Board approves salaries for Depot, marketing manager

By Hillary Raphael

At the January 18 meeting of the Clinton Board of Aldermen, the Board approved resetting the salaries of two separate positions in the City of Clinton. This decision comes after the City in August 2021 restructured the Clinton Visitor Center and Olde Towne Depot departments to fall under the City’s Communication Department, which was renamed the Communication and Tourism Department. The department is now made up of a Director of Communications and Tourism, a head of the Olde Towne Depot, and a head of the Clinton Visitor Center, with the two heads reporting to the Director of Communications and Tourism.

This decision to restructure stemmed from discussions held with the heads of the departments during the appointment/reappointment process that the Board and mayor complete at the beginning of each four-year term of the elected municipal positions. Department heads were asked to list their duties and responsibilities; and the Board determined that the separate duties and responsibilities of the Depot and the Visitor Center had significant tourism and economic overlap for the City, so they decided to combine the functions under a single department.

“This way, the head of Communications and Tourism will have more control over everything that is done in the city,” said Ward 1 Alderwoman Karen Godfrey, and “[the Director] will be able to see what is going out from all departments.” Godfrey made the motion to restructure the Clinton Visitor Center and the Olde Towne Depot departments into sub-departments of the new Communications and Tourism department. While the salaries for the Visitor Center and Depot positions were left unchanged at the time, the positions are no longer department head level.

The duties of the Director of Communications and Tourism provide reasoning for the recent name change. The position is responsible for, among other things, a “strategic communications program with additional emphasis on the city’s tourism,” and “focus on the continued development of the City’s tourism division.”

When questioned why “tourism” was included in the new title, Alderwoman Karen Godfrey stated that “they [the Board] felt like, with the addition of the new departments, ‘tourism’ should have been included in Communications.” Even when Mark Jones (the City’s previous Director of Communications) resigned ahead of the change, the Board determined they would go ahead with changing his title, because they felt like the new title should be in place. At the time the Board was enacting the position name change, Jones had just resigned to take a different job, but had not yet left.

“The Board has to continue to do what is best for the City of Clinton,” says Godfrey.

At this time, the Director of Communications and Tourism position has been filled, with Amanda Jones approved for the position at the Board’s October 5, 2021, meeting, and Marsha Barham is staying in her position as head of the Clinton Visitor Center. The head of Olde Towne Depot position is open, following the resignation of the previous manager last summer.

At the January 18 meeting, the salary of the Olde Towne Depot agent was set at $40,000, and the Board also approved setting the salary for a new Marketing Manager position, also under the Department of Communications and Tourism, at $61,500. Both positions are expected to be posted for applicants soon.