Nancy Martin failed to finish a website for the San Benito County EDC, despite stating it as a priority when she started on the job nearly four years ago.
Nancy Martin, the departing executive director of the Economic Development Corp. of San Benito County, will be taking on the same role for the Monterey County Business Council. And one of her first big projects is launching a website for the group – an endeavor she failed to get off the ground in her local position.
Martin on Thursday said with her new job, she would be working on a branding campaign that would likely incorporate Monterey County as well as the neighboring San Benito and Santa Cruz counties.
“In essence, I will be serving three counties,” she said. “San Benito could be the biggest beneficiary.”
She said one of her first objectives in her new role is working on “a huge website that we will have up and running by October.”
“Hopefully, San Benito County will buy into it,” she said. “There is no money available here, but we are using a national firm. For a $100,000 product, the county could choose to associate for less than $8,000.”
An early promise Martin made when she first came on board in 2008 was that she would complete a website – the EDC does not have one – to market the county to outside businesses. The website has still not been finished, despite Martin publicly re-committing to the project about two and a half years ago.
In the past, Martin has said the website had been delayed because of issues with financing and establishing the best design and features. She had estimated needing an additional $30,000 to develop a competitive website.
The nonprofit organization took a recent financial wallop when it lost a huge portion of its funding this year as the Hollister redevelopment agency was disbanded at the beginning of the year. County supervisors had been discussing whether to fund the agency in recent weeks.
In 2010, the council increased the city’s contribution by $25,000 to $75,000 annually. In 2011, the county agreed to fund $50,000, but there was a lengthy discussion during the budget hearing process as to whether the supervisors should fund a non-mandated service.
Though the 2012-13 budget hearings do not begin until July 23, the supervisors had discussed decreasing the contribution to the EDC to $25,000 or perhaps eliminating it completely if the city were not to fund any part of it. At the July 19, Inman said the EDC progress report would be continued to a future meeting so that the board of directors for the EDC would have time to come up with a presentation.
The Monterey County Business Council is an alliance of business executives and professionals providing collaborative leadership to help people from business, government, education, and the community work together on countywide issues reflecting the organization’s strong commitment to the environment, economic vitality, and quality of life, according to its website.
On Monday, she talked of connecting the counties on efforts for tourism, but said San Benito needs more of the staples such as lodging to really benefit from a boost.
