Mayoral candidates offer ideas on how to support business

The five mayoral candidates for the upcoming local elections responded to how they will serve as mayor of Sault Ste. Marie.

Ozzie Grandinetti

Grandinetti says the city has been stagnant with jobs for the past 40 years, and to support the businesses that are already here he would like to lower business taxes and cut red tape.

“Small businesses are the backbone of every community in this country,” he says. “One of the biggest problems in this province is the high cost of doing business in general. The number one way to keep businesses in the community is to support what we have here and keep our taxes lower.”

Grandinetti says certain councilors have done nothing to fix an increasingly dire situation for downtown business owners, noting there is an affordable option to consider to monitor the problem and close their storefronts protection.

“Years ago, they took Sault College’s law enforcement classes around downtown as part of their course,” he says. “You would have two kids running all over downtown. I would strongly support that again. Even if you have to pay these guys minimum wage, it’s something to entice them to go out.”

Grandinetti says more needs to be done from a tourism perspective to encourage visitors to come here and support local businesses.

“Ships have recently docked, but what can people do once they disembark? If they don’t line up these people to get on the Agawa tour train, these people have nowhere to go. What can we do here in Sault Ste. Marie who will make people come here? Nobody can answer that question.”

Donna Hilsinger

In an email to sooo today, According to Hilsinger, the city needs to support its existing local businesses of all sizes and their efforts to innovate and grow their markets and revenues. She also says she would focus on diversifying the city’s economy by attracting growing industries such as clean/green energy, sustainable industry, personal services and biotechnology.

Hilsinger points out that a tourism strategy needs to be implemented to continue to support businesses that rely on out-of-towners.

“Some great things have happened in tourism in recent years,” she says. “Tourism product development is a very important part of attracting people and keeping them here longer. We need to figure out how to increase the impact of tourism on our economy and how to do that. It will take private and public investment.”

Hilsinger’s other plans include:

• Elimination of municipal bureaucracy for businesses. Remove barriers that make it easier to do business in the Sault. Adopt a customer-centric one-window approach to access city services
  
• Identify city business services that can be digitized and create an implementation plan
  
• Strategically invest in our quality of life attributes to set our city apart from our competition
  
• Update the strategic tourism plan and make an investment plan for the development of tourism products. Support the growth of local tourism products through ongoing tourism development fund investments, product development activities and business attraction
  
• Ensure our manpower can meet the needs of the businesses
  
• Check current incentives for economic development for effectiveness. Identify what should be added, discontinued or improved
  
• Support local campaigns in stores

Tobin Kern

Kern says he acknowledges that Sault has done a pretty good job of promoting the out-of-town business community, but says there are other things the city can do to support owners who rely on a local customer base.

“We can help small businesses by increasing the disposable income that people have to support those businesses,” he says. “We need to make sure there are jobs, people are employed and they have access to income.”

“If the employment rate is high, employers are likely to be pressured to pay more and then you have more disposable income that can go into the local economy,” he adds.

Kern believes a quick way to add more disposable income to the community is to invest in transit.

“If we invest in mass transit and offer an alternative where people could become a one-car family, not only would it take cars off the road and help meet climate change goals, it would.” put more money back in people’s pockets. ” he says.

Kern says some of the social issues like homelessness and addiction need to be addressed to bring stability to current business owners, especially in the downtown core.

“If you have a business, you may have increased security costs, and there may be theft costs related to property damage from crimes related to the addiction epidemic,” he says. “You have to look at the pressure these crises are putting on the city and possibly the unknown of tax increases.”

“Tackling it through policing is a short-term solution and would be expensive,” he adds.

Robert Peace

In an email to sooo today, Peace says the city needs a paradigm shift in community thinking to support and grow business in Sault.

“The community needs to pay taxes and support local businesses, and businesses need to come together and see how they can reinvest in the community they serve,” he says. “Local governments can listen to companies to see how they can make life easier and pave the way for growth so everyone wins.”

Peace wants business owners to have an easier and more logistical route to the city’s response when they request help.

“In the municipal system, we have the bureaucrats who administer bylaws and regulations, and we have politicians who need to have the time to take care of individual concerns and escalate them to the relevant departments when necessary,” he says.

“In a way, I see the mayor as an advocate for the public and business when things don’t quite fit the standard response. We need an easier way for companies to make their voices heard and a faster response to their needs,” he adds.

Peace also wants downtown and the waterfront to receive more attention when it comes to supporting businesses, especially the mall.

“We need to work with the new owner of Station Mall, who I’ve met personally, and find a way to integrate the mall with downtown and the waterfront that it was meant to be a part of, and hopefully free up some space for more living space.” , to ensure this we have a lively city center.”

Matthew Schuhmacher

Over the course of one term, Shoemaker says he would commit to increasing the community development fund from $500,000 a year to $1 million to support business expansion and retention in Sault.

“I think we can do more there by increasing the fund to further promote places like Tenaris or Algoma or on a smaller scale to help other companies offset the cost of expanding or acquiring new equipment,” says he. It’s a good checkout and available for a variety of business needs.”

While Shoemaker acknowledges the importance of attracting new businesses to the city, he explains that there is already an existing pool of employees who could work remotely in the Sault.

“In this new economy, we should make a direct effort to get employees settling here as remote workers,” he says. “I have pondered for many years that all High Court jobs in Sault Ste. Marie. This is the most obvious place I can think of for us to expand an existing workforce to include a larger number of Sault employees.”

For the past two years, Shoemaker has pushed for a pilot program for downtown streetcars, which he believes will boost tourism and ultimately help support businesses along the downtown core.

“Our downtown area is big — it’s a long way from the Canal District to the Bushplane,” he says. “But if you had a hop on hop off trolley you could stop anywhere along Queen Street. It’s a way to maximize revenue for people who are already visiting the Sault.”