Knoxville City Council is split on whether they want out of the city’s membership in the Knox County Area Partnership for Economic Development.
Last night, Aldermen Lester Naslund, Toby Myers and Dan Eiker — who was appointed to the Council last month — voted against paying the $2,000 fee for membership in the partnership.
Naslund tells WGIL he and Myers shared the same concerns.
“My biggest problem with them is that we have nobody on their board to have even a say so over what’s happening,” Naslund says. “Like alderman Myers said, it seems like everything is going to Galesburg and nothing here.”
The partnership replaced the now-defunct GREDA in 2014 as the center for local economic development.
City Clerk Charlie Gruner said he felt the partnership takes credit for developments they had nothing to do with, particularly the coming Love’s Travel Stop & Country Store.
“That negotiation with the county was going on for what I’ve heard six years before they let us know,” Gruner says.
Last night’s vote remains at 3-3.
