The Apopka City Council, at its January 18th, 2023 meeting, voted 3-2 to create an economic development department. Commissioner Kyle Becker, who made the presentation for the formation of the department, along with Commissioners Nick Nesta and Diane Velazquez, voted in favor, while Mayor Bryan Nelson and Commissioner Alexander H. Smith voted against it.
The department was going to be seeded with $200,000 from funds given to Apopka by the American Rescue Plan Act – State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds. The first order of business was to create a job description and hire an economic development director to spearhead the department into the future.
Becker, who has been a proponent of starting an economic development department since being elected to office in 2016, was pleased with the outcome after receiving unanimous support at the December 21st City Council meeting to make the presentation.
"I don't want us to be resigned to the status quo," said Becker during the presentation. "We've got to be innovative. If we make this investment, it's a team effort. We all benefit from it."
Now, over six months after that vote, it seems as though the department is back where it was in January - looking for a director to begin the department.
At the July 24th Apopka Budget Workshop, the economic development department was on the agenda, but with nothing new to add.
"I just want to give you a brief overview of the economic development department," said finance director Blanche Sherman. "It was basically the same thing that was in the budget amendment (from January)... $200,000... $120,000 for salaries and wages and benefits at about $9,000, City retirement about $12,000. We put $30,000 in contractual services travel and per diem $10,000 in operating supplies."
So after six months, the state of the economic development department is exactly as it was in theory. An amount of money waiting on a director.
"We had 12 candidates (apply) for that (position)?" asked Velazquez. "Are we putting this back out again?"
"It is. To that end, it was posted on Friday," said Sherman.
And according to Nelson, 10 candidates have already emerged.
We've gotten two pretty good ones here in the last couple of days," he said. "We probably got 10 (in total)."
