Last week, it was announced that the Township of Lake of Bays received $182,457 through FedNor’s Community Investment Initiative for Northern Ontario (CIINO) program to hire a dedicated economic development officer (EDO) for a three-year period to implement key economic development and growth initiatives for the municipality, leading to increased business investment, job creation, and regional collaboration and partnerships.
Some key projects to be undertaken by the EDO include implementing waterfront development and investment readiness strategies, launching economic development and downtown revitalization plans, as well as coordinating tourism events for the partner communities (Dwight, Hillside, Baysville and Dorset).
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It would be nice to see, at the end of the three years, if the costs noted here, plus any other costs accrued to do actual work on projects over this time are actually balanced out by income generated by this whole process. This is a hard thing to quantify but an attempt should be made because this money from FedNor… well it is not a free item. It is one of two things. (1) It is your tax money coming back at you from a different direction. You already paid it to some government or other long ago. or (2) it represents more debit being taken on by some level of government somewhere, a debit that you will be paying back at some future date. Yes for sure plus interest!