Sault Ste. Marie city council voted April 8 to dissolve the 49-year-old Downtown Association.
With only Coun. Sandra Hollingsworth opposed, councillors voted nine to one to bring the business group's work under the city umbrella.
A supporting business advisory committee and a skeleton city staff will be assigned to downtown duties.
This is essentially the same approach the city has taken in recent years in its tourism and economic development departments.
An advisory board will be created, with downtown business owners selected for participation based on a selection process similar to the one used to choose members of city committees.
Founded in 1976, the Downtown Association is largely funded by levies collected from its member businesses and property owners.
The drive to bump it off was spearheaded by Mayor Matthew Shoemaker.
"The path of least resistance, in my view, is to allow the Downtown Association to continue doing what it is doing, and to continue achieving the same results we are currently seeing, which are insufficient," Shoemaker said at council.
"In my view, if the downtown is a community priority ... then it should be funded by the community and not the few hundred businesses between Pim and Dennis that front on Queen Street.
"The Canal District is an important part of our downtown. The Station Mall is an important part of our downtown. The Bondar Plaza is an important part of our downtown.
"The old hospital is the gateway to our downtown, and we took steps to try to beautify it; we are still working to see that through.
"I think the obligation is on the community to invest in its downtown," the mayor said.
"I'm going to say something that's going to get a lot of attention in the media tomorrow," Coun. Hollingsworth said.
"There's so many times when government feels that it's time to take over and they have the answers.
"I disagree. As a municipality we need to keep on focusing on the core reasons a municipality exists: roads, infrastructure and so forth.
"But partnership is where you should go. We created many partnerships in the past. When the Greyhounds were in trouble a number of years ago, a partnership was created, going on with uniform store hours.
"Hypothetically, do you think if we take over this entity, as in the Downtown Association, do you think the merchants are going to, all suddenly, say: 'Yes, we will listen to the city. We will have uniform hours?' I think it's going to be very tough to build that relationship again."
Hollingsworth moved to defer the motion to allow city staff to present their ideas on improving the Downtown Association, but failed to find a seconder.
