From the Greencastle Banner-Graphic:
Tucked beneath an agenda item labeled "other business," Cloverdale Town Council member Coweta Patton quickly moved to dissolve the current Redevelopment Commission and all of its members and moved to create a new one during Tuesday evening's meeting.
"I don't think it's going anywhere right now," Patton stated.
It seemed that the majority of the council members were on board with Patton's motion, many of them stating that some positive changes needed to be made.
"I've sat on this board for 12 years and I've seen a lot of changes. I've seen a lot of good stuff and a lot of negative stuff come out of Cloverdale," council member Dennis Padgett explained. "I think that some of the members on the Redevelopment Commission really need to step up to the plate.
"There's a lot things that really bothered me over the last few years," Padgett added. "We need to make some changes and they need to be some positive ones."
The news caused a strong reaction, especially from Redevelopment Commission President Don Gedert who was in attendance Tuesday evening.
"No one has ever said that we weren't doing our jobs right," Gedert said. "You really just pulled the rug out from underneath us."
Gedert added that the commission has some unfinished business that is still at such a delicate state that it really cannot be public knowledge at this time.
"We have some very serious unfinished business that does entail a great deal of concern to the town," Gedert said. "It's not been brought to the town's attention at these meetings because it's very delicate and needs to be treated that way.
"By dissolving the Redevelopment Commission," Gedert added, "I could still probably go ahead and work on that and see if I can get it resolved before the end of the year."
However, the vote to approve the dissolving of the commission saw some opposition. Council member Larry Fidler and council vice president Gary Bennington voted against it, but majority ruled and the motion passed.
As of now, the council has already begun working on recruiting new members to serve on the new commission.
"We are working on it as we speak," Patton said. "We are getting ready to talk to people. It's going to be a whole new board, at least that's the way it's going right now."
It's clear the council is looking to go in a different direction and make some changes and developments for the town, one of them being a new hotel.
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http://www.bannergraphic.com/story/2024201.html
