Consultants report on Economic Development in Frontenac County

Jeff Green | Jan 06, 2021

Ian Shelley, of Blackline consulting, presented the broad strokes of a report he prepared for Frontenac County, to a meeting of Frontenac County Council on December 16.

His review of the delivery of economic development across Frontenac was paid for by the provincial government’s Municipal Modernization Program fund.

He said at the start of his presentation that his study was “not about the specific economic development campaigns that the county should conduct” but more about the capacity of the department to deliver economic development. The study was tasked with answering two questions: “What are the economic development activities that the County of Frontenac is best positioned to deliver?” and “What is the model to ensure the most effective delivery” of those activities.

He told Council that his report includes a list of 20 economic development activities and with a department of 2, Frontenac County needs to determine which of those activities they should focus on.

In his analysis of how county economic development staff have been spending their time, he identified “just three [activities] that occupy 75% of the team’s time”. Those activities are assisting small business (25%), providing/receiving grants (25%) and planning building infrastructure [K&P Trail construction] 25%.

He said that the Frontenac Community Futures Development Corporation (FCFDC) a federally funded not for profit corporation, also provides support for small business, and the county could reallocate that time. Also, K&P Trail construction and maintenance could be accomplished by the local townships or an outside contractor under contract from Frontenac County.

If those measures are implemented, it would free up half of the time that each of the two members of the department have available each week. Richard Allen, the manager of the department, spends half his time on trail development, and Alison Vandervelde, the Community Development Officer, spends half of her time providing business support.

By freeing up that time, Shelley said that the department would be more able to focus on activities that support investment attraction. The department could also focus on a more regional approach and on coordination with member municipalities who are developing their own economic development functions and provide more effort to elevate the marketing effort for the K&P Trail, which is a potential driver of economic development.

He said that the first thing that Frontenac County and its member municipalities should look at, is to “confirm a clear statement of economic development objectives”. That way, he said, it will be possible to measure outcomes of activities in a more useful way.

In preparing his report, Ian Shelley consulted county and township politicians and staff as well as 8 stakeholder organisations in Frontenac County and the City of Kingston, and looked at what some other similar sized county level economic development departments do.

In receiving the report at their December 16 meeting, members of Frontenac County said they would be looking at the recommendations in the new year with a view towards implementing its findings.

Central Frontenac Mayor Frances Smith said that her township council will need to consider the report because the report talks about transferring responsibility for trail management to the local level, and about an economic development effort at the local level as well.

“The report says, locally we should have some economic development capacity, and then there is the trail infrastructure piece. I understand why these things are being looked at, but I don’t know that we would have the ability to do them in Central Frontenac,” she said.