No path forward for SSCVA leadership after David Uran’s resignation as study for new convention center looms
One day after the head of Lake County’s tourism bureau resigned, there was no comment on how the South Shore Convention and Visitors Authority board would find a replacement.
Andy Qunell, SSCVA board chairman, declined to comment Tuesday on how the entity may proceed finding a replacement for president and CEO David Uran. Uran announced his resignation Monday, effective Dec. 31, ending his 19-month tenure at the head of the agency. His resignation comes in the wake of a Friday executive session where information about alleged misconduct was listed as the reason.
Uran on Monday said the resignation and the executive session were unrelated.
Uran was selected for the position in April 2021 after a nationwide search to find a replacement for ousted then-president and CEO Speros Batistatos produced two top candidates for the job heralding from Lake County: Uran, who was the mayor of Crown Point at the time, and Phil Taillon, executive director of planning and development for the city of Hammond. Neither had experience running a tourism bureau.
Qunell declined to comment on whether the board would conduct another nationwide search for a replacement. He also declined to comment on whether the resignation may have any impact on the bureau’s efforts to submit a proposal to run a future Lake County Convention Center.
Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Monday said he was surprised by the announcement. He said he was at three SSCVA events over the weekend and everything appeared normal.
“I know Dave’s been working real hard. I obviously reached out to him. He was a police officer for a couple decades, then mayor … I think he’s just cooked,” McDermott said, adding he thought Uran did a great job. “I’ll miss him in that role.”
McDermott said he is concerned the tourism bureau will be without a leader as efforts to locate a convention center in Lake County heat up.
“We don’t even know who’s going to be running the convention and visitors bureau,” he said, adding it could take a couple months for a replacement to be found and in the meantime, the position will be unfilled heading into the coming legislative session.
Uran said Monday that when he first took the job after being mayor of Crown Point, he thought it might not be as daunting. Instead, working with 16 municipalities and the state legislature turned out to be more so. He said he was missing too much time with his family and wanted to be able to be more present in the next phase of his children’s lives.
Former tourism bureau chief Speros Batistatos said based on his work with Uran while he was mayor, he thought he would have a grasp of what the job really was.
“I had high hopes for him. Unfortunately, he just never rose to the level that job needs to be performed at,” Batistatos said. “The job is not about one community. The job is about a vision, about creating a place people want to visit.”
Batistatos said he is hopeful the board hires a professional who understand how to run a convention and visitors bureau.
“Hopefully, their search will yield somebody with convention and visitors bureau experience that is up to the task and can amass a team this building, this organization and the destination require,” Batistatos said.
State Rep. Hal Slager, R-Schererville, who sponsored the legislation enabling the possibility for a convention center, said he has “absolutely no concerns whatsoever” the lack of a leader at the helm of the visitors’ bureau as the proposal process moves forward and doubts it will have any impact on a future convention center because the organization was written out of the legislation.
Slager said the Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority has just commissioned the update for its feasibility study identifying potential sites for a convention center. He expects the study will take approximately six months to complete.
The results of that study will form the basis for any proposals to locate a convention center. Slager said he is aware the SSCVA is planning to submit a proposal. The entity is in the process of its own study to determine what role the organization could fill if a convention center is built.
Slager said in his opinion a proposal by the convention bureau to build or operate a convention center is not a good idea.
“Their job is to market Lake County and to bring people to that convention center and to the hotels. I would hate for them to be caught up trying to manage that,” Slager said. He said there would be no purpose to accepting a proposal by the tourism bureau to run the convention center if they would just have to go out and hire somebody to do it.
“It just creates another layer of government,” Slager said, adding the legislation clearly allows for the tourism bureau to submit a proposal. He is hopeful there will be multiple proposals submitted.
Michael Repay, president of the Lake County Board of Commissioners, said that while the SSCVA was written out of the legislation, the entity will have a large role to play in its success, whether it submits a winning proposal or not. Commissioners have been chosen by the legislature to select the winning proposals.
“It’s important they select a qualified individual to lead the organization to help with this important project,” Repay said.
