Niagara-on-the-Lake councillors have deferred approval of the tourism strategy master plan until next month’s meeting on April 29.
Despite the deferral, Coun. Tim Balasiuk was appointed to the tourism board of directors during the meeting.
Consultant Robin Garett presented during Tuesday night’s council meeting with concerns that amendments made to the plan fundamentally change the original strategy.
“We were actually quite elated with the final product,” Garett said during her presentation.
“I’m asking council to approve the strategy as it was presented by the tourism strategy committee, or at least give us an opportunity to collaborate with you.”
A major concern of Garett’s was the removal of the term “wine country” from the tourism vision statement.
Some edits also removed the theme of collaboration from the original strategy, Garrett said.
“The secret sauce to success is collaboration, alignment and coordination between stakeholders, between government, industry and residents,” she said.
Following around an hour of discussion between councillors, it was agreed to be revisited in a month.
Coun. Wendy Cheropita agreed that wine country should be included in the strategy.
“The strategy is suggesting to leverage the strength of wine country, and that’s generally what you want to do, is take your greatest strength and leverage it,” she said.
Coun. Sandra O’Connor said she would like to go back to what the original objective was when council requested the proposal.
“By focusing on the wine industry, I don’t think it addresses the other elements in here that we asked them to do,” she said.
Overall, O’Connor said the plan needs a bit more work.
“I think it’s very close. There’s a lot of really good things in here,” she said.
“But there’s a little more work that needs to be done.”
Chief administrator Bruce Zvaniga said the town can take comfort in the fact that the master plan is a policy document.
“Making amends to it is still something that council has the ability to do,” he said.
Coun. Erwin Wiens moved for a deferral on the decision until next month and motion was passed, with Lord Mayor Gary Zalepa and Couns. Cheropita and Maria Mavridis voting against the deferral.
Following the vote, a ballot was held to select a member of council to sit on the tourism board of directors.
After two rounds of votes, Balasiuk was selected.
Cheropita and O’Connor also submitted their names for consideration.
