At its April meeting, Fort Thomas City Council approved a municipal order changing the mission and direction of its Renaissance Board. The board will now focus almost exclusively on city events.
The board was first created as part of the Main Street program. The Kentucky Main Street program is associated with a nationwide effort to promote preservation-based development in downtowns in cities across the country.
The board’s original mission was to stimulate economic development and assist the city in revitalization plans. Since the board’s inception, the city has been able to devote more resources to economic development, including its Economic Development Department, headed by Renaissance Manager and Events Coordinator Chanda Calentine, supported by City Administrative Assistant Sam Shelton.
During the same period, the city was able to expand its event programming significantly over the years. City Administrator Matt Kremer said there is a need for more volunteers and that the organization of volunteers is great. He worked with city staff to revamp and refine the mission of the Renaissance Board to better accommodate this need.
A new mission focus
“This has been in discussion for the last six months within council and the Renaissance Board just to figure out what direction they need to go. So the big change on this is they’ve had a mission change,” said Kremer.
“When I first got here, the ren board actually approved Grow Grants, which I changed once we saw and discussed that. The mission for the ren board now is to lead our events and programs that the city has.”
The municipal order creates a new board, changing the focus on economic development initiatives to that of city events. The new purpose outlined in the order is the board be “created and organized to assist in implementing community events, programs and partnerships within the city of Fort Thomas…”
Kremer said other changes include setting dates and times for regular meetings. The designated time will be on the fourth Monday of each month at 5:45 p.m. as needed. Also changed is the language covering the number of board members. The board was originally made up of nine citizens. The language now allows for up to 12. He explained this could vary between nine and 12 depending on the number and intensity of events in a given year.
A change in appointment authority
Kremer noted the Renaissance Board is a staff-run. The board members execute and support events planned by the staff and that the council has approved in the budget. They do not make any budget decisions.
This led to a discussion of another change concerning how members of the board are to be appointed going forward.
“I’ve asked that, instead of any new appointees going to the mayor who appoints and the council to approve, they are just recommended by the Economic Development administrator and they are approved by me,” Kremer said. “This will allow us to get event volunteers in there quickly, cuts out the red tape and all the challenges that come along with more board appointments.”
Council member Adam Blau had some concerns about this change.
“I absolutely love this board. I think opening up to 12 people is a fantastic idea. We have so many people that want to get involved that don’t know how to get involved,” he said. “But, I’m not a huge fan of relinquishing the approval to the city administrator…Not that I’m completely against it …but I really like the thought of the decision coming to us and then we approve it. We can’t relinquish all our powers.”
Mayor Eric Haas said at first, he had similar concerns.
“It’s good to remember that this originally was based on Main Street program. And I was the chair of Main Street program in Newport 20 some years ago. It’s very defined, there’s four different steps, four different things that you do. And there is a lot of authority, and yes, I would definitely not want this body to approve it if it was still a Main Street program,” Haas said. “I realized, as I read more thoroughly, that we’re basically abandoning the Main Street program and going to something that’s very specific to Fort Thomas.”
After further discussion, the council noted that they could try the new approach to appointments (going through the city administrator instead of council approval) and revisit it later in the year. If they find it is not working, they will change it.
Blau asked that the board share information with the council about appointments. Kremer agreed to give the city a staff report on developments in the board at council meetings.
This led to further discussion about boards in general, and Blau suggested all boards and commissions should include their agendas and minutes in the council packet so that members have all the information they might need. All agreed adding that information would benefit council, boards and the city overall.
Council then approved the municipal order creating the new Renaissance Board.