The City of Minden is accepting applications for the newly separated job of downtown development director.
Mayor Tommy Davis says they’ve already begun advertising for the job, but didn’t give a timeline as to when interviews for the position will begin.
“We’re advertising for that position right now,” he said, adding the number of applications received so far is unknown.
The downtown development director works strictly with the Minden Main Street program. As for seating a board, those positions will be filled by appointment, Davis says, and they have some names of some people they are looking into.
“We’re compiling a list of people that we think would be interested and good on that, but we have not started contacting anybody yet,” he said.
The downtown development director salary will begin around $28,500.
A bill just passed this year’s legislature that separated the job of the downtown development director and the economic director and cleaned up some language regarding the board to make it all legal. He says the problem was no one on the commission met the requirements, which made the commission unconstitutional.
According to the new bill, for potential members of the commission to qualify, they must either be a registered voter of Minden or hold a majority interest in a business or property located in the Downtown Development District.
It also changed some language in the bill, because Minden has a downtown business district but not a Retail Merchants Association.
The downtown development district begins where Dennis Street intersects with Highway 80 and ends around Pennsylvania Avenue with properties in between.
