The idea stemmed from the announcement that current executive director of the CDC/EDC, Joe Cercone, had planned to retire by the end of January. When Cercone announced his retirement to the board he planted the seeds for the development of a county resource officer position. Commissioners have been mulling over both ideas since they came about and Wednesday evening made a decision. They decided against a partnership with the RC chamber and agreed to hire a county resource officer to handle some of the duties of the EDC director and tourism.

“They were concerned with the tourism part of the job. With Joe retiring we wanted someone to still do the economic development part of the job as well and we weren’t sure they had the experience or personnel to get that done,” said chairman Carl Altman. The board originally directed the RC chamber to talk to the other chambers in the county to come up with a plan that would involve all the chambers, that was not fulfilled by the RC chamber. “We felt if we gave the RC chamber $30,000 the other county chambers would want money too. We weren’t sure it was the best idea for us right now,” said Altman about rejecting the proposal. The resource officer will also serve as a point person for some county informational issues. Commissioners will be finalizing the job description, requirements, and pay scale before moving forward with advertising, accepting applications and interviewing qualified applicants.

The job has already been advertised for in the Outlook and the Advance this week according to Altman. Applications for those interested are due in by Jan. 23 and the board is hopeful to get someone in place as soon as possible to allow Cercone, who leaves in February, some time to help them get acclimated to the job. Preliminary thoughts are to hire a county resource officer as a contractual employee of the county to work about 30 hours per week for about $36,000 annually. Those figures will be settled once someone is in place.