RDA hopes 3-year contract will attract more economic development candidates

FALL RIVER -- The Fall River Redevelopment Authority may have provided a boost to the lagging search for a new director of economic development director after members approved offering a candidate a three-year contract over the original one-year contract.

“We’re not having any success getting anyone on board because of those criteria. So where it is a change does the board take a leap of faith, do we jump in and embrace the change and move forward to find the right candidate and let them go out and do the job,” said RDA Chairwoman Kara O’Connell.

A screening committee to help RDA find a director was formed last August after it approved Mayor Jasiel Correia II’s plan to have the agency be charged with the city’s economic development duties after they rejected the offer twice.

The original model the Community Development Agency would fund the director’s salary in part for job creation and retention work under U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development regulations.

The position would be under the supervision of RDA but the director would have actually been a city employee. Due to the federal regulations CDA could only offer a single year contract.

The change unanimously approved by the RDA means a new economic director would be their employee.

“I want to make it crystal clear to everybody that CDA is not going to be picking up 100 percent of the salary of this person,” said Michael Dion, CDA’s executive director. “I said that from day one. It is very particular with what they can do with CPA.”

Dion and City Administrator Cathy Ann Viveiros have been filling gaps in economic development since Correia broke with the city’s longtime economic developer, the former FROED, now the Bristol County Economic Development Consultants.

That “break-up” started two years ago and, since Correia has refused funding they had annually received from CDA twice, it seems unlikely that he’ll approve an application submitted in the next round of funding.

RDA also voted in December to terminate a management services contract with BCEDC, with the city filling in that role as well.

O’Connell said RDA will go back out to advertise the position and said that previous candidates may reconsider.

“They don’t want to leave the job they have for a one year contract, so we have had good candidates come forward,” said O’Connell.

Email Jo C. Goode at jgoode@heraldnews.com.