Plenty still on tap for SouthGrow Regional Initiative in 2021
While 2021 is closer to the end than the beginning, SouthGrow Regional Initiative still has plenty on its schedule to end the year.
One thing they’ve been looking at is expanding their staff capacity. “That was a goal of SouthGrow three years ago,” explained Peter Casurella, executive director at Municipal District of Taber’s regular council meeting on July 27. “We wanted to be able to have more staff in place in order to do the work that we know enables investments in the region. Because we’ve actually lost money with the province cutting us by 50 per cent, that hasn’t been a reality. But we have expanded our ecosystem considerably by being innovative and different. So I am a contractor who runs SouthGrow as the executive director. I now have Kim Welby, who used to work for Community Futures, she now works for me. But because she works for me on my projects, she works for SouthGrow as well on SouthGrow projects. So while we don’t have more hours going into it, I have more expertise and I have more flexibility.”
With the Alberta government announcing Highway 3 will finally be twinned from Taber to Burdett, SouthGrow has also been involved there.
“We’ve also pulled the Highway 3 Twinning Association into the SouthGrow ecosystem as well,” added Casurella.
Come October, residents will head to the polls for the municipal election. SouthGrow is hoping to help new councillors and returning councillors with training around economic development when councils are set.
“We want to run a course called Economic Development Training for Elected Officials, which is provided by the Economic Developers of Alberta that both Ben (Young, M.D. economic development officer) and I are board members on. In January/ February, after the new council is elected, it’s extremely important course we feel to bring councillors up to speed,” continued Casurella. “Number one, what is economic development, because it’s not obvious to everyone, you’re all seasoned vets at this point. Number two, what’s your role as council. How can you be most effective as decision-makers and enablers of staff work in order to get economic development rolling in your communities.”
SouthGrow has also been looking at ways to better market the southern Alberta region.
“We’re also working on marketing the region globally, which has impacts for the M.D. of Taber. I’ve just got all animations back and we’ve got a global awareness program that we’re going to be running. The build of the program is now done and I’ve got to come back to my committee and say ‘our social media calendars are all built, here’s all of our marketing assets built out and now we’ve got to run this.’ We’re going to target global food companies with awareness of the opportunities in southern Alberta,” stated Casurella.
One conversation that continues to happen is bringing high-speed Internet to rural parts of the province.
As this discussion continues, SouthGrow has continued exploring broadband options.
“I don’t know how much you want to get into broadband, but the gap is rapidly closing. We now have an opportunity to provide all the small villages that don’t yet have high-speed fibre optics with wireless mesh networks that are equivalent to fibre optics. The last of our villages up in Vulcan County, down Highway 4, and the Town of Cardston are all working towards that finish line. There are opportunities coming down the pipeline for the very rurals as well,” said Casurella.
Coming up next month, SouthGrow is looking for funding from an emission program.
“Another big thing for us is SouthGrow is going to be delivering $2 million as part of the zero-emissions vehicle infrastructure program. I’m racing towards a start date of September 1, so it’s 50 per cent funding for charging infrastructure for businesses, municipalities, institutions. There’s an opportunity as well because the other organization in Alberta that got this money was the MCCAC (Municipal Climate Change Action Centre),” continued Casurella. “They (MCCAC) have got provincial matching funding for a little while until it’s gone. So there’s an opportunity to maybe get 100 per cent, but we’ve got a partnership with them and we’re going to be working together to max the money from both organizations.”