Fayetteville's

Downtown Development Authority and Main Street program are getting a bit

of an overhaul.

While city

officials sort through a stack of applications for the vacant Main Street

program manager position, a reorganization of the boards of both bodies

is scheduled for consideration at Thursday night's City Council meeting.

Several recommendations

were made as a result of the Main Street board of directors' retreat in

October, and further discussion took place at the City Council retreat

a month later.

Under the proposed

new structure, the board will decrease in size from 11 members to seven,

with four standing committees Organization, Promotions, Design and Economic

Restructuring. The chairmen of the DDA and Historic Preservation Committee

would fill two of the board positions and head the Economic Restructuring

and Design committees, respectively.

All members

of the Main Street board will be appointed to new staggered terms effective

Feb. 1, the date of this week's City Council meeting. This will also require

some new appointments and reappointments to the DDA board.

Suggested terms

for Main Street board members are Gary Baumgardner, two years; Lane Brown,

three years; Nancy Price, three years; Patsy Gullett, four years; and

Robert Sprayberry, four years. All of these terms would begin Feb. 1.

In addition

to the five listed above, the DDA chairman currently Al Hovey-King and

the Historic Preservation Committee chairman Addison Lester would fill

two spots with indefinite terms, depending upon their service on the other

boards.

Under the proposed

new DDA board structure, three members would fall off in the middle of

unexpired terms: Sprayberry, Patsy Gullett and Gary McGaha. Their recommended

replacements Herbie Youngs, Mike Faulkner and Ron Hanah would require

appointment next week, along with Sarah Murphy, whose term is expiring

and is recommended for reappointment. Sam Burch and Jamie Wyatt remain

in the middle of their six-year terms.

With Sprayberry

leaving the DDA board, Hovey-King would be the only member on both boards.

This would accomplish one of the stated goals of shrinking the Main Street

board, according to city staff, which was elminating some redundancy by

having several people serving on both.

Meanwhile,

about 50 applicants have expressed an interest in the Main Street director

position vacated by Shellie Reed, who resigned in December. Interviews

should begin sometime this week, City Clerk Judy Stephens said Monday.

The next big

event scheduled for the Main Street program is the Courthouse Art Show

in May.