SH BOMA Meeting

The Spring Hill Board of Mayor and Aldermen hold their December 7 non-voting meeting.

 City of Spring Hill

Chaired by Alderman Vincent Fuqua, Spring Hill's five-member Economic Development Commission (EDC) has been the topic of discussion among city leaders for months.

A proposal back in May to defund and disband the commission grained traction among city leaders, though the proposal was eventually tabled as a means to move forward with passing the city's budget for the 2020 fiscal year.

Fast forward months later to Monday, Dec. 7, during the Board of Mayor and Aldermen's non-voting meeting, the topic once again resurged - although this time, Mayor Rick Graham, who initially opposed the idea of gutting funding for the commission, said that perhaps the matter was better settled after the city's next election in April.

"I don’t even care if this is on the agenda anymore," Graham said. "I’m at the point now I think the next board after the next election decides this."

Established in 1999, the EDC is a commission whose purpose is to spur economic development and opportunities in the city, either through branding, recruiting businesses or other methods.

Over the past three years, the annual budget for economic development in Spring Hill has been, on average, just shy of $98,000. It was what Alderman Matt Fitterer called a lack of transparency in how those funds were being used that spurred him and four other aldermen to vote in favor of disbanding the commission back in May.

And while the issue sparked a considerable back and forth among city leaders over the summer, Monday night's meeting saw the entirety of the board more or less come to an agreement to table the vote on disbanding the commission until a later date - a date Graham signaled would be after the city's April election.

While the ultimate fate of the EDC will likely not be decided until spring of next year, city leaders had previously gutted funding towards economic development.

As Monday night's meeting was a non-voting meeting, the decision to table the proposal will be made during the next voting meeting on Monday, Dec. 21. That meeting will be held at 7 p.m. that day at Spring Hill City Hall, 199 Town Center Parkway.