 The Bemidji City Council is looking to the future and during last night's work session is looking at the possibility of adding a community development director. Josh Peterson shares with us how a proposed new position could eliminate funding to another organization. The 2019 Financial Management Plan was up for discussion during Monday's Bemidji City Council work session, but what stirred conversation was the possible addition of a new community development director. This person would oversee building and planning and those are two that Nate kind of oversees now and so this would be a department level position as I understand it and building and planning would be underneath this department. Currently the city pays $30,000 to Greater Bemidji which provides similar services that a community development director would have. Under the new proposal the city would eliminate its contribution to the organization which raised some concerns for some council members. I'm a little concerned because we did do you know we had the community development director for a short period of time and we still funded the economic development and I think we need to look at you know continuing. The community development director job description was presented to the council but some council members felt the position was not well defined. Gotta be well thought out and maybe this is a situation where specific things are cut out and left with Greater Bemidji. It was disclosed during the meeting that the city has not yet made its yearly payment to Greater Bemidji. Council members questioned why the money was being withheld when it was already budgeted for Greater Bemidji. If that was your mark for the Greater Bemidji how would you be able to pull it for? Well we'd have to talk to the council get that discussion about doing that. We weren't just going to do it ourselves. We would have to wait you know to discuss that. But like I said we didn't we weren't sure if we were going to need it or not for an ice study. Mayor Rita Albright says that the city has made a commitment to Greater Bemidji and that the payment is currently being processed. We want to make sure that if we're committing to an organization that we are going to follow through with that. In Bemidji, Josh Peterson, Lakeland News. The proposed community development director is estimated to cost the city $100,000. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.