The Defiance County Community Improvement Corporation board received updates Thursday on filling its executive director post and on a proposed change to a Hicksville housing development agreement.
The director job became vacant after Erika Willitzer, who had led the CIC since 2020, left in September for a position with Paulding Putnam, an electric cooperative headquartered in Paulding. Treasurer Michael Wahl said nine candidates had been received as of Monday, and the list will likely be reduced to about five before individual interviews. Interim President Beth Sigg said Cara Boehm, the CIC’s business development and marketing director, does not want the top job and believes she is still learning; Sigg and Willitzer have praised Boehm’s work.
Legal counsel Marc Warncke said Jefferson South Holdings LLC, the Hicksville property developer, seeks to amend its development agreement so that only first-phase land changes hands. The CIC is acting only as an intermediary because the Village of Hicksville is supplying the land. The three phases cover 20 acres, and Mayor Mike Barth cited reluctance to transfer all of it before development progresses. Phase I calls for 30 homes by D.R. Horton. With no quorum Thursday, the board intends to vote by email on the amendment.
The board also was invited to an Oct. 27 roundtable with U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno at Keller Logistics Group in Defiance. Sigg reported one visit to the NAI Harmon Group speculative building on Domersville Road and limited recent economic development inquiries, which she could not definitively link to Defiance City Council’s data-center moratorium. Boehm attended an Ohio Economic Developers Association summit where First Quality’s project placed second; its planned facility west of Defiance is expected to eventually employ 400.