City Council approves WTDA reorganization

Published 6:27 pm Friday, March 27, 2015

FILE PHOTO | DAILY NEWS NEW PERSONNEL: Two part-time employees, an events coordinator and an administrative assistant, will assume the duties of Civic Center supervisor Laura Smithwick after she retires later this spring.

FILE PHOTO | DAILY NEWS
NEW PERSONNEL: Two part-time employees, an events coordinator and an administrative assistant, will assume the duties of Civic Center supervisor Laura Smithwick after she retires later this spring.

 

The coming retirement of Laura Smithwick, supervisor of the Washington Civic Center, provides an opportunity to reorganize the Washington Tourism Development Authority.

During its meeting Monday, the City Council unanimously approved replacing the full-time position held by Smithwick with two part-time positions of 25 hours each: an event coordinator and an administrative assistant to perform administrative support work. The WTDA unanimously endorsed the reorganization during its March 18 meeting.

Duties for the event coordinator (a newly created position) include initiating sales and meetings with potential renters and businesses regarding use of the Civic Center, respond to inquiries, offer advice to renters concerning equipment rentals, florists, caterers and other service providers for events. The events coordinator also would help renters with obtaining needed permits (such as alcohol), assuring the permits have been acquired before events, scheduling events and supervising and scheduling part-time employees to work at the events.

“This new organizational structure will result in a reduction in personnel cost as the positions are a lower pay grade than the current full-time position and there will be no benefits, with the exception of retirement which is required based on the hours of work. It will also provide more flexibility with staff schedules which will be more efficient with the diverse programming of the facility,” wrote City Manager Brian Alligood in a memorandum to the mayor and council members.

Lynn Wingate, the city’s tourism-development director, recommended the change to the WTDA during its March 18 meeting.

“So, we have one person who is solely focused on events. That would be paid for wholly out of the Civic Center budget,” she said. “The administrative assistant position … the person who’s going to be the right fit for that, we’re really going to be looking for some financial and business background, would be the ideal situation.”

The administrative assistant would serve as clerk to the authority and maintain contracts, databases and other records related to the authority and Civic Center, Wingate said.

About Mike Voss

Mike Voss is the contributing editor at the Washington Daily News. He has a daughter and four grandchildren. Except for nearly six years he worked at the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va., in the early to mid-1990s, he has been at the Daily News since April 1986.
Journalism awards:
• Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service, 1990.
• Society of Professional Journalists: Sigma Delta Chi Award, Bronze Medallion.
• Associated Press Managing Editors’ Public Service Award.
• Investigative Reporters & Editors’ Award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Public Service Award, 1989.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Investigative Reporting, 1990.
All those were for the articles he and Betty Gray wrote about the city’s contaminated water system in 1989-1990.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Investigative Reporting, 1991.
• North Carolina Press Association, Third Place, General News Reporting, 2005.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Lighter Columns, 2006.
Recently learned he will receive another award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Lighter Columns, 2010.
4. Lectured at or served on seminar panels at journalism schools at UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Maryland, Columbia University, Mary Washington University and Francis Marion University.

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