In order to better serve economic development in Polk County a consultant recommended the Central Florida Development Agency undertake a lot of change, Bartow City Commissioner James Clements told his board Monday.

The CFDC went to a consultant review meeting Monday in Auburndale and heard recommendations from Cincinnati-based KMK Consultants and Thompson Wesley Wolfe that did an organizational and structural review started last October. The board of directors and the reviewers went through a 20-page
document it drafted.

Clements and Community Redevelopment Agency Executive Director Patrick Brett went to the meeting from Bartow.

“The draft calls for making drastic
changes to the Central Florida Development Agency,” Clements said at a work session at Bartow City Hall Monday night.

“The changes they recommended wanted more private investment and less public investment,” he said.

The CFDC is a countywide economic development service that now operates with county and private money. It has
$1.2 million in private money in the budget and about $50,000 from the private sector. In its reports, KMK recommended the CFDC needs more from private executives and more private money.

The review also revealed how the cities in the county don’t always work together in economic development and try to work on “what’s in it for me.” There are cities like Haines City and Lakeland, the consultant pointed out, that have their own economic development organizations and there’s a failure for them to include other municipalities into their plans, Clements said.

“Right now the cities work as one and don’t really share,” he told city commissioners. “You have to change that.”

Clements said the consultants did not have a solution but did have a handful of recommendations. The Board of Directors did not make any decisions but will review the report and come back in a few weeks to decide where to go.

“They decided to put this together and come back and figure out how to proceed,” Clements said.

Mayor Pat Huff felt somewhat encouraged by the report and what can come from it.

“Maybe we can work closely to get together and maybe something can be better for us,” he said.