County weighs hire for new ag center
By Steve Herring
Published in News on August 18, 2015 1:46 PM
Wayne County commissioners are being advised by the county manager that they should hire a director for the county's proposed regional agriculture and convention center.
Commissioners had initially said that the billing for events at the new center would be handled by Wayne County Extension Service Director Kevin Johnson, who currently books events at the Wayne Center.
The board did not discuss in-depth hiring a director and did not set any timetable for doing so. But County Manager George Wood said he did not think the county should wait until a few months before opening the center to hire someone.
"I think we need to get a director on board because there are a lot of decisions about the furnishings, establishing all of the operating policies," he said. "And you are going to want to do some advance billings because you don't want to wait until two months before you are open to try to start to get billings."
Wood said that three commissioners are on the county's Agriculture Advisory Committee and suggested the committee make a recommendation to the full board as to when to hire a director.
Wood said he also wants to talk once more with the project architect to get a better idea of how much time there would be between when the final plans are ready and the project is bid out.
"That to me would trigger when we would want to bring somebody on," Wood said. "We need to have that discussion and then come back. Then we will back that up about 90 days and start the process of recruiting.
"The other thing we need them on board for is to develop the policies and procedures. We have nearly finished the design. As a matter of fact, we should have the schematics by the end of this week."
Commissioner Ed Cromartie said he and Commissioner John Bell have been waiting to get the schematics before talking with U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield about possible federal funding for the project.
The paperwork for $2 million in USDA loans and $600,000 in grants was sent off last week, Wood said.
"There is money (for the center) in both the budgets, (state) House and Senate," Wood said. "It has to be reconciled, then we will find out what we have got there."
Wood said that Convergent Nonprofit Solutions, the company conducting a fundraising campaign for the project, will start making the contacts over the next few weeks.
"The next one is an important decision point for you all and that is to decide how and when to proceed with final design," Wood said. "The how is do you want to go design, bid, build, which is the traditional method. Or do you want to go design/build?"
Commissioner Joe Daughtery said he believes the board is looking for guidance in terms of what the advantages of one method would be one over the other.
"We had a great experience on the Steele Memorial Library (in Mount Olive) on the design/build system. But I am not sure that is the right way to go on this project," Daughtery said.
Cromartie said he and Bell also were waiting for a "clean" bill to pass in the General Assembly authorizing the county to levy a 1 percent hotel occupancy tax. The new tax revenue can only be used for marketing travel and tourism in the county and not for construction.
If the hotel tax is approved, the county still has two steps to complete, Wood told the commissioners. The first is to pass a resolution levying the tax and the second is a resolution to form the Wayne County Tourism Development Authority that would spend the money.
"I think we need to match the city (of Goldsboro's) Travel and Tourism Council as closely as possible for easy decision-making on marketing," Wood said.
Wood said he would have preferred a bill allowing the county to create its own tourism authority or to utilize Goldsboro's.
"However it says you have to create this," Wood said. "What I am envisioning, unless you all disagree with me, is that we would pretty much do like the two nonprofit boards at the hospital.
"Remember they came to us and said could we add two (members) so those two boards would be identical basically."
Wood said he had spoken with city officials about the city tourism board and who is on it.
"But more importantly than who the people are is what is their term of office. What are they representing because the legislation calls for people representing specific things -- some in the hotel/motel industry, some that are familiar with tourism. So I am hoping that we can match that up."
Wood said that was his suggestion since all the two boards would do is to determine how to market Wayne County.
"Ideally it would have been one board, but if we can have two that are identical they could functional very easily together," he said.
The consensus was that one board would be simpler.
But Chairman Wayne Aycock said the county would need at least one person on that board to "take care of the county's interests."
Wood said he would talk to City Manager Scott Stevens about the possibility of two identical boards.