Economic plan adopted

Photo: Colin Dacre

Penticton city council has signed off on a new economic development strategy for the community.

The plan mandates the city to communicate with stakeholders to build partnership to grow new and existing businesses.

“We initiated a review of our economic development strategy last year  so we could be more focused and better measure the outcomes and success moving forward,” Mayor Andrew Jakubeit said. “We met with 100 businesses one-on-one and had several with stakeholders and our task force to build the plan.”

The economic development department has gone in a new direction since new city manager Peter Weeber took over in December 2016.

Weeber cut ties with former economic development officer Colleen Pennington and brought the department under the city’s development services wing headed by Anthony Haddad.

“A major priority focus in 2018 for economic development will be investing in enhancing in communication within the community and increasing awareness of the key drivers of our local economy,” Haddad said.

“More positive messaging about how incredible is and those that make it tick will be a major theme of the work we do moving forward,” he added.

The full plan can be browsed here.