The city will not be pursuing a regional business licence initiative with its West Kootenay brethren.
City council will be putting on hold implementation of a regional inter-municipal business licencing program to serve the majority of the West Kootenay region.
The idea was advanced to the West Kootenay Economic Development working group last year, and was first thought if would be handled by the B.C Chamber of Commerce.
However, it would instead be handled by the Ministry of Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training and would require a request of interest from local governments to conduct a revenue analysis to determine a price point for inter-municipal licencing.
“At this juncture it is unknown if Castlegar and Nelson are interested in looking further at a regional licencing scheme,” said city councillor Sean Mackinlay. “We don’t want to impose something that other communities don’t want. We might have to wait until other communities have one as well.”
Trail has its regional licensing in place right now in the valley between five communities and it is really working out well, he added.
As central issuing agent for the Greater Trail inter-municipal licencing, Trail’s share of of licencing fees collected are 50 per cent, with 20 per cent going to Rossland and 10 per cent each to Warfield, Montrose and Fruitvale.