Susan Bradford, executive director of the Downtown Business Alliance of Provo, is resigning, effective July 31.

Bill Bancroft, chairman of the executive committee of the Business Alliance, said he is in the process of looking for her replacement.

"We're disappointed. It'll be a tall order to replace her," he said. Bradford's responsibilities will be temporarily taken over by her assistant, Teresa Harry, and Raquel Smith, the Public Arts program director.

Bradford, 38, has served with the business alliance since August 2001, and now plans to pursue other career opportunities in the field of marketing and community relations.

"I've been there 10 years. It's time to look for new things to do," she said. "I'll be helping my parents with their home-based wholesale book business, Valley Book Center."

Valley Book began as a retail bookstore in downtown Provo in 1975 but closed in 2000 when her parents decided to focus on building the wholesale part of the business, she said.

Prior to serving as the alliance's director, Bradford was director of its predecessor group, the Downtown Action Committee, a position she held for four years until the downtown Provo merchant association became the Downtown Business Alliance in 2001. Prior to that, she was business editor from 1995 through 1996 for the now defunct Provo Sun weekly newspapers, a division of Utah County Journal.

The timing of Bradford's resignation is suspiciously close to a funding issue that the Alliance had with Provo city. In May, the council voted 5-2 not to reinstate the property tax that funded the Alliance and its functions. During that same meeting, the council approved funding for the Alliance through September and promised to find a new funding mechanism for the organization.

Bradford said that her move from the Alliance had nothing to do with the timing. "I stayed longer than I initially planned to," she said.

Bradford also believes that the alliance will move forward steadily, and says that she thinks there is enough momentum to keep the Alliance's mission of enhancing and revitalizing downtown Provo alive.

Nathan Johnson contributed to this story.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page D1.