Nanaimo city councillors want to start moving ahead with recommendations from the mayor’s task force on recovery and resilience.
Councillors, at a governance and priorities committee meeting Monday, voted unanimously to recommend that council direct staff to report on ways the city can implement two of the recommendations of the task force, set up this past spring to find ways to foster Nanaimo’s economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Staff will report on options for a pride-of-place campaign, as well as terms of reference for a leaders’ table to generate collaboration among community leaders in business, industry, arts and other economic sectors.
The committee’s motion, put forward by Mayor Leonard Krog, calls for a pride-of-place campaign to be a “citizen-directed, City of Nanaimo community-building and reputation-strengthening campaign to generate enthusiasm from all citizens to assist in resilience and recovery through positive dialogue and engagement with each other and the world.”
Shelley Legin, general manager of corporate services, in her report to the committee, said the idea is to create positive dialogue and engagement about Nanaimo and its assets, spirit and support for recovery and resilience.
“I think it’s important to keep up momentum, particularly as the days get darker in this community both literally and figuratively and as the COVID restrictions become even more restrictive in how we operate,” Krog said. “People need something positive.”
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The other part of the motion is a recommendation for council to direct staff to report on establishing a mayor’s leaders’ table that would include a recommended composition of the table, terms of reference and general positioning within an overall governance framework.
“The leaders’ table will collaborate to determine a priority list of capital infrastructure for Nanaimo for co-ordinated ‘asks’ to multi levels of government,” noted a staff report.
The leaders’ table will also help to establish a working group or youth council made up of representatives aged 18-34 “intended to further build collaboration among key entities in Nanaimo,” the report added. Legin said the purpose of the working group/youth council would be “specifically to address an opportunity which is attraction and retention of that age bracket into Nanaimo and to be retained in Nanaimo.”
Other mayor’s task force recommendations include pursuing economic investment, supporting small businesses, promoting reconciliation and fighting racism, and prioritizing emergency preparedness.
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