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The business of council is often deemed boring but one councillor said she found a report tabled on Wednesday night “disturbing”.
Councillor Lisa Ruffell slammed the Bendigo Small Business Festival report’s recommendation the city encourage the festival take place on an annual basis – a recommendation Cr Ruffell said she could not support.
“I’ve been involved in small business for 30 years in the Bendigo region and it disturbs me when I read reports like this that say it’s a great outcome, a great result having 600 people attend four events when we know that we've got 639 small businesses alone, just in the CBD,” Cr Ruffell said.
This August was the first time the City’s Economic Development Unit (EDU) partnered with state-run festival.
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The report said the EDU set a goal to attract more than 600 attendees to all events held in Bendigo during the month and qualified the more than 1,000 attendees as a “very good result”.
But Cr Ruffell said the festival was a flop.
“It was a great initiative from the Victorian government… but as for us helping it out, I don’t think we achieved what was said in this report,” she said.
“If we want to support small businesses we need to help them in financial ways we need to ensure the future of what council is thinking on big issues.”
“Do small businesses need help with [Information Technology Outsourcing], do they need help employing people?
“These are the things small business need… and I don’t believe this report and the author of this report helped that situation.”
The owner of Ruffell Family Jeweler said she had been calling on the EDU to compose a business directory since she became a councillor seven years ago.
“We haven’t got a Chamber of Commerce so how can people that want to invest here do that?” she said.
“Yes we all support the Bendigo Business Council but, again I say, how many small businesses in retail are in that group?”
Other councillors spoke in favour of encouraging the festival’s return, including Councillor Barry Lyons, a retired businessman who ran Kangaroo Flat’s Windermere Hotel for 23 years.
“It’s a great initiative and I’d like to see this as an annual event, probably with a bit more money,” he said.
Councillors voted to endorse the recommendation.