With hopes of working out an agreeable plan, Ironton officials met Tuesday to examine the hot topic of hiring an economic development director.

Mayor Bob Cleary said the city has three choices -- to hire someone full-time, to provide the Lawrence Economic Development Corporation some initial funding with performance incentives or to hire professional services that would also be performance based.

"I have the same goals as council when it comes to economic development," he said. "In an economy that is worsening all the time, I think we have done fair for our community."

In discussions during the past two months, everyone on the Ironton City Council has agreed that economic development is needed. However, council has been divided over how to achieve this and has voted down two resolutions that would have provided for the position in the 2003 budget.

Committee members John Elam and Bob Isaac called the special meeting of the Industrial and Commercial Development Committee to allow everyone to voice their opinions and ideas.

"I personally think this should be our first priority," Isaac said. "We need someone whose sole interest is to work 40 hours a week trying to bring jobs to this city."

Elam shared information about typical job descriptions for such positions and how much other cities like Dublin pay.

"We all here agree that we need economic development," he said. "It is an easy thing to say but a hard thing to put into action."

Committee Chairman Brent Pyles declined to call the meeting and did not attend because he said he believes the purpose oversteps the scope of the committee.

"Based on their descriptions of the issue to be discussed, I believe the meeting is not appropriate because it should have intimated from the mayor to the committee, not vice-versa," Pyles said by phone Monday. "The issue to be discussed has been before the full council two times and has been voted down both times.

"There is no one on council that is saying that we are not for economic development. We just have not decided how to get there yet."

Cleary said he thought the purpose of the meeting was irregular but not against city charter regulations.

In the discussion, Cleary addressed a letter written by Elam, Isaac and Councilman Jim Tordiff that was printed on Jan. 10 by The Ironton Tribune. The letter discussed the need for the position.

"I think the intent of the letter was good but I don't think it told the whole story," he said.

Cleary said he thought the letter implied that nothing was done in 1999 when the city nearly realized its dream to fill the position until the funding fell through.

Tordiff said that the letter was not intended to criticize anyone, "because we all did not stick with it."

"It is council's job to appropriate funds. Our timing could not be better because it is budget time," Tordiff said. "I did not want another year to go by without saying, 'Come hell or high water, we are going to stick to it.'"

The mayor went on to outline exactly how close the city was to creating the position and how the plan fell apart.

In May 1999, council passed a resolution authorizing the mayor to hire an economic development director. In September 1999, the Finance Committee appropriated $75,000 in the budget to completely fund the position, he said.

The city began advertising in October 1999 and received a stack of applications. However, in December of that year Council told Cleary that the funding would not be available after all.

"All that work was stopped because in the year 2000 we did not have the funds," Cleary said. "We all felt like the need was there, but we would have had to make cuts in other departments."

Cleary said the city had several qualified candidates and would have hired one if the funding had been available.

Now it is more than two years later and Cleary said he just wants to look at all sides to insure that more work is not wasted.

He said he will meet with City Finance Director Cindy Anderson and make a recommendation to the Finance Committee after looking at the budget.