POUGHKEEPSIE – Dutchess County Executive
Marc Molinaro Thursday proposed that the Dutchess County Economic Development
Corporation dissolve and be merged into the county Industrial Development
Agency.
Molinaro
proposes merging DCEDC with IDA
He made his proposal to the DCEDC board.
Right now there are nearly 13 separate economic development organizations
in the county; three of them are public authorities that do the same reporting,
the same oversight, the same accounting, the same audit, the same bureaucratic
responsibilities, he said.
“I don’t think that we can afford to be casual observers in
Dutchess County’s economic condition nor its economic future,”
he said. “We need to reinvigorate and in this way, restructure the
infrastructure of economic development to be more effective, more efficient,
and I think, more aggressive,” he said.
The new organization would be called the Dutchess County Economic Development
Advisory Council and Molinaro says it will not look much different than
the existing EDC Board, retaining most, if not all, of the current members.
All EDC assets and employees would be transferred to the Dutchess County
IDA, making it the sole entity for business expansion, retention and attraction.
Molinaro hopes it will provide the representatives of various boards who
work at multiple capacities an opportunity to pool their resources and
spark more active deliberations during meetings.
After Molinaro’s proposal, the EDC Board voted to review the proposal.
