The Alberni Valley Chamber of Commerce has turned to the Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District (ACRD) to make up a funding shortfall left behind after the City of Port Alberni terminated their contract to run the visitor centre.
Jolleen Dick, the CEO of the chamber of commerce, told the ACRD board on Wednesday, March 12 that she is submitting a grant-in-aid application to fund the visitor centre for 2025. But the funding pot allocated in the ACRD's budget for the grant-in-aid program ($78,000) will not be enough to make up for the shortfall of $89,000 that the chamber previously received from the city.
Dick asked the ACRD board on March 12 to increase the funding pot for the grant-in-aid program this year.
"Our request will obviously be larger than that," she said. "And we don't want to supersede any other deserving groups in the Alberni Valley and Bamfield areas."
The Port Alberni Visitor Centre was forced to close its doors for the month of March after the city told the chamber they would be terminating their contract for budgetary reasons. Dick says the visitor centre will also be closed for the month of April and “likely indefinitely” until they can find enough funding to re-open. She told Port Alberni City Council this week that the chamber has had to lay off a full-time visitor centre employee.
The chamber has reached out to a few other funding sources, said Dick, including Alberni Valley Tourism. The tourism agency has been collecting a Municipal and Regional District Tax (MRDT) from local accommodations since Feb. 1, 2023. (Dick said in a separate interview with the AV News that Alberni Valley Tourism has never contributed to visitor services and "we do think they should contribute.")
Dick also asked directors on March 12 to look at the possibility of turning the visitor centre into a regional service, which means it will get a permanent line in the ACRD's budget.
“Each time someone comes in the visitor centre, they’re likely to spend two times more than if they haven’t walked into our doors," Dick told directors. "We love telling them about all the amazing assets we have and our local businesses. Now, more than ever, is a time to shop local. People are looking for that, and we have that knowledge.”
Dick said that more than 9,400 people stopped at the visitor centre in 2024.
She added that the chamber has also been forging a relationship with Bamfield Chamber of Commerce and the Huu-ay-aht First Nations now that traffic has increased on the Bamfield Road. Huu-ay-aht wrote a letter of support for Dick's request
Beaver Creek director Susan Roth said that the request does not fit the criteria of a grant-in-aid application.
“The chamber is looking for long-term core funding from the regional district," she said. "I think that a service area would need to be created and the question about whether or not to fund the service would need to go to the people to a proper referendum ballot.”
Port Alberni Mayor Sharie Minions agreed that the visitor centre should not be funded by the grant-in-aid program long-term, but pointed out that the chamber is looking for a short-term solution so they can keep their doors open this year.
Beaufort director Fred Boyko expressed disappointment that this conversation was happening "at the last minute" during budget deliberations.
“It doesn’t help the relationship between the city and the regional district that this gets dropped in our lap in the last two weeks of budget season," he said.
Minions defended the city's decision. She explained that when the San Group filed for creditor protection in 2024, the city "lost over a million-dollar taxpayer" for the 2025 budget year.
"This is not a normal year for us," she said. "As a result of the San Group changes, we had to make some extremely significant changes to our budget. I understand that it’s a hardship to the regional district, but the city had to make significant cuts to operations, reduced service levels, cut contracts and still ended up at 14 percent [tax increase]."
Although the ACRD board did not make any decisions on March 12, Minions asked directors to work with the city to find a solution for the visitor centre.
“We believe this is an extremely valuable service, that’s why we’ve been funding it for decades,” said Minions.
