No contract renewal for TEAM yet

Santa Rosa County Board of CountyCommissioners still wasn’t quite ready to extend TEAM Santa Rosa’s contract Monday after TEAM Chairman Dave Hoxeng begged the board to do so.

Hoxeng’s request came immediately after economic development consultant Tom Ticknor gave commissioners a summary report on TEAM’s strengths and weaknesses. He reported that TEAM had good fundamentals to move forward on, but needed to do a better job at marketing, protecting its brand and collaborating with the Pensacola Bay Area Chamber of Commerce for economic development.

Ticknor recommended TEAM hire a CEO with marketing expertise to steer the organization, which will cost an additional $100,000 in the current fiscal year.

Hoxeng said the board of directors endorsed that recommendation and also asked commissioners to vote on Thursday whether or not to renew TEAM’s contract. He argued that TEAM had done what commissioners had asked by reviewing the organization and came up with many measurable objectives for improvement.

Commissioner Bob Cole said he was in favor of the plan and renewing TEAM’s contract for 18 months.

“If we’re going to be serious about economic development and growing jobs in Santa Rosa County, we need to move forward with this plan,” he said.

Hoxeng said TEAM planned to implement annual evaluations for staff and the board, creating an annual marketing plan, creating a media/public relations committee, forming ethics/conflict of interest policies for the staff and board, improving its website and rebranding by dropping the TEAM title.

For more of this story, see the Dec. 8 issue of Navarre Press or subscribe online.