[0:56] Okay, I'll uh call to order the special
council meeting. Um is this being
[1:02] recorded? No,
>> live stream.
[1:04] » Oh, live stream. Okay, so right. Okay,
so this is recording live on YouTube. Um
[1:11] I'll uh we have some late we have late
item. Um,
[1:17] this corporate [snorts] officer, go
ahead.
[1:21] » Okay. So, I'm adding that laid item. I
sent an email to everybody talk about
[1:26] the RDS's request for a letter of
support.
[1:31] We'll do that at 4.2.
Um, so first, uh, motion to, uh, approve
[1:37] the agenda.
Uh, councelor Vel and councelor
[1:41] Barkwell. All in favor carries. and 4.1
permissive tax exemption and uh
[1:49] who's this is just for adoption. So
motion to adopt council va councelor
[1:55] trainer all in favor that carries and
then um the RDS request for a letter. I
[2:03] sent an email out to everybody last
night if you had a chance to look at
[2:06] that. Um, basically they're
[clears throat]
[2:10] they're looking for um
for a um a grant to hire a regional
[2:18] economic development coordinator
and uh they're asking the municipalities
[2:24] to participate. It would the commitment
would from us would be $10,000 a year
[2:29] for three years. Um
we do know they're asking all the
[2:35] municipalities. We do know um a soy use
um has declined to participate. So I
[2:43] don't know what that means for the other
municipalities.
[2:46] Probably be we'd have to pay more. Um
it's uh it has been discussed at the RDS
[2:53] quite a bit including in strate
strategic planning last week. Um there's
[2:59] a lot of disagreement I would say on the
RDS board about the role of this person
[3:06] and the role of having a regional
coordinator as opposed to uh economic
[3:12] development for each specific kind of uh
community in rural areas. Um,
[3:20] so my my my feeling is um that $10,000
is could be put to better use here in
[3:30] the community. Um, councelor Barkwell
might have a his own perspective. He's
[3:35] listened to all these discussions at the
RDS table as well. I don't want to put
[3:39] you on the spot, but um but uh so we I
just put it out there and if someone
[3:44] wants to um you know, we just need to
decide whether we want to give them a
[3:49] letter of support or not. Basically, a
letter of support would mean we're
[3:53] committing to that 10,000 for for 3
years. Uh council trainer,
[3:59] » what kind of um jobs would this person
do in terms of like how what would
[4:03] Summerland um get from it?
>> Don't know. We don't know. Okay. So, we
[4:09] don't really know what the job would
look like or what kind of tasks they
[4:12] would be doing in terms of examples of
economic development that would benefit
[4:16] the whole region.
>> Well, it's it says it says here that
[4:21] they uh it would support local
businesses in the workforce, conduct
[4:26] strategic planning and data tracking,
strengthen rural and regional
[4:29] competitiveness,
[4:32] which doesn't really tell you a whole
lot. Yeah. Councelor Malin.
[4:39] » Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'd like to hear
from our liaison. Uh,
[4:44] please.
[4:48] » Well, my personal view is that um it's
really hard to quantify the value of uh
[4:55] economic development. Everybody always
says, "Oh, you need to have, you know,
[4:59] somebody promoting economic
development." and and I am always kind
[5:03] of skeptical of that [clears throat]
and what can they really accomplish. And
[5:08] then even on a on a regional district
scale, I'm thinking what do we have in
[5:13] common with Princeton as far as economic
development goes, [gasps]
[5:17] but there may be [sighs]
things that come up that are specific to
[5:23] Summerland that we can,
you know, ask them to do. It's kind of
[5:28] reminds me of the our community lees on
officer. She's partly funded by the
[5:34] regional district. So, she's helping out
here in Summerland. It's, you know, she
[5:39] doesn't ignore us uh when we're I'm
working on setting up the citizens on
[5:43] patrol. So, something like that could
come up. So, since it's such a small
[5:48] amount and then it's going to be
leveraged up by grant money, um I could
[5:53] go along with this one myself.
[5:59] uh councelor Pete
>> um I'm concerned that we wouldn't get
[6:04] that much value out it out of it at this
stage and the other thing being the
[6:09] world competitiveness.
I some might argue that this is a time
[6:14] to have somebody that goes and looks for
things, but I think there's a settling
[6:19] out that's going to happen over the next
2 3 years. And I don't think the timing
[6:23] would be right for doing an economic
development officer at the RDOS level or
[6:27] our own.
[6:33] » Councelor Betts,
>> um, thanks for the opportunity to speak
[6:37] and think about this. I I can see where
the other comments are coming from. Uh,
[6:40] one of the things that I will note um,
came up at UBCM was the discussions from
[6:45] our um, kind of northern regions, how
they seem to be getting more and more
[6:49] organized in um, in [sighs]
developing the resource um, industries
[6:57] up north and really accessing large
amounts of both government funding and
[7:02] um, connections and capacity building
with First Nations that kind of needed
[7:07] an in between a liaison, which it seemed
And um there are lots of opportunities
[7:12] to engage um private companies for that
though that would come at a cost of more
[7:16] than $10,000 for um the District of
Summerland. Um
[7:24] I honestly I don't I don't have enough
context to commit $10,000 to this.
[7:31] I just read it five minutes ago.
[7:36] » Melvin,
no. I can't support it either. I just
[7:40] don't see the,
you know, I can see a need. There's
[7:44] there's no doubt in my mind. I think we
could use someone in that capacity, but
[7:50] how do you control it? You know, like
they're doing a project in Princeton,
[7:53] they're doing a project in
Soyuse, and we need, you know, someone
[8:00] here helping us at that time. Like, how
do how does this person
[8:05] how do you deal with that? and you know
so I'm not willing to put up the money
[8:09] at this point in time.
[8:14] » Okay. Well, we
do we need a resolution on the table uh
[8:20] or
>> we
[8:24] and then that would mean we do nothing.
>> Yeah.
[8:31] » Okay. So, we need a councelor Benz.
>> Um thank you. I think the only thing
[8:37] that I would offer is just
um in order to secure this funding from
[8:43] communities just a slightly more
developed idea about what that role and
[8:49] value [clears throat] would be to this
region and that we could get behind it
[8:53] but I just think that it's still in the
fleshing out fa phase which is going to
[8:56] take everybody's $10,000 and to get
organized.
[9:01] Well, this is exactly the kind of issue
the issue I have is that even uh on the
[9:06] RDS board there isn't a consensus of
what it would do. It's one of those
[9:10] situations. Well, here's an opportunity
for a grant. Let's apply for it and then
[9:14] figure it out afterwards. and and that's
why there's there's not consensus on the
[9:20] RDS board about um about the need you
know the need and and what such a person
[9:26] would do and and big debate about you
know a regional officer versus you know
[9:33] narata would like to have its own so um
that's um none of that was resolved
[9:44] um okay so would somebody like to bring
this forward for information. Councelor
[9:48] Trainer, Councelor Van Alen, second. Any
further discussion? I'll call the
[9:53] question. All in favor?
And none opposed? That carries.
[9:59] And a motion to adjourn this special
council meeting. Council Nelson,
[10:03] councelor Barkwell. All in favor? That
carries.