Unspent money would be used to promote shopping locally, attracting investment and off-season visitation

ADAM BRAMBURGER

STAFF WRITER

The County’s community and economic development commission will be spending some of its budget surplus in hopes of diving more visits and sales to local businesses.

When the commission decided not to participate in the Bay of Quinte regional marketing board earlier this year, it freed up $13,000 that had been earmarked for membership. On Monday, director of community development Neil Carbone asked for some of the money to be reallocated.

“We’re recommending some of those dollars — up to $10,000 — be spent in an investment attraction campaign, a shop local campaign, and an attraction campaign for off-season visitation. We know those are three areas we are trying to seek more investment and involvement.”

Carbone said the shop local campaign was particularly timely given the upcoming holiday season.  He envisioned the campaign complementing similar efforts by the Picton BIA and 99.3 County FM with radio and digital ads in the local market. He said County staff already had some scripted ads ready to go ahead if supported by commissioners.

Commissioner Dianne O’Brien opposed the idea.

“I’m not going to support this. I do support a shop local initiative,” she said. “Actually, the $10,000, I don’t think we should spend it just because we have it. We took it from taxpayers a year ago and we didn’t spend it. The taxpayers had to pay that.  I think it should go back in the coffers. If we want to do a “shop local” campaign, which I do support, we can put it in the 2018 budget and go ahead at that time.”

Commissioner Adam Busscher wasn’t certain about timing.

“The concern I have is about spending the money now — of course I’m a big supporter of “shop local,” I’m a local retailer — but this should have been on the agenda in September. We’re now at Nov. 26 today and our selling season now is only three weeks away. Unless this is ready to go today, it could be $10,000 wasted.”

Carbone reminded commissioners the “shop local” message was just one of three and reaffirmed digital and radio ads could be ready within the week. He also advocated for the spending.

“Yes, in terms of holiday shopping, a lot of people will start earlier, but I still think there’s a ton of last-minute shopping and we will be in market with those messages at that time,” he said. “This reinforces the idea of shopping local even when the holiday season is over. Around shoulder tourism and investment attraction, there isn’t a bad time to be rolling those things out.”

He said his department hadn’t planned a campaign at this time, but felt allocating the surplus would achieve a corporate strategic plan objective to support local business and through branding, it could raise profile for the commission through a tagline in the advertising. It would also serve to “kick start” future campaigns being planned by the department.

O’Brien didn’t agree with the wording stating the message was “brought to you by the community and economic development commission” She said credit belongs to the taxpayer. While Lynn Sullivan said she was “in favour of spending that money to stimulate the economy at this time” she suggested the branding should be consistent and specific, like the Visit The County brand.

Carbone didn’t object to a change.

“Staff still feels its appropriate and accomplishes some things, but it doesn’t change the message if it’s not attributed to the commission specifically. If that’s something you feel more comfortable with, it’s very easy for us to make that change.”

He added the attribution is only really necessary on radio.

Ultimately, the commission supported the fund reallocation and agreed to provide further direction to staff on the issue of attribution. One suggestion was to simply attribute the messages to the County.