Veer defends City’s economic policies in wake of Chamber criticism

Historically, Veer says the City of Red Deer has always collaborated within the region from an economic development perspective in terms of marketing central Alberta as an ideal place for new business and business attraction.

“Having said that, it’s also important that the City distinguish ourselves in that we continue to make the City of Red Deer more business friendly,” she said, “so that we’re not losing business but that we’re keeping the businesses that we have and we’re attracting new economic development to our city.”

In a column published on rdnewsNOW on July 23, Reg Warkentin with the Red Deer and District Chamber of Commerce said local entrepreneurs are “continually thwarted and frustrated by the tax cost and administrative burden placed upon them.”

However, over the past couple of years Veer says the City has kept taxation consistent with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) or cost-of-living.

“Having said that, we always aspire to do better,” she admits. “We’ve adopted a culture of continuous improvement at the City and we’ve tasked our administration to find substantial operational innovations and efficiencies within the budget. We’ve also commissioned a series of value-for-money audits on City operations to look at not only the services we deliver but the quality of services and to find financial efficiencies, as well as service efficiencies.”

Veer says it’s also important to note a tax differential that exists between the City, the County and many neighbouring municipalities, something she says will be discussed with the Chamber.

“The Province pays their policing costs and they have voluntary fire service,” explains Veer. “Those two areas are some of the most significant portions of the City budget and it is a systemic inequity that every urban municipality across the province wants the Provincial government to address.”

Warkentin also took aim at how the City of Red Deer develops land. Specifically, he cited the new Capstone neighbourhood in the Riverlands District where little activity has taken place since a ribbon cutting in August 2017.

However, Veer says Capstone is a vision 20-25 years in the making, with land preparation being the main focus over the past couple of years.

“We have now launched the marketing of those lands which was long-awaited in the community and we were very pleased to be able to bring those lands to market. The unfortunate part is when it was finally ready to go to market was presumably at one of the lowest points of the recession,” she shares.

Veer says there has been some interest from private investors in Capstone, along with some new business relocations and modernization projects.

“I know our economic development staff often do receive inquiries and that will be the focus of their work in the former train station (building) as a gateway to Capstone. While it is slow, market uptake in general is very slow right now but we do still feel confident that the vision of Capstone holds true and eventually we will see the private sector respond to the public sector investments that have been made to date.”

by Sheldon Spackman

Veer defends City’s economic policies in wake of Chamber criticism

What's Trending