{"id":33461,"date":"2023-07-08T15:27:38","date_gmt":"2023-07-08T19:27:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=33461"},"modified":"2023-07-08T15:27:43","modified_gmt":"2023-07-08T19:27:43","slug":"the-city-is-looking-for-new-director-for-the-rp-funding-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2023\/07\/08\/the-city-is-looking-for-new-director-for-the-rp-funding-center\/","title":{"rendered":"The City is looking for New Director for the RP Funding Center"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After searching the country, the city has identified four potential candidates to be the new director of the RP Funding Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"618\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" src=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/RP-Funding-Center-Lakeland-1024x618.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-33462\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/RP-Funding-Center-Lakeland-1024x618.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/RP-Funding-Center-Lakeland-300x181.jpg 300w, https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/RP-Funding-Center-Lakeland-768x464.jpg 768w, https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/RP-Funding-Center-Lakeland-1536x928.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/RP-Funding-Center-Lakeland.jpg 2000w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The role was vacated in May by former Executive Director&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.occc.net\/About-Us-Media-Relations-Press-Releases\/ArticleID\/511\/Orange%20County%20Convention%20Center%20Announces%20New%20General%20Manager%20and%20Director%20of%20Sales\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Tony Camarillo<\/a>, who stepped away after eight years to become general manager of the Orange County Convention Center. In the interim, Steven Collazo, the fiscal and operations manager, is holding down the fort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The city&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.iacconline.org\/industry-careers-job\/rp-funding-center-director-city-of-lakeland\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">advertised the position<\/a>&nbsp;from May 15 to June 15 and received 83 applications, according to City Manager Shawn Sherrouse. The Human Resources Department whittled the field to 24 qualified applicants, from which Sherrouse and his top deputies selected five finalists. One has since accepted another position, but the city will be interviewing the other four this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sherrouse said one is an internal candidate; the others are from outside the city. But if the hiring committee doesn\u2019t feel any are the right person, they will advertise again. Sherrouse said there is \u201cno specific timeline\u201d to fill the position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In April RP Funding Center lost both Orlando Magic\u2019s G League basketball team&nbsp;and Florida Tropics Soccer Club due to raising cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Public reaction after the departures of the Magic and the Tropics was swift and harsh. Many social media users accused the city of \u201crunning off everything good\u201d and turning the center into an \u201calbatross\u201d or a \u201cwhite elephant.\u201d More than 1,700 people signed a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.change.org\/p\/stand-with-fltropics-don-t-let-lakelandgov-force-them-out-urgent-sign-now?utm_source=share_petition&amp;utm_medium=custom_url&amp;recruited_by_id=29924000-e43a-11ed-9fd1-c7ed7b25ebbb\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">petition on change.org<\/a>&nbsp;urging the city to help the Florida Tropics stay at the RP Funding Center.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However, city leaders have been resolute that the center should focus on renting the space to organizations and groups that can pay market rates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After searching the country, the city has identified four potential candidates to be the new director of the RP Funding Center. The role was vacated in May by former Executive&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33462,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[5393],"class_list":["post-33461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-the-city-is-looking-for-new-director-for-the-rp-funding-center"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}