Chuck Peters, ICAD board chairman.

The goal of a meeting set for the Cedar Rapids Metro Economic Alliance and the Iowa City Area Development Group  (ICAD)  next month will be to determine “how to be better together,” said Chuck Peters, ICAD board chairman.

As part of an “exploratory conversation” requested by Metro Economic Alliance and ICAD investors, the economic-development agencies will meet Nov. 19 at the Kirkwood Center to discuss ways to improve how they recruit new businesses, grow existing companies and foster startups, he said.

In a letter announcing the meeting, Peters noted the agencies and investors would discuss “ways to better coordinate efforts between the organizations up to and including some sort of merger.”

“We need to rethink how we do economic development,” said Peters, president and chief executive officer of SourceMedia Group, parent company of The Gazette.