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Updated: September 23, 2009 4:55 PM
The Hope Economic Development Steering Committee has moved into stage two with the hiring of Lion’s Gate Consulting to compile a plan aimed at kick starting Hope’s ailing economy.
“This will be a comprehensive plan that will include “step by step actions and priorities,” says Mayor Laurie French.
Without a solid plan in place as a community “we continue to waffle back and forth in which way we should go, and without professional help,” from a company like Lion’s Gate “nothing gets done.”
Currently, says the mayor, the district is not sustainable. “We are getting further and further behind in our infrastructure needs and upgrades.” Without building the tax base, through building the local economy, the weight of the infrastructure needs falls too heavily on the residential homeowner, notes the mayor.
“I am not saying that we wouldn’t raise taxes, sometimes it can’t be helped, but a broader tax base allows us to relieve the pressure on the homeowner – they are getting maxed out.”
The consulting company was hired after an extensive search by the committee members including chair Earl Rowe and councillors Scott Medlock and Peter Robb, “The committee has moved along very quickly.”
The mayor expects that the report will be completed by the end of the year.
Initial goals of the company are to provide council with a community background and analysis, an analysis of local opportunities, specific economic goals and strategies, recommendations on a delivery model for ongoing economic development, identification of resources to help finance identified opportunities, as well as a full report and presentation of the plan to council.
The general public will have only one opportunity to give input into the plan through a survey that was delivered by mail last week.
However, a broad base and “extensive list” of stakeholders in the community have also been identified and the consultant will be meeting with those people to gain further local input, adds French.
In hoping to encourage the public to take advantage of the survey opportunity, the mayor asks residents not to see it as another “be there, done that… and it didn’t do any good” situation.
And if you misplaced your copy there are more at the district hall and soon to be on-line at the www.hope.ca, reminds French.
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