Sudbury city council to debate changes to economic development corporation

Greater Sudbury city council will debate a motion on Tuesday night about makingsubstantial changes to the city's economic development corporation.

Earlier this month, Mayor Brian Bigger tableda motion that would result in changes to the Greater Sudbury Development Corporation (GSDC), including dissolving the current board of directors and replacing them with city councillors.

Currently, the corporation works on economic development with the city and provides advice on direction and potential risks.

Former members have spoken up against the motion. Current vice-chair Pierre Zundel says he was surprised to hear about the mayor's motion.

He says the GSDC is currently in the middle of a governance review. Zundel says that review included hiring an outside consultant who is already making recommendations.

"The recommendations were for us to have a little more distance between council and the GSDC," he said.

"They made a number of other recommendations that we were working through, for example, having tighter communication with city council so that councillors were aware of what was going on at GSDC and vice versa."

Zundel says he "doesn't understand the rush" withthe mayor putting forward the motion now.

"So we've got the governance review going on. We've got a number of projects that are in the works through GSDC with a variety of players," he said.

"We don't understand how this will not be disruptive. We think the governance review should be complete."

He says the completion of the governance review would allow council to decide what it wants to do with the GSDC in the long-term.

"Our thinking is it's premature to bring forward this kind of a motion until that governance review is over and council has had a chance to review its findings," he said.

"We of course will accept the decision of the elected council with respect to how they want to manage economic development in the end. We just think they'll make a better decision if they have the benefit of our advice before we make it."