Mayor Alvin Brown will name his five board members of the Downtown Investment Authority “soon” and possibly within the week, he said Monday evening, hours after he signed legislation to create the Downtown-focused economic development entity.
Brown receives five appointments to the nine-member board that will set qualifications for and hire the authority’s executive director, who will lead the authority’s efforts.
The City Council president will make the other four appointments. Council President Bill Bishop said Tuesday that he is close to making his four appointments and has commitments from three people, but is working to finalize a commitment from a fourth. He said he hopes to make an announcement sometime Wednesday.
All board members must be Council-confirmed, though the executive director is not.
“There are a lot of people I have got to reach out to,” Brown said after a Monday evening appearance at the Women Business Owners of North Florida monthly meeting.
“I think there are a lot of candidates, I think a lot of people want to serve,” he said.
He said he thought there could be 30-40 candidates, but he had yet to narrow his choices. Asked if there were women on his candidates list, given his Monday audience, Brown said “lots.”
A Monday request to the City seeking information regarding any documents pertaining to a list of candidates was not immediately answered.
Brown spoke to around 90 members of the business organization and touted the benefits that such an authority will have on small business through means of access to capital and marketing, among others.
Brown also took several questions from audience members following his presentation.
Among the topics:
• He said his leadership style was that he showed leadership on issues he has considered important and stressed, such as Downtown revitalization, overall economic development and port funding. An article in The Florida Times-Union over the weekend questioned his leadership on certain issues. ”You’ve got to have a backbone of steel,” he said.
• Asked about services for the Downtown homeless population, he said a Downtown day center to assist and provide services for the homeless would be up by the end of the year.
• Brown said he wants to hear from small business owners and entrepreneurs who want to make Downtown better and move their business there — even potentially offering incentives.
“We’re going to make sure ideas are heard. We’d love to have them,” he said of small business owners ideas’.
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