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Commissioners ask: What should the EDC turn over to the County Commission? What will happen to its projects?
By SAUNDRA AMRHEIN
© St. Petersburg Times, published March 1, 2001
There was no question they were ready to pull the plug in early February.
But now, as the relationship between the county and the Economic Development Commission nears its end, little is certain about the EDC's final days.
Since the decision by the County Commission about a month ago to terminate the contract with the EDC, almost nothing has been done to further the transition of EDC duties to the county.
County Administrator Paul McIntosh said he asked the EDC to make an inventory of all county property and documents so a full transition could be completed by April instead of May, as earlier discussed.
But McIntosh and commissioners have raised questions about whether the EDC will have to hand over its information related to business recruitment, work the EDC claims is continuing.
"The EDC staff is still working with potential clientele on a day-to-day basis," said EDC vice president Robert Buckner. He did not know how many or what type of projects might be in the pipeline, and EDC staff members are not allowed to talk to the media.
Buckner says progress will not be made on the transition until the EDC transition committee meets next week for the first time to make decisions about what to do with EDC documents, employees, property and whether to continue as an incorporated economic development group even after its county contract expires.
"We are going to discuss everything," he said. "The staff is busy doing normal day-to-day procedures. We as the board will be discussing the transitional issues and working to bring about as smooth a transition as possible."
He added, "Until we have an opportunity to have meetings, I can not make the decisions for the board."
In addition to next week's transition team meeting, the next scheduled board meeting is March 14.
Despite comments by EDC board members that the agency might decide to continue operating after the county's contract expires, Buckner said he doesn't think the private-public group has any plans to compete with the county for economic development, calling it a "bizarre hypothetical."
"I don't foresee our role as being a competitor," he said.
McIntosh said Wednesday he plans to ask County Attorney Garth Coller to research questions regarding the EDC transition while McIntosh is out of the office the next week and a half. He also plans to meet with the EDC transition committee March 7 or 8, write a report to the County Commission and have some more answers at the March 13 County Commission meeting.
McIntosh and Coller disagreed during Tuesday's County Commission meeting about the interpretation of the EDC's contract and what type of documents the agency will have to hand over. McIntosh said he thought the contract was clear only on the EDC's responsibility to hand over financial records related to the spending of county money. It's unclear on other documents, he said.
"I agree that (business) leads should be handed over," McIntosh said. "If we are going to be responsible for business recruitment and development . . . it would be helpful to have the records." But whether the county is entitled to them is an issue for Coller to explore.
After the meeting, Coller looked at the contract again and agreed with McIntosh that a section of the contract says the EDC needs to keep available to the county records of how it has spent county money.
However, he said, there are other sections where the county commissioners might interpret it more broadly, requiring the EDC to transfer more.
"I have not read the entire contract," Coller said. "But there are a lot of other things that give great discretion to the (County Commission) board in terms of termination. . . . I think the board is going to say that anything that has to do with the work performed on behalf of the county should be returned to the county."
Commissioner Diane Rowden, an EDC critic, said she is impatient with the lack of certainty and deferment to the EDC transition team. She said so to McIntosh during Tuesday's meeting.
"I think we need to go into this with a position of strength," she said Wednesday. "This was $1.3-million of taxpayers' money that has been sunk into this organization, and we need to take what is rightfully ours."
- Times staff writer Jeffrey S. Solochek contributed to this report