Rockbridge Partnership at crossroads after departure of director
 |
| Executive director Mike Webb left the Rockbridge Partnership to take a job closer to his family. (The Rockbridge Report) |
For the second time in two years, the Rockbridge Partnership’s board is rethinking its role in the community after the departure of a director.
Executive director Mike Webb gave the Partnership his two-week notice Feb. 25, after serving in the position for less than a year.
“I thought he did a nice job in a short time in the region,” said Lexington City Manager Jon Ellestad. “It almost seems like he’s just barely gotten to know all the players in the area and he’s leaving…That’s going to hurt.”
Webb joined the Partnership last March, months after former executive director David Kleppinger left the position he had held for 11 years. After Kleppinger’s resignation, the Partnership spent more than half a year revamping its organization and searching for a new director.
As it once again re-evaluates its direction, the board wants to wait until after the county Board of Supervisors and Lexington City Council budgets are passed in May to make any decisions about the future of the Partnership.
The organization’s primary purpose has been to attract new industries to the area and encourage cooperation among localities.
Webb is leaving the Partnership with a budget surplus of $60,000 and ongoing development projects such as the possible move of the national Boy Scout Jamboree to Goshen.
All calls to the Partnership will be routed to a county switchboard beginning Monday and will be directed to the appropriate county department. County Administrator Claire Collins and the county’s planning and zoning department will take over the majority of Webb’s development projects. Collins said that many of the responsibilities she’ll handle will overlap with previous ones, such as meeting with prospective businesses. She added that the additional responsibilities shouldn’t put too much of a burden on the county.
“If it gets to be too much for us to handle, we’ll be first to let the county Board of Supervisors and the Rockbridge Partnership board know,” she said.
The Partnership’s retired administrative assistant, Valerie Lewis, will also aid in the transition.
Webb was expected to leave his position Friday to take a job in Hattiesburg, Miss., where he attended University of Southern Mississippi and where he will be closer to family in Alabama. Webb said that he has always wanted to work in Hattiesburg. He said that he applied for the position two or three weeks before his two-week notice to the Partnership’s board.
The Partnership, without a director once again, is re-evaluating its direction.
"The question is, what's the future?" asked board member Jack Page at the Partnership’s Mar. 5 meeting. "It also kind of depends on which direction this board wants to go."
At the suggestion of Mayor Mimi Elrod, board members decided to go back to their respective governments, the Lexington City Council and the Board of Supervisors, and figure out what types of economic development their communities want.
The two governing bodies need to decide what kind of funding they'll provide for the Partnership, said Page. In recent years, Lexington has provided 25 percent of a Partnership budget of almost $200,000. Page said the organization also plans to look to the Shenandoah Valley Partnership, of which it is a member, for advice on economic development prospects.
Elrod also suggested inviting Buena Vista back into the Partnership. The city left the Partnership in summer 2006, after balking at the organization’s decision to put a MeadWestvaco distribution plant in the Rockbridge Regional Industrial Park. Buena Vista bought the land that was meant for the plant, in order to block the development. Since then, the city has hired Tim Reamer as economic director, and added several new businesses.
"If the Partnership is going to last, and we're going to keep this thing going, it only makes sense to have Buena Vista be a part of it,” said Elrod.
Page said Monday that Lexington City Council supported the measure.
But Collins believes that it’s important for area residents to decide what type of development they want before the current partners make any final decisions about the future of the Partnership.
“If the community doesn't want the type of business that is being brought, or the types of jobs, then it sends a message out there, and that message has already been sent by this region on more than one occasion,” she said. "There is that discussion at the state level, that, are we really interested in what we say we're interested in?"
Produced by
Washington and Lee
journalism students.
Lead Supervisors:
Prof. Brian
Richardson
Prof. Indira Somani
Editing supervisor:
Prof. Doug
Cumming
Technical supervisor: Michael Todd