By Jackie Gorski
Times-Union

WINONA LAKE — The Winona Lake Town Council will put together job descriptions to hire a director-level position and an ice rink operator for the Miller Sunset Pavilion.

During a discussion during a work session Tuesday, June 25, Council President Jim Lancaster started talking about a position where one person handled ice operations and not have an overarching director for the pavilion.

Councilman Barry Andrew said he thinks they need to maximize the pavilion’s profit and what that looks like and take the pavilion to the next level and that requires someone to have a job dedicated to that.

He said he thinks it’ll require someone to run the rink, increase vendors at the farmers market and increase facility rentals.

Councilwoman Ashley McGinnis said she agreed with Andrew.

Lancaster said if he was hearing what they were saying correctly, they wanted someone who can run ice operations, do marketing, do maintenance and repairs and facility rentals.

McGinnis said she did some research of a facility director and activities director for the position. The facility director isn’t necessarily the one doing the maintenance, but is responsible for overseeing that the work is done. The person that does the maintenance work could be a maintenance person the town has or the work can be contracted out.

There’s more to the facility director position, as it would require asset reporting, overseeing safety documents, McGinnis said. There’s a lot to the position in her mind.

Lancaster questioned finding the person that meets all the criteria in the job description.

McGinnis said if a candidate didn’t know how to do something, they could possibly contract that work out.

Lancaster said that would be an additional cost. McGinnis said she had a maintenance person salary in the budget, as well as money for professional services. There’s also $30,000 in the budget for marketing.

Andrew said, from an interviewing standpoint, he doesn’t think he’s ever interviewed anyone that has had every major component in the job description. He picks the person that fits the best and he can teach that person the criteria they didn’t meet.

McGinnis said she felt it was important to have a dedicated person to bring people to the pavilion and make it a destination.

Lancaster said didn’t know if a person like that was out there. He said the goal is to reduce the operating expense.

Councilman Rick Swaim said they want to reduce operating expenses and increase revenue. Swaim said the top priority should be marketing and see what kind of people they get and readjust things as needed.

Lancaster asked where they would go if they needed someone to do ice operations. Andrew asked how many seasonal workers the pavilion had during the ice rink season who operated the zamboni. Lancaster said it was himself, Ken Nisly and one other person. Andrew said doing ice operations was a teachable job.

Lancaster said the urgent element right now is they have someone to work the ice rink and to look at someone who has that skill set. The question is whether to go after someone just for that initially.

Andrew said he thinks there should an overarching manager overseeing ice operations and setting up contracts for the farmers market in advance. McGinnis said the priority is to set up activity space in the pavilion so it can bring in revenue.

At one point, McGinnis said, it was hard for her to move forward without someone captaining the ship at the pavilion. Lancaster said he thought that’s what he thought the Miller Sunset Pavilion committee was there for. McGinnis said the committee would work in collaboration with the person overseeing the pavilion.

Lancaster suggested possibly bringing in a marketing assessor to see what the marketing potential of the pavilion would be.

Lancaster also said, at a minimum, he thinks they should look at several different paths and put down those details together.

He said his concern is if they go after a overall manager position, they risk missing the window of someone taking care of ice operations.

Town Manager Craig Allebach suggested putting a job description together and put something out there and see what sticks.

Swaim asked if it was not feasible to hire someone for ice operations this year and also put out a job description for a director-level position.

A special meeting at 4 p.m. Tuesday was set where the council can look at job descriptions for a director-level person and an ice operations person, as well as decide whether they want to find and contract someone to do a marketing assessment of the pavilion.

Park Board President Kristie Maiers also said the park board was willing to help out for 60 days of marketing with the pavilion. The council approved having the park board help with marketing.

Future work sessions are July 30, Aug. 12, Sept. 3, Oct. 1, Oct. 8, Nov. 12 and Dec. 3 at 5 p.m. at Town Hall.