Board talks director position
By Steve Herring
Published in News on April 25, 2016 1:46 PM
Wayne County commissioners agree on the need to market the county. Some just don't want to hire a marketing director and instead first want to look after the employees the county already has.
That disagreement Tuesday morning prompted commissioners to drop that hiring provision from one of the goals they initially discussed at their planning retreat earlier this year.
They left in place the first portion of the goal to create a working group to look at how best to market the county.
County Manager George Wood had asked commissioners to review the goals and vote for their top choices. The goals were then ranked by the number of votes received.
Hiring a marketing director received four votes -- the number of official votes needed to take action, Commissioner John Bell said during the board's Tuesday morning review of the goals.
Bell said it appears to him that anything with four or more votes would be the first things to be worked on and that he didn't know what all of the discussion is about.
Chairman Joe Daughtery said that was his fault since he has asked commissioners to speak their minds.
"I can't see creating us another position," Commissioner Wayne Aycock said. "We just did away with a (public information officer) position. It didn't have the same title, but it was very similar. I can't see hiring a position with that much money involved, and we have got WCDA (Wayne County Development Alliance) marketing the county. We have the Chamber marketing the county, and we are fixing to have someone at the convention center that is going to be marketing.
"I just can't see us spending that type of money when we have a priority right up here that got more votes -- to continue the pay plan for our employees. We just addressed it with the sheriff's department and OES (Office of Emergency Services). The first two items that got four votes, I have a problem with until we get our employees looked after."
The second goal Aycock referred to is hiring a staff attorney and paralegal.
Commissioner Ray Mayo said he does not think a timeline should be critical for the list of goals.
"I believe that these priorities should be done in order because of what Commissioner Aycock just said," he said. "Look at the priority we were just talking about. Only four votes for hiring a marketing director.
"To be sure we need to do everything above that before we look at that (marketing director). I am opposed to it because we have other priorities that are above that that need to be, not only lip service to work on them, but to show some results."
A public information officer and marketing director are two different things, Daughtery said.
"Secondly, may I remind everyone on the board that there are four people on this seven-member board who evidently do think it is important to have marketing done for our county," Daughtery said. "I will take some blame here because evidently I have not explained what I envision a marketing person will do for our county.
"But I want you all to recognize the negative press that Goldsboro and Wayne County have had over the last three years. Now, if it is negative, it will go into the paper. It will go into Channel 5. It will get on TV and it will go even further. I have seen it on CNN talking about the crime and all of the negatives of our county."
If that is not counteracted Wayne County is going to be known as a high-crime area, he said.
"If you don't counteract that you are going to get the bad press and no good press," Daughtery said. "Let me ask you this -- how many times have you seen the good press on TV? The reason you are not seeing it is because we do not have anyone marketing our county.
"That is the difference between information officer and marketing. You have got to have someone who toots your horn, that knows how to talk to and have contacts with people at Channel 9, Channel 7, Channel 5. You have got to have somebody to do that, and if you don't, then you are going to get the negative."
Daughtery said the county is in a "no man's land" when it comes to television coverage.
"If we don't have somebody that is working with these television stations in order to promote our county, then we are going to have to be like a lot of folk, and we are just going to have to accept what they dish out," he said.
WCDA is not marketing all of the county -- it is marketing specifically for industries to bring jobs to Wayne County, Daughtery said.
Commissioner Ed Cromartie said he was one of the four who had marked the marketing director as a priority, but suggested that some of the positions could be blended together.
"I have to agree with Mr. Aycock in terms of how many people that we have," he said. "But I clearly understand what you are saying Mr. Chairman that we need someone to do these things."
That blending could include connecting with Goldsboro, he said.
Commissioner Joe Gurley offered a compromise until such time as the board can decide what it wants to do.
"Could we form a working group to review and evaluate our existing (local access) Channel 10?" he said. "When I say working group of Wayne (Alley) and staff, and you (Assistant County Manager) Tommy (Burns). Get some members of the community out there, six or seven or a dozen to see what really the scope of Channel 10 is doing and what they like."
A second thing in advance of hiring a marketing director is forming a second working group of representatives from county government, the University of Mount Olive, Goldsboro, Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, Wayne Community College and the board of education -- all which have their own marketing skills, he said.
Wood said that was what the first part of the goal is about, but was broader than just TV.
"I think we need to have the working group talk about what we want to do," Wood said. "I think you are right. The first step should be what we are doing now? Then what gaps do we have and how do we best do that?"
"Are we not putting a Band-Aid on a problem because the negative that we have, our crime rates and things like that, wouldn't it be best if we address the issues and try to correct them for this reason," Mayo said. "When Wayne County Development Alliance goes out to talks to a potential client or industry moving to Wayne County they want to know abut everything around us, the school system and transportation.
"All of these things they want to know. The key is it is already out there in the news media, and a person hired by this county is not going to force any TV station or anybody else to keep from broadcasting actual facts."