The Town of Canmore plans to continue collecting business registry fees and funding economic development work on its own in 2017 – including event support and developing a broadband master plan – after Canmore Business and Tourism pulled out of a contract to provide those services for the municipality.
The business registry is established by bylaw and funds collected through it are dedicated to economic development efforts in the community. The registry typically collects $320,000 annually and since 2012 those funds have been used to contract CBT to provide economic development services.
But CBT announced this summer it would cease operations as a destination marketing organization, which meant it could no longer deliver on its contracted services to the municipality.
Without a contract to provide the service, Town CAO Lisa de Soto said business registry fees would then go into the economic development reserve, which council can use to fund work considered economic development.
That includes a project in the draft 2017 capital budget to prepare a broadband master plan for $60,000 to be funded out of the economic development reserve. According to the project summary, the Town would engage an outside consultant to investigate the feasibility of providing municipally-owned fibre optic-based broadband Internet access in Canmore.
General manager of municipal infrastructure Michael Fark said a broadband project was being considered by CBT before it could no longer deliver economic development services and could be considered a project to be funded from the economic development reserve because it would support local business by improving the productivity of existing businesses, and maybe attract new ones.
“In terms of ways to spend economic development funding, this may be one of the most effective ways,” Fark said.
Event support is also being proposed as an area of economic development in the operational budget, which is a change. In the past, it has been considered part of the arts and events department.
“Arts and events have come before council with a number of delegations over the past few weeks to request event support,” said Fark. “What we are proposing is moving $50,000 into the council budget for 2017 and 2018 and offset that with a draw from the economic development reserve.”
Fark said the suggestion is that business registry fees that go into the economic development reserve could fund future event requests.
“We have the opportunity this year to do that because of our cessation of the contract with Canmore Business and Tourism,” he said. “While we work with the community and business partners to see what comes next for economic development and destination marketing, we will continue to collect business registry fees and those revenues will be directed towards the economic development reserve.”
Supporting special events has been an area of destination marketing and economic development that has had crossover between the municipality and CBT.
For example, it was the Town of Canmore’s arts and events department that was tasked with creating a winter carnival to go along with two world cup racing events that took place earlier in 2016 at the Canmore Nordic Centre.
But the winter carnival as an event wasn’t just for the community, it was also meant to attract visitors to the community to attend the races and get those already attending into the downtown core instead of staying at the Nordic Centre.
Organizers from both events appeared in front of council prior to their being held and requested municipal support through funding and that the Town host an event during both the cross-country and biathlon world cups.
The major event undertaking was not without a cost to staff time and resources, as the municipality cancelled the annual fall festival of eagles, Wild, and the annual lantern parade as a result, according to general manager of municipal services Sally Caudill.
“That event took quite a toll on our staff, so it definitely had a downside and there are important learnings going forward,” she said.
The Wild event will return in 2017, said Caudill, but the budget has removed the children’s art show and employee art show, funding for sister city work with Higashikawa and increased funds for Aboriginal Day.
Additional funds were put into the department’s operational budget for contracted services to support Canada and New Year’s Eve event work, said Caudill.
De Soto told council administration hopes to develop an application process for third party events to request funding from the municipality each year.
But in the past, CBT has recommended against supporting events over the summer months, something councillors were curious about when it comes to the municipal process.
The CAO said CBT’s rationale behind the recommendation not to support summer events – or propose additional events – is that hotels are fully occupied and there is no additional benefit for that sector.
“But certainly there are economic spinoffs in other areas,” she said. “Maybe the hotels are full, but the restaurants and retailers may still enjoy that increased traffic. Whether or not there is an eligibility restriction is up to council.”
An event funding process is expected to be considered by council next year, including eligibility. As for this year, de Soto said administration would make a separate recommendation to council regarding event funding support as part of the budget process.
