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New Challenge

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THE SUNCOAST NEWS

Published: November 12, 2008

Ellen Posivach obviously relishes challenges. Six months after stepping down under pressure after nine years as city manager of Tarpon Springs, she has signed on with another riverfront town, Port Richey. On a contract basis Posivach is doing the job of assistant Port Richey city manager and economic development manager.

Port Richey government under City Manager Richard Reade, who brought Posivach aboard, is in a period of relative calm. So we won't spend much time on which city has the more Byzantine politics. The people in Tarpon Springs who wanted Posivach gone said she could be highhanded and spent too much time outside the city. Posivach said she ruffled the feathers of the city's old guard by refusing to kowtow to it.

Posivach is now being asked to help give Port Richey an economic development boost. As Reade notes, the city has had a Community Redevelopment Agency for six years but it hasn't accomplished much. For a time city officials had hoped skyrocketing property values would do the trick. The collapse of the Florida real estate and housing industries and the worldwide economic crisis are now combining to make a Port Richey economic surge even less likely.

In Tarpon Springs Posivach had to balance the at-times-competing interests of that city's downtown and Sponge Docks business interests. At least in Port Richey she won't have to deal with that concern.

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