Huntsville mayor Claude Doughty and town councillor Mike Greaves say they are concerned about creating another layer of “redundancy” by having a new tourism and economic development agency or corporation created at the district level.

The two voiced their concerns at the Nov. 17 Huntsville council meeting, when councillors were discussing the minutes from the Oct. 28 economic development committee meeting.

At the Oct. 28 meeting, District of Muskoka director of policy and programs Samantha Hastings had presented the committee with a report on the second phase of the district’s economic strategy, currently being worked on as part of the municipality’s official plan review.

“We asked the question, ‘Should the district have a greater role in economic development?’ and through Phase 1, the consultations, the answer we heard was, ‘Yes.’ So what we focused our report on (was) if we were to have a greater role, what should that role be?” Hastings told the Forester Monday.

In the report entitled “Preliminary Strategic Directions” prepared by the firm Malone Given Parsons, three options for expanding the district’s planning and economic development function were presented: the first involves the creation of two advisory committees, one for economic development, one for tourism; the second involves the creation of an economic and tourism development corporation with the two advisory committees reporting to it; and the third involves an economic development advisory committee and a tourism council.

Of the three, only the first option included retaining the Muskoka Tourism and Marketing Agency (MTMA) — which receives funding from the district — in its current form; howeverd all options had a tourism marketing component, which included the visitors’ centres currently operated by the agency.

It was these suggested courses of action that raised the concern of Greaves and Doughty.

“I think we’re becoming very overburdened with marketing and promotion initiatives,” said Greaves at the council meeting. “We have (MTMA), we have our own economic development, we have our chambers of commerce in Muskoka and . . . I’d like to see some reduction,” he said.

Doughty shared Greaves’ concerns, saying, “Seventy per cent of the accommodation in Muskoka is in Huntsville. We are a different entity here than some of the other area municipalities and our needs are different and our marketing has to be different, so I don’t think it’s a one shoe fits all sizes in Muskoka.”

He later told the Forester that he does feel it’s appropriate to have an overall tourism marketing organization, but, “I’m sure not keen on another layer and I’m sure not keen on virtually creating another department, which was kind of the inference of (the report).”

To that end, Hastings said that the final report will not necessarily be recommending an increase in staff or the creation of a new department for economic development and tourism.

Although Phase 1 consultations provided the district with feedback saying the regional municipality should play a greater role in economic development, “What we’ve heard through Phase 2 is not as constant an answer to the original question,” she said. “That’s sort of affected our consultations through Phase 2 and I think we still need to answer that first question, ‘Should the district take a greater role and what should that role be?’”

Hastings is now sifting through comments received during her presentations to the six lower-tier municipalities, the public open house and focus group meeting held on the topic, as well as comments from the public at large.

“We’ll have to adjust our report on the role of the district and the organizational structure,” she said, adding, “the district council asked us to pose that question and we will have to come up with some sort of a response to that.”

However, not all councillors in Huntsville are opposed to adding more resources to the district if that’s what’s needed to make a regional tourism and economic development strategy a reality.

Huntsville town and district councillor Fran Coleman says that while she is not in favour of spending more money the district doesn’t have, the region needs to be involved in promoting Muskoka.

“This is something I’ve believed in for a long time that we should be promoting Muskoka as a whole,” she told the Forester Tuesday.

Coleman said she was “a little taken aback” by Greaves and Doughty’s comments at the council meeting. “I understand what they meant was they don’t want to create more bureaucracy to do it, but the idea has to be addressed in a more formalized fashion if we’re going to put our best foot forward,” she said.

Hastings said she hopes to have a final report to present to district council on the economic development strategy by February.