Dean McKinley knows Burns Lake so well, when he first saw the floral art car parked under the town's Welcome sign, he knew who it used to belong to when it was street legal.
McKinley is driving twice a week between his office at Northern Development Initiative Trust (NDIT) in Prince George and his old hometown three hours to the west.
He is one of many economic development officials from around B.C. pouring skills and experience into the community reeling from the explosion that destroyed Babine Forest
Products.
"It's wonderful to have an opportunity to go back to work in Burns Lake, and work with people I've grown up with," he told The Citizen on Thursday, the day NDIT announced a number of ways they would help the Lakes District get back on its feet after the fatal blast.
"It's wonderful to see how quickly my home community is coming together.
"There are a number of ways that could have gone, but I'm seeing people working together and seize opportunities."
What NDIT brought to the table on Thursday was a Burns Lake-only alteration of some existing programs: limited loan guarantees and business
development consultants.
Burns Lake mayor Luke Strimbold expressed appreciation for the support.
"[NDIT] has reacted quickly to the needs expressed by the business community in Burns Lake by expanding their business programs to directly support the retail and service sector businesses that are so vital to our
community," he said.
Janine North, CEO of Northern Development Initiative Trust, said these programs are strictly dedicated to "the wealth-generation sector, manufacturing," under normal circumstances "but in this particular case we will expand it to include the retail and service sectors in Burns Lake.
It will increase those business's lending power, and backstop and stabilize those businesses in order that they can reformat their staffing, work through the inventories they built up before the explosion when times were better, and let them take a planned step-down instead of being forced to make a sudden, drastic reaction."
Close consultation with the Lakes District financial institutions told North and McKinley that there were many businesses able to weather the economic storm on their own but 10 or 20 that might need help like this.
NDIT is also working to deploy one of their economic development interns to Burns Lake, and the organization also committed funding for a team of grant writers, dedicated to the regional district, municipality, and First Nations bands in the Lakes District so they can reach out with maximum power to attract outside money into the community for economic stimulation projects.
Some of those were already identified - expansion to the town's nationally renowned mountain biking facility on Boer Mountain: an atrium connecting the town's skating and curling complex, a long-anticipated First Nations partnership building called The Gathering Place; perhaps a long-wished-for swimming pool complex, etc. - that would provide both an immediate cash injection during the construction phase and a long-term economic diversification opportunity.
For more on the made-in-Burns Lake solutions being discussed for the beleaguered town's economic future, read Saturday's Citizen.
-- Peebles, Citizen staff
