Lacking external funding Elliot Lake Council decided to use the city's own working reserves fund to pay for the local COVID-19 business recovery effort.
At Monday night's Elliot Lake virtual City Council meeting, City Clerk Natalie Bray read out the amended motion designed to make that happen.
"That the Business Recovery Task Force create the Business Restart Project managed by ELNOS and that local business will be reopening in compliance with public health measures, and that the City of Elliot Lake make a contribution of an upset limit of $50,000 towards the Business Restart Project be sourced from the Working Funds Reserve in order to meet the immediate needs of the business community," the motion said.
Elliot Lake Economic Development Coordinator Ashten Vlahovich told council the money the city had hoped to track from the province's Business Continuity Fund for that purpose is no longer available to Elliot Lake.
She said it would take time to go back to Queen's Park to source out money from another funding program.
"We could apply to their Capacity Building Program, although it's not a perfect fit,” Vlahovich said. “My only concern would be timeliness. Those can take, you know, 60 to 90 days, and depending on the board meetings, and I'm sure they would probably be expediting things right now. But we can't guarantee that, right? So, I think, for this project, if it's not funded at this point, we would lose the timeliness."
Councillor Tom Turner said the city should set the money available to support individual businesses to get going after the COVID-19 lockdown to start at $50,000. He added it would be up to ELNOS, lead by the non- profit agency's Manager, William Elliot, to decide where the money goes.
"It's granted to ELNOS. They only have so much to use and so deciding for them how much anybody could get really doesn't make much sense," Turner said.
"There's micro businesses and there's bigger businesses, each requiring different amounts of money if they're to access this,” Turner also said. “So, let's leave that to the group through ELNOS and move on."
"I believe it was in the original ask,” Councillor Sandy Finamore said. “For businesses that are looking to open next week that can't open if they don't get it; I'm not going to get into micromanaging, but I'm just wondering, like barbers and hairdressers and stuff like that, who haven't done anything yet to open. They're going to need to be protected because they're more up close and personal services."
Councillor Luc Cyr expressed concern over the spread of the money.
"My only worry is that large businesses may end up getting most of the funding and small businesses won't have anything left for them,” Cyr said. “I want to protect the small businesses that aren't even open yet. I want to make sure that it has access for everybody."
In light of the urgency of the situation, with a number of businesses approved for re-opening on Friday June 12, council decided that the start up fund be sourced to tune of up to $50,000 from the city's working reserves.
Applications for funding can be directed to ELNOS. The agency's office is located at 31 Scotia Walk. Manager William Elliott can be reached at (705) 848-0229 (ext. 237) or by email at [email protected].