INDUSTRIAL RECRUITMENT GROUP CONTINUES SEARCH FOR DIRECTOR

JACKSON - Members of the board of the Cape Girardeau Industrial Recruitment Association Monday discussed the search for an executive director and concerns raised by a board member.

Association President Gene Rhodes said they hoped to have all agreements signed soon so the focus can be on hiring a director.

Carl Talley, Jackson city administrator and the association's secretary-treasurer, reported that ads have begun running in publications of the Missouri Municipal League and Missouri Industrial Development Council.

The association board is scheduled to meet again March 1, the deadline for applications to come in. Rhodes said he hopes the board can begin reviewing applications then.

Scott City Mayor Larry Forhan expressed concern about a decision made at the Jan. 11 meeting to put the association's office in space provided by the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce.

Forhan suggested that since some members of the Cape Girardeau City Council had indicated the city would withdraw its financial support for the group unless the office was in the chamber building, Cape Girardeau's two representatives - Rhodes and Councilman Melvin Gateley - had no choice but to vote for the chamber office site.

He questioned whether they could be independent. "When it comes to hiring an executive director, will they threaten to pull out if we don't hire their favorite son?" asked Forhan. "I just don't see any independence of the board here."

Gateley assured Forhan the Cape Girardeau Council was not trying to control the association.

Said Rhodes, "As far as I'm concerned this board has total control over who is hired."

Forhan also discussed a letter sent by Earl Norman, chairman and chief executive officer of Health Services Corp. of America, protesting the decision to have the association's office in the chamber office. The letter was sent to board members and to Bob Drury, Ernie Beussink of 630 Corp., and Mid America Hotels.

Norman said he was writing as "a local investor and developer of property" and there would be a "tremendous conflict of interest" with the chamber's involvement in the Greater Cape Girardeau Development Corp. Norman said that Bob Hendrix, chamber president, was executive director of the corporation.

"Their prior knowledge and information of industrial development contacts would allow them the very first opportunity to access new potential companies as they come into town," Norman wrote.

But John Mehner, the chamber's representative on the board, pointed out that Hendrix is just secretary of the Cape Development Corp. He argued that Hendrix would have nothing to do with the recruitment association.

"This director needs to answer to this board, not Bob Hendrix. Bob Hendrix should have no influence on this man or woman we hire," said Mehner. "The chamber is only housing this office."

Rhodes said, "This guy answers only to us."

Rhodes said it was important to him that there be no conflicts of interest with the association, and both Rhodes and Mehner agreed the job description of the director should be clear that the person reports only to the board.

Several other board members acknowledged they had received Norman's letter, but no one else seemed concerned about a conflict.