St. Charles Looks to Combine Tourism, Economic Development Departments

St. Charles may combine the economic development and tourism departments, Mayor Sally Faith announced on Friday.

Current Director of Economic Development David Leezer would run the combined department. Martha Little, who has served as interim tourism director and applied for the tourism director position, would take the role of assistant tourism director and remain sales director for the Greater St. Charles Convention and Visitor’s Bureau.

The city had been searching for a new tourism director since

By late September the city had hired Claudia Vecchio for the position, and even negotiated terms and conditions for her employment. Then days before she was to start the job, Vecchio told the city she was withdrawing from the position because she was hired as tourism director for the state of Nevada, said Michael Spurgeon, director of administration.

Soon after, Faith, Spurgeon and Director of Human Resources Kate Collier sat down to consider the short list of candidates. One other strong candidate under consideration had already accepted a different job, Spurgeon said. The city decided to search again for candidates.

“During the process of re-advertising that we had an open position, it gave us the opportunity to look at things a little bit differently,” he said.

While several members of the city council have given conceptual approval to move forward with the plan, Spurgeon said the council would still need to approve an ordinance that would change salaries. Spurgeon said he hopes to have the process completed in January.

For 2012, the departments would be under separate budgets although a portion of Leezer’s salary would come from the tourism budget. Currently, the tourism department has about 15 full-time staff and many part-time staff members. The economic development department has three staff members including Leezer.

“What we’re trying to, we’re trying to take the best and brightest of our talent and bring them together for the common mission,” Spurgeon said. “I think we have the right person and we’ve got the right people in place to make this effective.”

Leezer joined the city as the economic development director in April. He said discussions about a possible merger came up when he gave a presentation about the future of the Economic Development Department. Spurgeon and Faith emphasized the need for him to work closely with the tourism department and convention and visitor’s bureau. That will be particularly necessary in light of the upcoming closure of the Blanchette Bridge in 2012, Leezer said.

“Really if you take a look at it what both economic development and tourism and convention and visitor’s bureau do, we are sales people for the city of St. Charles,” Leezer said.  “It makes sense to say we bring it together in a more cooperative way.”

Among the first things he’d like to do is to create a strategic plan for the tourism division and convention and visitor’s bureau.

“I believe in strategic planning,” he said. “I think it’s the best thing to do. No. 1 it helps my staff understand the direction we’re going.”

Little said she thinks the creation of a strategic plan would be helpful so that everyone knows where they are going and how to get there. She said she thought the combined department would work fine.

“David Leezer is a great leader within the city,” she said. “I look forward to working with him.”