Trustees OK Creation of Village-Run Economic Development Department

The Oswego Village Board meeting Tuesday night seemed like an episode of the old game show Let's Make a Deal.

Trustees voted to permanently discontinue providing $85,000 annually to the Oswego Economic Development Corp. and struck a compromise with the OEDC that would help the public/private group pay off about $31,000 in outstanding debts owed by the Oswego Visitors Bureau, which was part of the OEDC.

In exchange, the OEDC will close the Visitors Bureau, which under contract could have been funded with village hotel/motel tax receipts through the end of the year. The OEDC suspended operations May 31 and all four of its employees were laid off.

Trustees spent more than an hour Tuesday night debating funding the OEDC, but in the end trustees Terry Michels, Scott Volpe and Tony Giles voted no on a motion by Gail Johnson to fund the OEDC through the end of the calendar year in order to facilitate a smooth transition to the village’s in-house Economic Development Department.

Trustees also voted 4-2 Tuesday night to create the department along with two new community relations positions to take over the functions previously performed by the Visitors Bureau.

Trustee Jeff Lawson was absent from the meeting but delivered a letter read by Village President Brian LeClercq saying he supported the effort to move economic development in-house.

Because creating the new department creates a liability to the village, a majority vote was needed to pass the measure. LeClercq cast a yes vote on Lawson’s behalf.

Transparency still at issue

During the debate Volpe again said he worries about the lack of transparency and cooperation from the OEDC.

“I’ve had people come up to me and ask ‘Why doesn’t the village want to work with the OEDC?’” Volpe said. “Well, I do want to work with the OEDC. It just seems like they don’t want to work with us in the open and transparent way we’re looking for.”

Information such as financial records and OEDC board minutes have been difficult to come by, Volpe said.

Trustees Johnson and Judy Sollinger, who voted to fund the OEDC through the end of year, seemed resigned to the fact that the group would lose its funding. Johnson, however, pushed for a transition plan from the work done by the OEDC to the village-run economic development.

Michels, who made the motion to create a village economic development department and set the salary range for its employees, said existing village staff can pick up where the OEDC left off until a director and assistant can be hired.

“[Community Development Director] Rod Zenner has been a partner with [former OEDC Director] Michael [Cassa] in the process for the number of years that he’s been here,” Michels said. “That’s not to say the Development Corporation was no good to the village for the years it functioned. It served a purpose when the community was the size that it was.”

LeClercq also questioned how committed OEDC employees would be to a smooth transition if they they knew they were going to be out of a job at year’s end.

Funding sources

Johnson and Sollinger asked where the village would get the funding to bring economic development in house. The latest staff figures show a projected annual budget of about $240,000 for the economic development and visitors bureau departments combined.

Interim Village Administrator Dwight Baird said he believed that the departments could be nearly cost neutral. The village will save about $85,000 annually in its payment to the OEDC.

Ad sales in the annual Visitor’s Guide “conservatively” are estimated at about $70,000 annually and the village receives another approximately $65,000 annually in hotel/motel taxes, which were previously used to fund the Visitors Bureau.