City Council last week held its first meeting as the Downtown Management Corporation (DMC) overseeing the Special Improvement District (SID), as it transitions from the Rahway Arts & Business Partnership (RABP).

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“We’re looking to make sure to continue a seamless transition,” Economic Development Director Elton Armady told council members in his report during the Aug. 9 meeting, which lasted about 15 minutes and followed City Council’s regular meeting, via Zoom.

Armady started July 6 as the city’s economic development director, with annual compensation of $100,000, and economic development coordinator for the SID, which carries a $15,000 stipend. Previously, he served as director at Union County’s Plainfield American Job Center and was legislative director to the late Assemblyman Jerry Green (D-Plainfield).  Armady briefly served as councilman in Plainfield, appointed to a fill a vacancy created when Rebecca Williams was appointed to the county commissioner board, which had an opening after Linda Carter was appointed to fill the Assembly seat of the Green.

Armady was hopeful that nominees for SID committees will be presented to City Council during the next SID meeting, scheduled for Sept. 13. The governing body last month established two five-member committees: the Arts & Culture Committee, to be comprised of individuals focused on the arts, and the Business Committee, made up of local merchants. Those are in addition to the SID Advisory Board.

“We’re working to make sure to create new marketing,” Armady said, with a new SID logo and updates to the RABP website, social media accounts and other materials.  “We’ll simply look to improve and expand on some of their efforts,” he said, along with outreach to local businesses. “The biggest request of us was they [businesses] wanted us to increase advertising and marketing,” he said. “To that end, we’ll do a better job of increasing signage and posters.”

City Council in March approved a $325,000 RABP budget for 2021, which the new SID will assume and continue through the end of the year, Chief Financial Officer Frank Ruggiero said.

At the end of the Aug. 9 SID meeting, City Council President Danni Newbury said she expects the SID to become more active once the current transition is completed. “As we finalize that transition, I’m certain that at the September meeting, I anticipate a much more robust agenda and opportunities to speak and engage with the work of SID.”

The city had hired a successor to Director of Community Planning Cynthia Solomon, who retired last year. When that post didn’t work out, Redevelopment Director Robert Landolfi said the city decided to hire a consultant (Red Bank-based Heyer Gruel and Associates) to handle the planning part of that post and bring in Armady to focus on economic development.

“The city was not truly doing any true economic development, and therein lies the problem,” Landolfi said during a telephone interview on Monday. “The major emphasis and shift will start to do that true economic development. It ties back into the RABP, where they were an events-oriented organization as opposed to economic development. That shift in emphasis really is going to redefine the way we implement it, but also what people do,” he said.

Ann Marie Williams, formerly one of two managing directors of the RABP, remains with the city as an economic development specialist, Landolfi said. Steve Lewis, assistant director of recreation, started in the new position of events coordinator for the SID, which carries a $20,000 stipend.

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