qathet Regional District directors will be considering economic development issues at a future meeting.
At the August 13 regional board committee of the whole meeting, directors reviewed correspondence from Island Coastal Economic Trust, which turned down an application by the regional district for funds to study economic development. A motion to receive the letter was made.
Chief administrative officer Al Radke said assuming the motion to receive the correspondence passed, he requested the board give staff direction on this strategy priority. He said it is part of the strategic plan.
“We have a couple of options,” said Radke. “We could put it off to the next strategic session to discuss it more thoroughly. We had asked for $30,000 from the Island Coastal Economic Trust (ICET) to continue with this project.
“If you believe in the project, sometimes you have to bite the bullet and fund projects on your own because grant funding doesn’t come through. We could look at community works funds to shore up what ICET is not allowing us.”
Radke said because the board has this on its strategic plan, and if it’s important to the board, there could be consideration to funding it internally.
City director George Doubt said when he looked at the letter, it’s a rejection of the regional district’s application for an economic development readiness grant. He said while ICET rejects the grant, a couple of suggestions are made. He said one encourages the board to pursue economic development in a different way.
“It might be a reasonable thing to do to discuss this at a strategic planning session and perhaps strengthen the board’s position on what we want to do about economic development, and increase the possibility of grants in the future,” said Doubt.
Electoral Area B director Mark Gisborne said to spend $30,000 to bring in an out-of-town consultant, he’s not sure if that would be of benefit to the community.
“We are a unique and isolated community and that money would probably be better spent engaging with our community,” said Gisborne. “They most likely have ideas already for where we should go with economic development. I’m just a little concerned or apprehensive to spend that kind of money to do more studies. During COVID-19, people are looking for action.”
Electoral Area E director Andrew Fall said he agreed with Doubt in terms of future strategic planning. He said there has been a lot of discussion around economic development and the board may want to fund certain aspects.
“We need to talk about it first,” said Fall. “That would be a good way to go forward.”
Radke said he’d been in conversation with a facilitator and a strategic planning session could happen in early October.
Committee of the whole chair and Electoral Area D director Sandy McCormick said she also thinks the board needs to have discussion about this and that an October timeline is “pretty reasonable.”
The committee voted to receive the letter and carried a motion to refer the matter to a future strategic planning session.
