Council revolt over economic development fizzles before it starts

Jeff Green | Nov 02, 2016

As the leader of a revolution, North Frontenac Mayor Ron Higgins has turned out to be a little gun shy.

At the regular meeting of Frontenac County Council in Sharbot Lake on October 19, Higgins put forward a notice of motion to suspend the hiring process for a new economic development officer for the county, even though the job had been advertised and a short list of candidates had even been selected.

The county’s current economic development officer, Anne Marie Young, will be retiring at the end of the year. She recently received the award for Developer of the Year by the Ontario East Economic Development Commission, and just this week she accepted an award in Saskatoon on behalf of the county from the Economic Developers Association of Canada for the #INFrontenac brand that was introduced this past July.

Higgins’ notice of motion led to a special meeting to be called this week, on November 2, to discuss the economic development officer position and the possibility of contracting out the functions of the office instead of hiring a new person.

Higgins was not alone in questioning the new position. Earlier in that October 19 meeting, both Deputy Warden Ron Vandewal and Frontenac Islands Councilor Natalie Nossal talked about contracting out economic development in the context of a debate about providing an emergency grant to help the Frontenac Community Futures Development Corporation (FCFDC).

Nossal and Vandewal voted against the grant, not because they do not support the FCFDC, but because they thought it might be better to contract out economic development to the FCFDC, thus providing a boost to the agency and saving the county the need to hire a new person to run the department.

Ron Higgins is a former member of the board of directors of the FCFDC, an unpaid position.

However, this week, Higgins said in an interview with Elliot Ferguson of the Whig Standard that his “concerns were addressed after talking with [Frontenac County CAO Kelly] Pender and seeing the external job posting for the position.”

He also indicated that he probably would support the position when it comes to a vote.

CAO Pender prepared a report for that special meeting, and included the job description for the economic development officer.

In his report, Pender noted that earlier in her tenure, Anne Marie Young spent as much as 50% of her time working on bringing the K&P Trail project to fruition, and also spent a lot of time supporting sustainability initiatives, including community engagement, following the release of the Directions for Our Future document. He also said that working on trail development has decreased to 25% of Young's time in the past 18 months as the project nears completion, and work on sustainability initiatives has decreased with the folding of the county sustainability committee and the transfer of 100% of federal gas tax funds to member municipalities.

Focus for the role has shifted to the development and implementation of a new economic charter, working with businesses and local and regional governments on economic development initiatives, and other related tasks.

Pender’s report also provided a comparison between the contracting out model and an in-house hire for the position.

The comparison came out strongly in favour of the in-house model in terms of direct oversight and transparency, although it provided no detail to support some of its assertions. For example, Pender’s report said that the contracting model would result in “no direct reporting to the council or the public” and that “grants to individual businesses can be made discretion of the board” of the contracting agency.

(For the results of the vote on contracting out of economic development services, which took place on November 2, look to Frontenacnews.ca or our Facebook or Twitter feeds)

Update - By a vote of 5 to 2, Council supported a motion to proceed with hiring an Economic Development Officer. Ron Vandewal cast both the nay votes (He has two votes on council by virtue of being the Mayor of South Frontenac, which contributes 70% of county taxes.)