The City of Milford is backing out of the Kent Economic Partnership.
The Milford City Council had to weigh the benefits of the 30,000 dollar fee it's paying to the Kent Economic Partnership for it’s services in bringing business to Kent County.
They found the partnership hasn’t brought any business in the past few years.
The city paid the partnership 30,000 dollars each of the past 2 years to help bring business to Milford, but feels it was more interested in other parts of the county.
Councilmember Micheal Boyle says he’s soured on the partnership.
“For the last two years I’ve been a strong supporter of them because I did see things happening but I’ve since changed my mind because I just saw this thing get more and more centric to the area south of Dover, no interest in going any further towards Milford,” said Boyle.
Mayor Arthur Campbell also raised concern with the amount of help Milford has gotten from the relationship.
“The first year, we got absolutely nothing, not even a phone call. The second year we got maybe we’re thinking we got one phone call but other than that," said Campbell. "I think spending $30,000 to an organization that doesn’t do anything for us, I think we need to back off.”
The city says they want to bring those economic development services in house and hire staff to take on that work.
Councilmember Doug Morrow sits on the Kent Economic Partnership board of directors as part of the agreement. He’s worried that pulling out will cost the city in the future, noting the partnership has a lot of projects in the works that Milford could miss out on.
The city will continue to work with the Delaware Prosperity Partnership, a similar agency that works statewide.
Roman Battaglia is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms.
