Editor:
Innovation, council's word of the year has again surfaced in the name of Sechelt Innovations Ltd., the District's newly minted, wholly owned business development corporation.
It is to be funded to the tune of $300,000: half diverted directly from District funds with the other half diverted from community forest accounts and therefore unavailable to fund other District needs. This new expenditure is over and above the recently reported deficit.
Council's stated theory is that Sechelt Innovations will, over the first year of operation, seek out and attract at least three new businesses to Sechelt, which will create at least thirty new jobs.
If successful and the new businesses compete directly with existing businesses they will simply re-divide the economic pie, producing smaller slices for all. If they supply goods or services new to the Coast, they will compete for currently spent discretionary dollars. If they supply an off-coast market, they will need to overcome the costs of travel and transport due to our ferry-bound location and will likely seek incentives from Council to offset the costs of relocating to Sechelt, which would in turn be subsidized by existing taxpayers.
There are limited ways for the District to recoup Sechelt Innovations' expenditures. Business property taxes are the most direct. $300,000 is equivalent to a 4.25 per cent across-the-board tax increase and would require the creation of about $17 million dollars in new business property values to break even.
However, property taxes do not capture the value of the necessary equipment housed within or the talent employed by the newly attracted businesses, without which they cannot function.
So realistically, Sechelt Innovations would have to attract new business investment well in excess of $17 million just to cover its first year start-up costs.
That may prove to be a rather tall order.
Jef Keighley
Halfmoon Bay
