Charting St. Charles' economic future

St. Charles has been a city without economic direction for quite some time, but officials are now on the verge of trying to find a new guide to steer them through the recession.

The marketing of the city, retention of business and plans to lure new business to the city have lacked solid groundwork and definitive leadership going back to City Administrator Brian Townsend's early days with the city.

Only in the past 18 months has the city had a consistent person - an economic development manager - to focus on those tasks. But that person, Brian Pabst, has since left the city, leaving Townsend and other city staffers to drive economic development in the city by the seats of their pants. Those facts weren't lost on the members of the city's planning and development committee Monday night.

"Since I've been here I haven't seen economic development work well within our organization," said Ward Three Alderman John McGuirk.

With eyes on fixing that failure by the time the economy cycles out of the recession, Townsend told members of the city's planning and development committee Monday that he needs input on whether or not to hire a new person, and exactly what the person should be doing.

Townsend subtly advocated keeping the current structure where the economic development manager serves in the city's Community Development department. He told aldermen the city simply hasn't had a dedicated person in the manager role long enough to determine if the current structure works or not.

Other ideas included creating an entirely separate division for economic development or even creating a private, not-for-profit corporate to oversee economic development in the city, as is the practice in Naperville.

The consensus view was to mostly keep the current structure in place, but really be sure this time that the city hires an economic development manager with the skills to do the job.

"It should be one of the most visible positions in the community," said Ward Five Alderman David Richards. "Perception is everything."

Aldermen also told Townsend to rework the priorities for the position, placing more of an emphasis on creating a long-term plan for development in the city and retaining the businesses that already exist before trying to lure anything new to town.

"I don't know how we can market something when we don't know what we have to sell," Richards said.