Work Begins to Battle Borrowing
Tuesday, March 6, 2012 @ 4:15 AM
Prince George, B.C.- Eric Allen will be beating the bushes bright and early today as he works to round up those who will help him collect signatures to oppose the City of prince George borrowing $3.5 million for a dike on River Road.
Allen will have until April 24th to collect 5,351 signatures of eligible Prince George voters who oppose the borrowing plan.
While still against the Alternate Approval Process, Allen says he appreciates Council changing the system to allow access to the forms by email “That’s a big big change and also the fact, they can take it off the City’s web page, last time it was almost impossible to find it there, but hopefully this time it will be front and centre.”
Allen says people have to oppose the borrowing, “It’s just too much debt for the City of Prince George. There seems to be too little consideration as to what input we ( taxpayers) have before borrowing.”
The City wants to borrow $3.5 million over 20 years at a cost of $279 thousand per year. Allen says the City always says holding a referendum is too expensive, but the reality is, it would cost about $50 thousand dollars for a democratic process that would decide if the people want the City to spend $10 million dollars on debt servicing over the course of the 20 years. “The City has to stop borrowing money” , he looks at the current debt servicing costs the City is paying on all the money it has borrowed “That’s $12 million dollars a year, after 10 years, that’s 120 million, and we get nothing.”
This is not the first time Allen has taken up the cause against an alternate approval process. He collected thousands of names, but fell short of the threshold, in an effort to stop the City from borrowing dollars for the Cameron Street Bridge replacement. He was also a key player in the Prince George anti HST movement which also collected thousands of names.
“I’m going to take this thing to the wall because it has to be done. We have to talk about debt, we have to talk about spending, and nobody is going to bat for the average tax payer.” He says since the Terasen Gas referendum ( which followed a successful AAP) every single borrowing issue by the City has been handled through the Alternate Approval Process. “The Community Charter gives the City two choices, the referendum and the AAP, they always choose the AAP and they use the cost of a referendum as an excuse.” He says it doesn’t make any sense for the City to say $50 thousand dollars for a referendum is too expensive, when the City is prepared to pay $10 million in debt servicing costs for 20 years.
The Alternate Approval process will start March 14th.
Comments
Diling is never a permanent fix…only temporary and causes new problems.
Dredging is the only solution.
That would be “diking”…not “diling”….sheeese…
I agree! We have just elected a new mayor who ran on a platform of fiscal astuteness and already approval is being sought for millions of dollars of additional debts for the city! How weird is that?
Tell the federal and the provincial governments that we are unable to accept the offered funds for a dike as a solemn promise was made not to add any more debt. Period!
These time-limited offers of funds remind me of the carrot-and-stick method that caused the HST debacle!
The dredging option is still the best one for now! Who knows, even with a brand new (unpaid for dike) we might still have to do some dredging every few years!
I’ll be signing to try and stop this spending madness.
IMO this is a provincial federal expenditure and not a home owner of PG expenditure.
I will be signing the AAP form against the borrowing, but what then? This isn’t an AAP for NOT building the dike, simply against borrowing the money for it. So we don’t get shafted for interest on 3.5 mill, but we may get shafted as home owners in increased property tax and utilities to pay for it instead. This AAP should be to stop the borrowing and stopping the dike or to call for a referendum to stop the building of the dike.
Being against the borrowing of money for the building of the dyke means to allow for the dreging of the rivers. This dreging means the removal of gravel from the bottom of the river. The build up of gravel displaces river water which causes annual flooding. The removal of gravel from the river bed has been halted this is a remade for flooding and should resume to prevent further flooding and it provides construction with additional clean gravel for construction and a convienient source of gravel. I can’t put it more simple than that. And it is sure less expensive than borrowing. Borrowing from the government helps the government economy while NOT borrowing helps OUR economy!!
Best of luck to Mr. Allen, but I think there’s a major uphill battle to collect the signatures needed.
The AAP is built to give City Hall a mandate to do what it wants to. If the City had to collect 5,000+ signatures to get permission to borrow the money, they could never do it.
Maybe I’ve missed it, but who is the dike meant to protect and why aren’t they footing the bill?
I’ll be signing and possibly even going door to door for this.
While I do feel bad for those who get flooded once in a while I also acknowledge that they are living and conducting business in that area by choice. If a dike is needed that badly then I suppose it should be up to the property owners to pay for it.
*NOTE*
To Mayor and Council,
There need to be some priorities put into place. Our streets and sidewalks are decaying at an alarming rate, our water and sewer is getting close to the end of it’s life as well. It’s time to focus on the important things and debt repayment, leave the frivolous spending for 20 years down the road when we “might” be able to afford it.
NOTE TO OUR MAYOR If this your idea of physcal prudence, you need a good encyclopedia.
Is there an age restriction to participate in Mr Allens effort.?
Just wondering.
Cheers
Good luck Eric.
Our rookie mayor campaigns on cutting costs at city hall by 10% and then once elected what does she do? She throws that promise out the window and starts borrowing more.
Well actually she first she and Council gave themselves a raise of 30% and then jacked our taxes another 3 percent and then she committed to borrowing more money and increasing our debt. This silly project wasn’t even mentioned during the election. Didn’t the city make an application for some other money for this over a year ago? She and the other councilors must have know about it so they must have stayed quiet and misled us during the election just to save their own butts. I am on a fixed income – stop increasing our debt!
Too bad we don’t have recall for our municipal politicians.
I think Eric Allen has a reasonable chance to get the signatures required. At worst, he will have a good number collected which will show what can be done when one sets their mind to it, unlike some of the other ones where apparently only a few, as in less than 10 or so, signed.
I think that if Eric and others involved act like a political “machine” does at election time, and they keep the information required to give them quicker access the next time and build on it, they should be able to win most of the future AAPs.
If that is the case, then a primary goal will have been achieved, in my mind, that borrowing go to a referendum.
At referendum, in this particular case, I suspect the question will not be won.
I will be signing that petition. That money needs to be spent elsewhere e.g. road repairs. Will also try to find the time to collect signatures in my neighborhood.
As far as dredging goes, too bad so many do not understand hydraulic river action.
In this case there are many factors which go into deloping a flood condition. All those factors don’t align the same way each year, so significant flooding conditions due to spring freshettes or cold winter ice jambing simply do not happen every year. Thus results of a single activity, such as dredging, may not show up for 5, 10, 20 or more years.
In the meantime, I am sure that opinion based on intuition alone will gather strength because the reason for no significant flooding will be associated with the single factor of dredging.
If, however, all other conditions were the same every year and we dredged and we would have no significant flooding, and that happened a few years, we would then be relatively certain that intuition was right. By the same token, of course, if it still flooded, then intuiton would be proven to be wrong.
Of course, people would still talk about they should have dredged deeper, they should have dredged here or there, they should have dredged further downstream, etc. etc.
Luckily we have people who study these types of things and have built both real water models as well as computerized models with which they can run more scenarios than you can ever get in a 1,000 years of real life experience.
Just think if we had to rely on full scale experience to build bridges, buildings, airplanes, fly to the moon, etc. etc., we would still be in caves. ;-)
The Alternate Approval Process will start March 14th and people can access the form from the Citys website or pick up a copy at City Hall. Deadline is Tuesday 5pm April 24th.
Information on elector eligibility will also be published on page two of the same form.
A resident elector is an individual who is qualified to vote in a jurisidiction by virtue of living in the jurisdiction. To sign this elector response form as a resident elector a person must;
a. Be a Canadian Citizen
b. Be at least 18 years of age
c. Have lived in BC for at least the last six months; and
d. Have lived within the City of Prince George for at least the last 30 days.
For a non-resident property elector to sign a person must.
a. Be a Canadian Citizen
b. Be at least 18 years of age
c. Have lived in BC for at least the last six months; and
d. Have owned property within the City of Prince George for at least the last 30 days.
So it seems we have a better process in place to force this issue to a referendum, the trick now is to ensure that enough people sign the petition and get others to sign.
Thanks for writing a little bit about river physics, Gus.
Unfortunately, I don’t really think the diking is an option, like most commentors seem to be suggesting. I also don’t think dredging is an option either. The cost might actually outstrip the cost of the dike for starters. It also probably wouldn’t work, so it would be wasted money. Something nobody else is mentioning either which is perhaps the most important is that the river is a sensitive eco-system. Heard of the sturgen, not to mention the countless other creatures, including us that depend upon that river? I don’t think a municipality would be allowed to dredge the river wantonly. In fact I think they would be shut down right quickly and possibly fined.
Engineers don’t just present a project on a whim. I believe all the relevant options have probably been carefully weighed out and this is the most cost effective solution to flooding abatement that could spare 10’s of millions of dollars of cost down the road from a potential 200 year flood event.
The biggest harm to the sturgeon in the nechako is the dam. Dredging would do nothing to harm them since this part of the river is not thier spawning grounds.
I have just picked up a AAP form at the 5th floor of the city hall this morning March 6th/012 my wife and I have signed against borrowing the $3,558,000.
You canât count on the Citizen to get the word out someone said use the Thursday free paper. I have yet to have one delivered to my door since they started and my neighbours say the same thing.
I also asked my friends across town, they say they havenât gotten one free paper from the Citizen yet.
Mr allen I hope that you will collect
the ballots from the people that go house to house. My expeirense was much different on on the last vote that was taken. I had to take them to your house and leave them in your mail box. Remember. You wouldnt even answer your phone when I called.
Cheers
Why can’t the city Admin and council get it through their thick heads. The best way and the cheapest way to solve the flood problem is to D R E D G E the G.D. river. DREDGE__DREDGE__DREDGE__DREDGE. GET THE MESSAGE..DREDGE__DREDGE__DREDGE……HELLO DID YOU HEAR ME. DREDGE__DREDGE. Is anybody home at CITY HALL.
The Fraser River doesn’t have ice jams that create ice dams that cause flooding. Do you know why?
It’s because the Frasers channel is quite deep. There isn’t anything for the ice to hang up on, therefore it simply floats on down the river.
The Nechako on the other hand is very shallow and spread out like a huge fan at the confluence with the Fraser. Therefore the ice has a whole lot to hang up on. That being THE BOTTOM.
Lets all not forget what caused this original flooding that got us to this point in the first place, the flooding that happened a few years back where all that ice came down the Nechako and ran aground on the bottom of the river bed. That ice created a dam across the river. That dam caused the river to find the path of least resistance.
If the ice can’t run aground on the bottom of the river it will not jam and create a dam that will cause the river to find an alternative path.
The only way to prevent the ice from running aground is to dredge the Nechako.
A child playing in a puddle on the school grounds can figure that one out.
Seriously? What the heck is a “flood plain”, this is why you can’t get insurance if you live in a “flood plain”. I really think counsel needs to hear from us that this is getting out of control. They get rid of the parking meters (cutting city revenue) they ignore the streets and sidewalks, and now they are worried about that same area that floods every year. Sorry my pockets don’t over flow with cash to cover my sky rocketing home taxes. Get a grip you guys. As some one posted earlier, tell the feds and the province that we can’t afford it period. How about the core review into city spending? Huh yeah core review my ahem. I think it’s time we nip this in the bud and flood city hall with angry people, how about a counsel meeting or two till they figure out we are fed up with this stupidity. Where all the “we are on your side” counselors who claim to be “looking out for the community”. They are not stepping upâ¦â¦ Can you have a mayor and counsel thrown out so soon after an election? We should look into it.
As I stated in an earlier post. If the City was really concerned about flooding, then why did they build their Community Energy System at Lakeland Mills. You couldnt get much closer to the flood plain. Same thing applies to the CN container yard and warehouse. Right smake in the middle of the area that could flood.
I suggest that they are not worried about flooding. This is more about accessing the $5.4 Million from the Feds/Prov and spending the money. The grant money seems to be for this specific dike project, as opposed to overall flooding.
In any event, it is the borrowing of the $3.5 Million that will cost us the big bucks. $279,574.00 per year for 20 years. This is in addition to the $3.5 Million borrowed last year to upgrade River Road to the 200 year flood level. So another $279,000.00 a year for 20 years.
These two projects alone will cost us over $11 Million in interest charges. Plus the $2.5 Million from the Land Reserve Fund.
In addition we have to pay the loans and interest on, the Police Station, Community Energy System, $3 Million office building, etc; etc; How the hell can we pay out all this money, and expect to get anything done with our road, water, sewer, garbage, etc;???
Palupo and Gus are 100% right in my opinion. (Wow did I just say that??) This has nothing to do with building a dyke and all about doing whatever is necessary to access federal funds. Dredging is not the answer at all. There is no point digging a channel into the hydraulic pressure of the Fraser. You could dig it 100m deep and once its full nothing else would change…
Go check upstairs giterdun. I do not think there is anyone home there. ;-)
“You could dig it 100m deep and once its full nothing else would change…”
A 100m deep channel (ice doesn’t sink, it floats!) is way better than a 4 or 6 meter high dyke! It will always have water flowing in it!
Once it gets cold enough and the ice jams up it will easily flow over the top of the dyke!
Just for once resist the lure of federal and provincial money!
Too late: it’s irresistible even if we have to borrow as if there was no tomorrow!
To make it crystal clear: Without dredging a deep channel once in a while the water will easily flow over the top of the dyke when it gets cold enough to cause a solid ice jam! It’s like building up the sides of a bathtub when the water draining out is less than the water coming in!
We will have fancy dyke and we will still have to do periodical dredging!
That’s it! Can’t wait to sign the petition! Over and out.
Lest anyone take my comment the wrong way, I am against the dyke. I just do not believe dredging is the answer either. :)
In order for this petition to be successful everyone needs to go to City Hall and obtain a copy of the petition, or get if off the internet once its available. They can then sign and return the petition via fax, email, mail, or hand delivery.
I suggest that if we and our spouses all sign and then we talk to friends and neibours, and email people who we think might want to sign, this thing could start to take off.
If someone is waiting for someone to come to their door and sign they may have a long wait. Collecting over 5000 signatures is a big job, and every individual needs to do his share. If 1000 people collected 5 signature each, it would be sufficient.
So take the bull by the horns, and get this thing rolling.
I signed mine to-day, and will start making copies, and collecting signatures.
Have a nice day.
what a waste of good money..you could build a dyke 300 feet high and you will still have flooding. The real issue is ground water and a dyke will not solve that problem. The real fix would be to complete Kemano II and control the outflow in the winter from Kenny Dam.
“The real issue is ground water and a dyke will not solve that problem.”
I have posted several examples from other areas to show how it is done.
As I understand it, the city has included that belwo grade “cutoff” wall in the first part of the project. Thart project now has to b e completed by continuing it past the CN turnoff on River Rd. to the ramp up the bridge over the CN tracks.
So, yes, if done properly, a dike with an underground component will solve the problem.
The ice jam and ice dam problem is mainly caused by low water flow. Sending less water down the Nechako will not solve the ice problem. Low velocity water will also deposit more sediment.
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