and if you Don't Believe Me... have a look..

One of my beef's with the City of Charlottetown is they have no overall Development Plan and no Development Arm... they may try and defend themselves by saying "well what about the Charlottetown Area Development Corporation (CADC)" but until now this agency has really only been a property developer that has "only" focused on the Downtown and the Airport and competes against real developers rather than work with them... our City is a lot "Larger" than the Downtown and what we need is a "partnership" to help entice new and existing enterprises to develop and flourish in our great City... take a couple of moments and search around the web sites of these two competing Cities and see how they do it...

Saint John, NB... http://www.enterprisesj.com

Halifax, NS... http://www.greaterhalifax.com

Now have a look at Charlottetown's current web site under "doing business"

http://www.city.charlottetown.pe.ca/business/corporate_profile.cfm

'The report is bang on'
DAVE STEWART
The Guardian
Charlottetown businessman Tim Banks is calling on the province’s auditor general to look into the capital city’s affairs in light of Maclean’s magazine survey on Canada’s best- and worst-run cities. Charlottetown stands 29th out of 31 cities, ahead of Laval, Que., and Victoria, B.C., but only because Maclean’s indicates it had incomplete data on the two cities. That drops the P.E.I. capital into last place. The magazine looked at which cities provide the best services per taxpayer’s buck to gauge the effectiveness of municipalities across the country. “It was no surprise to me, none whatsoever, particularly on the economic development side of it,’’ Banks said Wednesday. “We don’t even have a business plan and we don’t have a concept. The report is bang on, that they’re dead last.’’ The Maclean’s survey was conducted by Halifax-based Atlantic Institute for Market Studies (AIMS), a public policy think tank. AIMS based the ranking on tracking performance in areas such as socio-economic status, crime, fire services, transportation, road and sewer conditions, economic development, recreational spending along with things like voter turnout and library use. “It is much more difficult to start a business in Charlottetown . . . or get bang for your bucks paid in municipal taxes or to find a park — or anyone who takes the bus,’’ the Maclean’s article states. “Charlottetown had the highest per capita economic development and infrastructure costs in the country.’’ AIMS gives the city an F in terms of immigration population and takes issue with the city’s vacancy problem, stating “there are 45 vacant buildings in Charlottetown’s downtown core.” Former city councillor and businessman Ken Gillis tells Maclean’s: “If people want to do something business wise that is a little different, they have to jump through City Hall hoops to get anything done.’’ Mayor Clifford Lee said the city remains receptive to comparisons and statistical information. “We will endeavour to learn as much as we can from the data produced in the AIMS study to improve city operations, provide value to our citizens and realize the maximum potential in our community.’’ Charlottetown is doing some things right, according to the survey — garbage collection and snow removal get good grades and it lists the Island capital as the safest city in the country and one of the most environmentally friendly. Still, Banks is critical of the city’s focus on things like traffic circles on Mount Edward Road instead of widening University Avenue, allowing CGI to move to Stratford, allowing the federal government to get away with not putting a parking garage underneath the Jean Canfield Building or failing to send its top politicians to news conferences such as the millions of dollars the Homburg company is pouring into the downtown, be it with the major new hotel currently under construction on Grafton Street or with the recent contribution to the Confederation Centre of the Arts. “I believe the city is an administrative mess . . . we don’t welcome business here,’’ Banks said. “The whole city is being mismanaged as it relates to transportation, to our capital expenditures.’’