Committee will review applications for director

Some 50 applications have been received for the 40,000- 60,000-a-year job.
YOUNGSTOWN -- The hiring of an executive director for the Mahoning County Convention and Visitors Bureau is on the fast track.
A five-member board committee is to meet today to screen applications, and the full board is to meet later this week to consider the top candidates.
The application deadline was 5 p.m. Monday.
As of Monday morning's CVB board of directors meeting, some 50 applications had been received, mostly from northeast Ohio and mostly from people with master's degrees, said Andrew Hamady, board vice president.
The screening committee, consisting of George McCloud, board president, and board members Hamady, James Cobbin, Nancy Haraburda and Grace Styer, will meet in executive session at 5 p.m. today at Das Dutch Village Inn in Columbiana. The full board will meet at 3 p.m. Thursday in the county commissioners' office.
Hamady said he hopes the director, who will be a county employee hired by the county commissioners, can be at work at or shortly after the beginning of January to promote tourism in the Mahoning Valley in 2007.
Job requirements
The job, which will pay 40,000 to 60,000 a year, calls for a bachelor's degree and three to five years of marketing and public relations experience "with a good track record in financial management." Significant "destination marketing" experience is preferred.
The board spent 5,270 to advertise the job in newspapers and online media in the Mahoning Valley and in Cleveland, Akron, Columbus and Pittsburgh -- just over half the 10,000 it had authorized as a ceiling for that ad campaign.
The board, which had its first meeting June 1, conducted an executive director search this summer, but the county commissioners were unsuccessful in negotiating terms of employment with either of two finalists for the job. County Administrator George Tablack said the first search produced some excellent candidates, but the county's wage scale was below what they were willing to accept.