The group that promotes and beautifies Wiarton’s downtown business area needs more people or it could stop operating for a year.
The Business Improvement Area’s (BIA) board of management is short on people after a couple of them retired. Calls for new board members this summer went unanswered, and the Town is asking for someone to step up.
Council discussed the future of the BIA at Tuesday’s South Bruce Peninsula council meeting.
A staff report says on July 16th, a letter was circulated to the membership. Nine responses were received. Five of them requested the BIA be placed on hold, one asked for another call to the membership be made, and three asked for a call out to general public.
Based on the majority of responses, a staff recommendation to council suggested the BIA be frozen in 2025.
Treasurer & Clerk Angie Cathrae explained, “The effect is that no budget will be established for 2025, no levy will be imposed in 2025, and no expenditures will be made from the BIA funds in 2025.” The idea was to look for board members for 2026.
Cathrae says in 2025 there wouldn’t be any BIA meetings, flower baskets, decorations, or any of the benefits the BIA offers.
Councillors didn’t jump to support that recommendation to freeze the BIA for a year, and one person in the community has since offered to be a board member.
Councillor Kathy Durst says, “That seems an no-win for the BIA,” and noted it would also hinder their ability to promote themselves as a group to attract new membership if they were frozen and unable to meet or act as a BIA.
Deputy Mayor Caleb Hull notes, the BIA is currently working on a new strategic plan that would have new mission and vision statements.
Hull notes, “It’s been a joy to see two members retire, basically, on the BIA board. It’s not that we are without people, it’s to be honest– we’re in this phase of almost celebrating their achievement of volunteering for ten-plus years. That being said, we are looking for two people at a time, during the summer where it’s very hard for anyone to commit above and beyond.”
Hull says, “The thoughts of losing the BIA, putting it on hold– it worries me. There are a lot of efforts going towards revamping their strategic plan.”
Hull highlighted things like the pipe band that plays downtown, plaques on trees and the plantings in the area of the cenotaph, explaining, “There are nuanced benefits that the BIA offers. In the last couple of years, there have been two videos created and social media advertising and data that’s been available to the BIA membership that hasn’t been available before.”
Mayor Jay Kirkland says, “The BIA is a huge benefit to the beautification of Main Street and lots of other things.” He also added it advertises and promotes downtown on the radio.
Kirkland says, “I’d hate to see Wiarton have to realize what the BIA does when it’s not doing it in 2025 if there’s no budget.”
He adds, “But we can’t just let things go on if an organization does not want to be an organization or people come forward to be a member.”
“I think we have to let the BIA also know that there’s an end date here if people don’t step forward,” says Kirkland.
One consideration council briefly discussed was to consider how they might allow new BIA members from outside the traditional geographic BIA boundaries.
Deputy Mayor Caleb Hull noted, one of the big discussions during BIA strategic planning has been that the business core in Wiarton has expanded since the creation of the BIA. “Many of the businesses that were part of the BIA have moved slightly outside of the BIA,” says Hull, adding “Are we looking for membership within the area of 1970– or does the BIA need to expand thus creating more members to stock it?”
For now, council decided to scrap a recommendation to freeze the board, and instead directed staff to make another call to the BIA membership to find a member to keep it alive.