The Cost of Communicating
Tuesday, February 28, 2012 @ 3:45 AM
On the eve of a special Northern B.C. job fair, to be held in Vancouver, Mayor Shari Green will be holding a news conference later this morning to thank “PG business leaders for promoting opportunities at Vancouver jobs fair”.
It isn’t clear just who is holding the news conference, is it Initiatives Prince George or is it the Mayor?
Both IPG and the City have their official logos on the top of the media advisory, the news conference is taking place at City Hall and the advisory is all about hearing from Mayor Shari Green. So, why was the release issued by a contracted media relations company?
The City has a communications department and there are two people who work within that department, they are paid to issue releases about the Mayor’s news conferences.
The media contact on the advisory, is Heather Oland, acting CEO of IPG. She says the Mayor is just “dropping in” to what is actually an IPG event. She says it had to be held at City Hall because the IPG Boardroom is “Booked for the whole week” .
Oland says she wrote the advisory, but says she asked the contracted firm to “issue it” for her.
This is the second time a contracted media relations firm has been used to share news from IPG/CityHall. The first time was when IPG and the Mayor held a news conference to talk about their planned meetings with Consul General’s.
So, at a time when everyone has been told to “tighten their belts” and do more with less, would it have not made more sense for Oland to have forwarded the pre-written advisory to the City’s communications people who could have used their own media fan out list to issue the release rather than pay for a private firm’s roll-a- dex?
I’m Meisner and that’s one man’s opinion.
Comments
Everyone knows “belt tightening” is not for those at the top of the food chain.
So far, since the election, all I see is a lot of 2 faced BS coming out of Queen Green’s office.
Not anything like advertised is She! If we could get politicians that had the same spin after an election it certainly would be a different world. I would think with all the advertising about the jobs being here, IPG should be hosting an event like this of their own
Maybe its just payback time?
Cheers
Does anyone recall the Prince George Regional Development Corporation? As I understand it, that office was funded not only by the City, but also the Regional District and perhaps even beyond. I believe the Film Commission which operated out of that office was also funded from one or more communities to the west.
IPG is funded by the City, as we know. I noticed that at one time there were individuals posting on here wondering why IPG appeared to be doing some regional work when the City is paying for it.
The event being held in Vancouver tomorrow obviously deals with the Yellowhead corridor of the province and possibly north of there. It names to important private sector companies operating in that region – Canfor and Rio Tinto – one of which operates primarily in the eastern half of that corridor and the other in the western half of the corridor.
The other reality of the situation is that both have head offices in Vancouver.
One more piece of the pie is that the actual event is, as it says in the promotion: “in partnership with Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters (CME) and Human Resources Skills Development Canada”.
I suspect that the costs associated with this event are borne by CME, the companies involved as well as HRSDC.
If IPG and/or the City of PG is paying into this effort, I would like to know if they are also participating partners.
For all we know, IPG can send an invoice to the organizers and will get paid for their expenses.
My final thought is that whatever is good for the corridor as far as job development or any other sort of development goes, it is most likely going to benefit Prince George unless Terrace will take over as the supply centre as the billion dollar projects which may take place over the enxt decade or so move the centre of the economic activity further to the west.
I want to know what’s going on in IPGs board room for an entire week?!
Gus I see you are starting to ‘get it’.
So I ask the wind again. Why should a home owner in PG be paying for promotional propaganda for a regional multinational resource corporation? They don’t even want to offer these jobs to locals first. Most of their taxes go to the senior levels of government and most of their service contracts go to other multinationals and large corporations with head offices far away from Prince George.
I think the city should support small business free enterprise that operates locally and contributes to a healthy city economy. Not subsidizing big corporations, and political wish lists with home owner property taxes.
I think IPG should find new sources of more appropriate funding… maybe they could ask McEwan if they could hitch a ride on his wagon?
“Why should a home owner in PG be paying for promotional propaganda for a regional multinational resource corporation”
Does it say that anywhere? Until we know, it is a hypothetical question.
Let me ask one. Why should a homeowner pay for the City to come up with a neighbourhood plan … two in fact …. for a business owner that wishes to sell his property to a developer, when either one or both the property owner and developer should be paying for that?
The reference is for the golf course property.
And, of course, developing the golf course the way it has been proposed will get rid of a bit of a potential gem of a green space, while making it even more difficult to promote the heart of the City.
I have been getting the followoing for some time.
“My final thought is that whatever is good for the corridor as far as job development or any other sort of development goes, it is most likely going to benefit Prince George…….”
Comments for this article are closed.