The word development has long been a misnomer for Jamestown’s Development Department.

Crystal Surdyk, city development director, didn’t do much in her recent budget presentation to the City Council to redefine the department. The department is incredibly busy administering the housing- and infrastructure-related grants it receives from the state and federal governments, code enforcement, business and housing permitting and a host of other things. No one can say the Development Department isn’t busy, and Surdyk has stepped up her game in the past 11 months. There isn’t much happening in the city and its government that doesn’t touch the Development Department in one way or another.

“Ideally it should be split about evenly (between housing and development),” Surdyk told council members. “We have seen a lot of emphasis on housing because the housing issues that we have are monumental. But we are in the process of hiring a new economic development coordinator and in that the mayor and I have really taken a deep dive into that position and in our interviewing the candidate that we’re looking for is going to have the experience to be able to have relationships with businesses and is going to understand the important of economic development. I would say housing gets a lot of attention, but that doesn’t mean economic development isn’t happening”

Surdyk is right, economic development work happens. But that work has been reactive even before Surdyk took the development director position. The Development Department has been available to help when someone wants to open a business, helping them with different grant or loan programs the Development Department oversees through a grant with the Jamestown Urban Renewal Agency or Jamestown Local Development Corporation.

But the city can, and should, do more to have an active seat at the table when it comes to large-scale development that can bring jobs and, just as importantly, tax base back into the city of Jamestown. In our opinion, that includes having someone carve out a bigger role working with the county’s economic development agencies to identify sites in Jamestown that can be redeveloped into shovel-ready sites the next company like Electrovaya can call home – and then be able to help recruit the next Electrovaya or New Flyer. Just as important is someone who can pound the pavement on downtown development to fill vacant storefronts or prod building owners to reinvest in their buildings so they can begin contributing to a new vitality downtown.

Jamestown needs to be a player at the economic development table. It doesn’t have the ability to create new positions, but repurposing an old position makes a lot of sense. It’s good Surdyk and Mayor Kim Ecklund see the need for more proactive economic development work. That’s the easy part. Finding the right person for the economic development coordinator job is the hard part.