Economic development services will soon return to City Hall, and tourism won’t be far behind.
City manager Amber Smale told the Mercury last week the City has been working with the Estevan Chamber of Commerce to transition economic development back to the City. The move is expected to be finished before the end of July.
“A lot of the stuff we're doing between now and the year end will be to set ourselves up for doing economic development differently in 2016, so we'll be doing a lot of foundational pieces that will help to define our way moving forward,” said Smale.
The City has contracted the chamber to handle economic development and tourism since the late 1990s. In 2014, the City contributed $250,000 to the chamber. The City’s funding for 2015 for the first half of the year will be $125,000.
It’s not known whether the City will be spending more than $250,000 on economic development and tourism once they become in-house departments, but Smale said the $250,000 figure will remain in future budgets, pending council’s annual deliberations.
Smale says the City has an obligation to foster economic growth, regardless of whether economic development is handled in-house or externally.
She believes the time is right to bring the portfolios back to City Hall.
The City will create a policy and research analyst position to focus on economic development. Manpreet Sangha, who currently serves as the economic development officer at the Estevan Chamber of Commerce, will be filling the new position.
She is currently the only chamber employee scheduled to make the transition to the City.
As part of the City’s corporate reorganization, a department will be redefined as growth and development, which will be led by a director. It will likely be implemented in the new year.
Once economic development and tourism move in-house, the City will also add a marketing and communications person.
Strategies will also be in place with the City to make economic development and tourism viable within Estevan.
Tourism will undergo its transition once the Visitor Information Centre west of the city limits closes in September.
“Then we're going to work on some strategies around community branding and tourism in general,” said Smale. “Right now it seems to be more focused on tours of the mine and local tourism, and we want to focus on bringing in people from outside of Estevan to enjoy the amenities here.”
Sites beyond the city limits aren't always promoted effectively in the province, Smale said. She cited geographical features as an example.
“We have some great hills for ATVing that could be promoted,” said Smale. “We could assist in promoting our events differently.”
Smale says Estevan has been in a unique position among Saskatchewan cities because it contracted the two portfolios out to the Chamber of Commerce. She added it’s typically not a service that would fall within a chamber’s domain.
“There's no perfect model for economic development,” said Smale. “It's done differently in almost every centre.”
In some communities, it's an in-house service. Other centres leave it to an arms-length organization.
“I can't say, really, that this will be our final model either,” said Smale. “We're going to take this on for now and see how it's working.”
Smale said the business community will be engaged in the changes, so she hopes they will see better support for what they need in the workforce and the marketplace.
She believes this will be beneficial for the business sector and tourism.
As part of these changes, a citizen survey will happen within the City before the end of the year, to inform the City and council what the community thinks of the current services provided in Estevan, and feelings of Estevan in general. She expects it could happen in the late summer or early fall.
“At the same level, it will invite information from people outside of Estevan, on what they know about Estevan, and why they would or wouldn't come here to visit,” said Smale.
The information will also help during the budget process, she said, because council and department heads will know whether they're focused on what the public wants.
The survey will also lead to a community branding initiative, which will focus on how the City brands itself locally and in the business world. It will look at the City’s current logo, among other things.
“Both of those pieces have a heavy public consultation piece to them, so the public and stakeholders will be engaged in those two processes,” said Smale.
Then the City will move into a tourism strategy, which will promote Estevan as not only a place to visit, but also a city to work in and live. All those components will tie into an economic development strategy, which she hopes can be finished by the end of the year.
Smale also suggested engaging the Conference Board of Canada into an economic study specific to Estevan.
There had been speculation that the City would assume control of economic development and tourism on January 1, 2016, but Smale said it was never a firm date. Her expectation was to have these changes implemented by the fall, and they're on target.
