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Council passes motion on economic development advisory committee

Grand Forks city council passed a motion regarding an economic development advisory committee at Monday’s council meeting.

With the days dwindling for the current city council, councillors passed a motion regarding an economic development advisory committee at Monday’s council meeting.

The motion involved the receiving of a report from Lynne Burch, the city’s CAO, regarding the potential make-up of an economic development advisory committee, terms of reference and proposed budget and adoption of a committee policy.

As part of the motion, city staff would advertise to fill positions with applications to be received by Nov. 25 – council’s liaison would be decided by the next city council.

Coun. Joy Davies opined that present council had a responsibility to ratepayers to finish what it started.

“The next councils will make their

decisions based on the information they have of the day. Some of those decisions may be to reverse the decisions of this council and that is certainly their prerogative,” Davies said.

She said that if that if council didn’t do the process now, it could slow down everything for up to six months with the new council.

However, some didn’t think that it would be prudent as it could burden the next council.

“This council cannot pre-ordain the work of the next council,” explained Coun. Chris Moslin.

“We can lay the groundwork, make our own accomplishments, show them the signs, but we can’t make up their minds for them. We should not advertise for positions in our community that we do not know are going to be filled. That could be a disaster.”

Mayor Brian Taylor also was against the motion saying that it could be dealt with on a regional level.

“The economic development advisory committee could report to the regional body, the BEDC (Boundary Economic Development Committee),” the mayor said.

“That would be the place where it would get the most attention and find the most funding and shared funding  between the region and the city.”



Karl Yu

About the Author: Karl Yu

After interning at Vancouver Metro free daily newspaper, I joined Black Press in 2010.
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