Haines Borough Manager David Sosa is remaining tight-lipped on the future of the municipality’s community and economic development director position, which has remained vacant since Bill Mandeville resigned at the beginning of June.
The borough hasn’t posted an advertisement for the job.
When asked whether he was considering tweaking the job’s responsibilities or just leaving the position unfilled, Sosa said he is “still reviewing options for that position.” He added he will make a recommendation to the assembly after he returns from a two-week vacation in early August.
“My focus right now is dealing with the hires for the police chief and the facilities and public works director. Once those are addressed I will turn my attention to this position,” Sosa said.
The community and economic development director job was created at the recommendation of interim manager Julie Cozzi, who included the new position in her fiscal year 2015 budget.
The assembly approved the position last June after much discussion, with assembly member George Campbell and former member Debra Schnabel voting against passage of the budget because it included the position.
Campbell said Mandeville didn’t spend enough time in the position to gauge the job’s effectiveness in spurring local economic development. Campbell said he is unsure whether the job should be refilled.
“Like anything, with the right person in the position, I could see that it could be very, very valuable, and with the wrong person it could be disastrous. So I don’t know,” he said.
Assembly member Diana Lapham agreed with Campbell that the position wasn’t filled long enough to measure any progress made.
“(I) have not heard if there are any details on rehiring or dropping the position. I’m sure before too long Mr. Sosa will have an update on the status of that position,” Lapham said.
Many projects handled by Mandeville have been distributed to other employees, such as the Picture Point project (tourism director Leslie Ross is now the lead) and the development of a Memorandum of Understanding with the Friends of Mosquito Lake School and Community Center (now being handled by interim public facilities director Brian Lemcke).
Schnabel, now the executive director of the Chamber of Commerce, said she would like the borough to look into creating a board or council to handle economic development.
“I would like to have a discussion with the borough administration and assembly about the possibilities that are available for funding the function of economic development differently than just having it be an employee of the administration,” Schnabel said.
When one employee is handling economic development issues, policies and projects tend to be more driven by personality than community sentiment, Schnabel said.
“In a way that is what happened with Mr. Mandeville. It got driven somewhat by personality,” she said. “I think that Mr. Mandeville got sidetracked on a couple of issues. I think that he did not have enough time to really feel out and learn about the core community.”