DIB on MURAC Report

The Downtown Improvement Board is embarking on a search for a new permanent executive director. When the board began discussing the recently released report from the Mayor’s Urban Redevelopment Advisory Committee this morning, members wondered if the search was worth the effort.

“If this is going to happen,” said DIB Chairman Corbett Davis, “why even search for him?”

Approved last week, the MURAC report is a set of recommendations to Mayor Ashton Hayward relating to the future growth of the downtown area. Recommendations concerning the DIB suggest the entity be scaled down to one clerical position housed within the mayor’s office, with board members acting as advisors to the mayor.

DIB Treasurer Ed Carson said this morning that the report could prove “fairly detrimental” to the search for an executive. Recent DIB appointee John Peacock said the board should “put everything on the table.”

Members of the public attending the DIB meeting also weighed in on the issue. Some questioned the MURAC’s understanding of the DIB, while other’s questioned the intentions—“we’re very concerned about the radical recommendations because of the make-up of the actors on the stage.”

Scott Sallis, an architect who also sits on a DIB committee, called the MURAC’s position a “clear formula for failure,” “a very big step backward in all the progress,” and “a little bi-polar.”

“They’re quite alarming,” he said. “And I disagree with them in a big way.”

Pensacola City Councilwoman Sherri Myers was in attendance at today’s DIB meeting, and took the opportunity to clarify the city council’s relationship with the advisory committee—“there is none.”

“This MURAC was formed by the mayor,” she said. “The city council had no part in this whatsoever.”

Brian Spencer, who sits on the city council and also the DIB, said he thought some of the advisory board’s recommendations would “stick,” while others would not. He urged a “collaborative” spirit—“shine the light on our similarities.”

“This is a threshold opportunity for this group to be galvanized and I welcome it,” Spencer said.

The DIB decided to invite representatives from the MURAC—which is now dissolved—to come and discuss its recommendations to the mayor.