all do like the best we can and I think that you guys you know having the answers to the questions readily available like you just obviously you want your department to be ready to go and um you know that better than anyone in the last couple of months uh so I really I think this kind of thorough
vetting of this whole thing is worth it um to do because having all of the insight because again it's it's just has been a lot on the end of your staff yourself i do like what you said about you know somebody would speak to the project and the financials of the project the Mackie project showed that
that wasn't possible i mean the information wasn't even there in a lot of cases uh and so the other thing too is in your role like you're going to be the director is just about doing other things it it's it's development you have to go meet with people you have to go be places in the city you have to have someone in the office who can answer
questions that you could answer and can answer but they have all of the information as well like that's just really important the presence in the community and the surrounding area is super important for you and you can't do that if you don't have staff that can do the things that that don't have the information it sounds like you're fostering that so I really really
appreciate that because that wasn't something I mean something I've thought about but in terms of this position I was like "Wow it's another person in the office that's going to be able to do that on top of their day-to-day as well but everyone knows what's going on." And um you know that was what the the report showed a clear lack of so that all that
information is really helpful one thing the mayor just reminded me of um I know you're waiting to hear back from Fitchburg Monster and what one of the things the training made me think of it actually because there is a pretty significant cost savings by combining these roles i do also think that
warrants an opportunity because we are playing paying one set of benefits one set of training um to see are is you know this position slated for $75,000 is that enough in terms of it may very well be to get a qualified candidate for the role but I just like that extra due
diligence to make sure especially with making this substantial change to give it the best chance of success can we make sure can you do an analysis for us of this position its roles and responsibilities at a high level for the salary compared to neighboring towns um
and cities that way we do have a meeting on the 22nd of April um as an economic development committee i'd like to discuss that at that meeting and if if you have that information if you can uh give a thumbs up or thumbs down if they've been responsive to your requests
by then uh I'd like to put that on the council agenda the 22nd as well so agree um I think just having that information having more context around the structure of the department i think it makes a lot of sense i think we'll have enough of a picture to make a decision on this thank
you um President Taros I I definitely agree with that like that information as well um so I think kind of on that I would if there isn't any more discussion or questions or anything else that you'd like to add I would like
to keep this in committee um so that we will have it to talk about our next meeting is slated for the 22nd so then you'll have time to get us that information and and follow up um and you know obviously you want to hire this position so we don't want to keep it in committee forever but uh I think um that
would be probably that would be really helpful um for us to give a little bit more time to do that so with that we would keep this in committee um and I'll entertain a motion so moved motion made by councelor Tyro seconded by councelor Heath to keep item 11510 in
the economic development committee is there discussion on the motion all those in favor say I i both say no motion passes okay item 11511 an ordinance to amend the code of the city of gardener chapter 171 thereof entitled personnel
to amend schedule E thereof entitled non-UN compensation schedule to add the position of economic development and finance manager um so as I had said earlier this goes with the previous item it is the um personnel features of uh
the position um talking about compensation is there anything else anyone would like to add or again just to reiterate I think we're taking you know these kind of two um more junior roles and positioning them together as a more more complex senior
role customerf facing working with unique software working with state agencies in various capacities backing you up as a signator like you had said um so just that analysis that we're going to receive from the director before our next meeting yep and that's directly related to this item but we'll keep both because they're packaged
because it makes sense to send one without the other um and I was just going to say too on kind of on still this position in uh I think when we do the when we have someone contracted like we have Miss Medina coming back and she's contracted to do training um a lot
of what goes on in city hall in general is institutional knowledge like it is absolutely you have to have done the job to really understand how to apply whatever skills you have so I'm really glad it's we have that resource to be able to be applied you know in your um department's case and I think that's
worked in the other position that you have hired as well i think that's kind of that's worked out really well so I'm glad that we're able to have that cuz I hope that can just kind of support the process moving along well um okay is there a motion um yes i'd like to make a motion to keep
it on the calendar along with um the last item 510 for the April 22nd um next meeting second motion made by councelor Heath seconded by President Tyrros to keep item 11511 on the
economic development committees agenda is there discussion on the motion all those in favor say I those say no motion passes item 11454 a report on the investigation of the Mackie Park project uh so we had talked this is on our previous agenda as
well and it will remain on you know just kind of for updates here and there we had talked last time about the um the Park Street project needed to be some completion so some funds could be encumbered to head over there do you have an update on that the only update I
have is both the representative from Ty Bond um the project engineer Alexander uh Bagnant uh had called Verizon i had also called Verizon because we are waiting for them to finish up the work on the double poles um they had then
closed the existing work um work order work order to open up a new one um hopefully bring it to the top of their pile um but until that's able to get completed my hands are kind of tied with what else I can do aside from call them
and just reiterate that this work is needed so that other work can continue cuz we're relying on these funds to be unencumbered to continue with the Mackie Park i appreciate the followup and I would just make a suggestion too if you have an email like putting it right into them too because then it's public record
and then you can kind of follow up to that um I I certainly understand a phone call first but now that you've done that and maybe you would have but I just know that way to do it customer service it was I I'll go through it again so I can actually get someone's someone's contact
info and then and then reach out to them so we could have that public record available for next meeting yep no that would be that would be great and I like I said I totally understand a phone call first but I think you'll like the courtesy of that and you don't have any new info like put it in writing to them so that you have it because you're doing
what you need to do and you just want to make sure that we have a record of that um and hopefully it gets to the top of the pile sooner than later so that um we can move along with that but um I appreciate that i didn't I didn't know what I expected for an update i was hoping you had one but done the reach out and I appreciate the followup is there any comments questions from the
committee i have one motion to keep item 1154 on our committee's calendar second motion made by councelor by president Tyro seconded by councelor Keith to keep item 11454 on the economic
and community development agenda is there discussion on the motion all those in favor say I i say no motion passes i will entertain a motion to adjurnn so move second motion made by President Tyro seconded by councelor Keith to adjurnn all those in favor say I i i
those say no motion passes thank you meet stands thank you everyone