DULUTH – The city department most critical to economic growth is without several top leaders following recent resignations.
Duluth’s planning and economic development department has lost about 15% of its employees since January, when Mayor Roger Reinert took office. That includes its director, Chad Ronchetti, who begins working in the same role for the city of Hermantown next week. The department manager also resigned in August to work for a nearby economic development entity, and long-time deputy director Adam Fulton’s position was eliminated in the spring. Two city planners and an attorney who worked closely with the department have also resigned.
That much turnover over a short period could be disruptive to the city’s economic development efforts, said Joel Sipress, a former Duluth city councilor.
The department is “extraordinarily important and highly complex,” he said.
The city is now without a dedicated liaison for developers, bankers, builders and the state at a time when hundreds of millions of dollars in construction is underway across Duluth. Last year, building permit data showed nearly $380 million in project costs.
Reinert said Thursday his administration has moved swiftly to put another department director with development experience into an interim role, and also elevated temporarily a long-time city planner. Reinert, too, along with the interim chief administrative officer, David Montgomery, have become more hands-on with developers in recent days, he said.
“We’re in the same hypercompetitive market that everybody else is,” Reinert said about the departures. “We have to do a much better job of thinking about talent acquisition across the organization.”
He said he will rely on the city’s Chamber of Commerce and other business development groups for candidate help as a search gets underway to replace Ronchetti.