Invest North Bay President George Burton is hoping for a good year, and a letter obtained by BayToday indicates his wish may be coming true.
Burton writes in a letter to Mayor Al McDonald dated Jan.18 that he wanted to provide context and clarity to a $10 million request a week earlier.
See: Invest North Bay wants additional $2.5 million for four years from council
Burton suggests it would be "prudent" to provide an update.
"The update is at a general level due to the confidentially requirements and non-disclosure agreements that are in place with companies who are considering establishing a presence in North Bay and existing companies who may be considering relocating to North Bay," writes Burton to McDonald.
"As of today there are nine projects (companies) at various stages of their decision-making process. At this point in time, it is unclear if the requested allocation will be required for the projects but we must be ready to move quickly should the opportunities arise."
Invest North Bay is looking for $10 million dollars from the city over the next four years to "finalize new investments in the city consistent with its mission and mandate."
Burton made the request in a letter dated Jan. 14 and addressed to David Euler, interim CAO, and Margaret Karpenko, North Bay's Chief Financial Officer.
Burton Bay told BayToday that the allocation will be used to make it attractive to bring companies to North Bay.
"Should the allocation not be used it gets rolled over so the fund continues to increase. Our hope is we are spending this money every year in direct investments with companies."
"A lot of work goes on behind the scenes and we all wish we were talking about all the great deals we were able to facilitate but it is a long game, a slow game and everybody wants results tomorrow, including the board. It's a tough game and very competitive. We're hoping that 2019 is going to be a very good news year for the city. My hope is 2019 is better than 2018 and we're really optimistic."
"Our experience over the past two years has been that we need to have access to enough funds to make a meaningful difference to tip the investment in our favour. To make a difference you are looking at more than a million dollars. If you look at the small to medium-sized companies we are looking to attract, somewhere in the neighbourhood of a million dollars plus and something less than two and a half seems to be the sweet spot for these companies and that's why I've asked council to make this allocation."
BayToday reached out to Mayor McDonald, who is also on the Invest North Bay board, for comment but received no reply.
