Town staff told board members they could not find documents provided to the town by a consulting agency that helped lay out a frame work for developing the town’s fledgling economic development program.

The missing documents also mean commissioners will delay a decision on whether to fill the vacant economic development position.

Commissioner Christie Adams had asked that all the documents created in recent years – by Holland Consulting, consultant Allison Platt and former Economic Development Director Maggie O’Neill – be reviewed as the town board tries to decide how it wants to tackle

Adams said she might have a copy of the Holland Consulting priorities that she could provide to the staff.

While the Holland Consulting priority list has yet to be unearthed, the staff found an economic development priority survey performed in March 2009.

None of the current commissioners served on the board at the time, so Mayor Tim Hinnant proposed the current board re-take the survey to determine their own priority list.

“We don’t want to adopt a previous board’s priorities, but we can decide on this board’s priorities,” Hinnant said.

While commissioners agreed to take the survey, Commissioner Sam Laughery said he didn’t want to dismiss the old survey results if they were created with citizen’s participation.

Piner said the old results would be provided to the commissioners along with the survey questionnaire for the officials to fill out.

Commissioner Ira Fuller encouraged the board members to review all the previously created economic development documents before the new board decides what role the town should play and what goals they want to accomplish.

The officials agreed to hold off on more talks on establishing goals until a later date, after the commissioners had reviewed the documents created for previous town boards.

The board members agreed to continue the town’s relationship with Dr. Jay Tomlinson and the N.C. State School of Design.

More work for students

Tomlinson and his 2011 design class created town logos and signs as well as potential downtown revitalization ideas, which were presented to the board in December.

Tomlinson will attend Monday’s town meeting to find out if his 2012 design class can contribute to Wendell’s future efforts.

On Tuesday, board members said they wanted to use the town’s current logo but ask Tomlinson to incorporate it into signs officials want created for the purpose of directing people into and around Wendell.

“I think we have a good logo that has not been used except on the town website. We should not scrap it since we spent money to create it,” Adams said.

Commissioner Ginna Gray agreed the town should see what Tomlinson’s group can do with the logo they have, but the board should also ask for sign ideas the town can implement over the next few years.

“We need to make a plan for five years or so and decide what we want to spend per year on signs,” Gray said.

Laughery said he is fine with long-term plans, but the town needs some quick and simple informational signs, and soon.

“Even if it’s just an arrow that points to downtown. We need (temporary) signs, like the baseball signups, that we can put up at the corner of Main Street and Wendell Boulevard,” Laughery said.

Filling a vacancy

Also left undecided at the close of Tuesday night’s special meeting was a decision on whether to fill the vacant post of economic development director..

Adams said she preferred hiring a consulting firm over a staff position.

“The last (economic development) staff person ended up doing three different jobs – running the website, acting as the town public information officer and economic development director. If we do that again, we are setting them up to fail,” Adams said.

Fuller halted the debate saying the board has to decide on economic development goals before a personnel decision can be made.

That prompted Hinnant to ask if commissioners want to establish an economic development commission first, to assist in setting town goals.

Fuller said all the town’s previous attempts to use an economic development commission failed.

Fuller reiterated the board members needed to review the economic development information that previous boards created, then each official needed to consider three questions:

What is the town’s role in economic development?

Should the town hire a consultant or make economic development a staff position?

Do the board members want to create a economic development committee?

The officials ended the meeting with the intent to decide on their own and continue the discussion either at the next town board meeting or a special called meeting.