If Mr. McEwan had ‘done an exceptional job for 4 years’, why was his departure a ‘mutual decision’?

“it is his understanding that the new focus will be more on the development of downtown”

DOWNTOWN???? WTF??? So now the city’s development arm is focused on downtown too. Time to change the name at the city entrances to Commonwealth of Prince George!

I thought this little group was about the downtown.

http://www.pgcitycentre.ca/Documents/CityCentreProspectus%28Oct2011%29.pdf

Have not attracted so much as a friggin’ hot dog cart with the tax incentives in this plan, so now they are shifting the IPG focus to the core, gee I wonder if anyone at city hall owns a business down there and whose campaign was funded by other landowners. Like playing the old kid’s game connect the dots……a pretty clear picture is starting to develop.

Hell of a deal for Tim. No money for a referendum about the dike on River road but twice the estimated referendum cost in a severance package.
Once again the taxpayer of PG gets fleeced.
No big deal though, with the billions of dollars IPG has coming PG’s way.
Time for the city to disband this IPG group and spend the 1.2 million saved on filling pot holes. A far more productive use of 1.2 million than wasting it on IPG salaries.

The city must suddenly be inundated with psychics. The outcome of the vote on the January firing of city staff was already known and the press release written up BEFORE the vote was even taken. The outcome of the Core Review is apparently known BEFORE the review is even undertaken. Wonder who knew about the happenings at the PG Hotel BEFORE it was sold. Who knew about the dike before the election, about the cutoff of public input on the budget beforehand and one and on it goes.

“If Mr. McEwan had ‘done an exceptional job for 4 years’, why was his departure a ‘mutual decision’?”

Let me use this analogy.

City Council is the passenger in the taxi and directs where the taxi is to take them.

IPG is the driver of the taxi that plans and implements the activities required to drive the taxi to the desired destination.

They agree on payment for the trip and maybe even the length of time it takes to complete the trip, and may even give consideration to some uncontrolled events that may happen such as high traffic volume, street construction, etc.

Less the half way through the trip, the passengers decide that they will change those in the car. The new passengers decide that they want to go somewhere else and, by the way, they cannot pay as much for the fare as previously negotiated.

The driver drives for a while longer, thinks about what just happened, as do the passengers and they say, you know what, I think the best bet is that we get another driver and maybe another taxi company and we can negotiate a new agreement to get us to where we really ought to be going.

The taxi stops, they bicker for a while, and give the driver some of the money he was expecting for his troubles.

End of story ….. maybe … :-)

Moral of the story?

Life is really no more complicated to understand than taking a taxi …. ;-)

Well, so if the province wanted him Victoria, so why didn’t the IPG just let him quit, and then there would be no severence pay and moving costs. He sould only have been entitled to the vacation pay owing.

I think Victoria wanted him bad enough, that IPG will likely get a descrete manila envelope to deal with this cost.

Tim’s a great guy. Worked hard for the North. He got paid handsomely as well. But I think he may have maneuvored himself into a nice little corner.

Hmmm, seems like that would be the reason why the current interim boss would have left the city to go to IPG. Thus it was no big surprise to the City of what was going to happen as well, so what was the HR department doing as all this was going down.

Oh, the other part of the story is, of course, that the taxi driver may have heard about another possible fare from the dispatch over the radio.

But, you know how that works. There is never a guarantee. Yoiu get to the address and someone else may have picked up the fare.

You are only relatively sure of the fare when the passenger gets into the taxi …. ;-)

“the current interim boss would have left the city to go to IPG”

Do you mean Heather Oland? She moved over from L&M Engineering …….

Does anyone see an afternoon TV soap opera developing. :-)

You can use all the analogys you want. Seems Tim was a driver of the cab who decided he wanted to work for a different cab company in the middle of the trip as well. Anyway you look at it, it is wrong, might be legal and “normal” in the business world, but this is taxpayers money we are talking about and we didn’t have any say in the negotiation. My retirements plans can’t come soon enough to get out of this corrupt backwater. Tired of handing my pay cheques over to these crooks and banging around potholes and through lakes in the middle of the streets. Foul air as soon as you get within 2 miles of prince george. I simply couldn’t imagine how anyone could ever seriously want to come here to retire.

McEwan was strongly opposed to the idea of handing out 20-30-35 year tax breaks to those who develop properties in the downtown core.
Who is the new Mayor representing… she supported the idea of major tax breaks and went to Victoria to promote the idea. She also promoted the idea to city council.
Who pays for those tax breaks in the city, Surprise!

Anyone who has ever worked in the private or public sector at any level that does not provide some protection through a union membership and has been a “survivor” under those situations, would have developed enough street smarts to see when things might be coming to a close either for the position, the entire department or the entire organization.

So, the search begins for new opportunities and the efforts to maximize the current compensation is often part of that if there is a risk that the new oppportunities my not materialize.

The true cost, both financially and emotionally, to the individual involved can be a bit more complex than some people who have never been through it can imagine.

How about we blow up the taxi? IPG is a huge waste of taxpayer money. Every story I read about them confirms this one way or another.

“How about we blow up the taxi”

They did that in Vancouver during the Stanley Cup ….. make sure there are no TV cell phone and other cammeras ……

there are two questions that the ipg brd should answer. 1) did the discussions about departure start after ms. Green took over. Obviously she is not a fan of Tim after the way she went after him questioning his ethics in the local rag.
2) why did the ipg brd not include a clause in the departure agreement that stated salary would only continue until such time as full employment with another organization was in place. This is a standard clause taken by organizations in similar circumstances when settling an employee contract.

$140 grand… hire me then fire me…. please

If Tim had an employment contract and everything was done above board(ie he did not have the new job finalized when he negotiated the final package)then it is water under the bridge.

To me the bigger issue is Feldinger’s comment about the shift in focus for IPG to the downtown core. To have an organization with that number of employees and a huge budget for downtown is absolutely crazy.

No matter what they do, downtown will see little change until there is a major catalyst(read new industry/jobs) that causes significant growth in the area. The new cop shop and the WIC will have little effect.

Does this mean the City Center Prospectus is dead? Mayor’s task force? Smart Growth On the Ground? DBIA? How much money has to be dumped into these programs before they see there is ZERO chance to develop the whole core under current conditions.

I laugh when they advertise that we are the 10th best place to invest in B.C. That is like a bank saying that they offer the 10th highest interest rate on savings accounts. And they wonder why people are not lining up. Perhaps time to hire a different ad writer.

Shut up all you whiners. It is called “free enterprise”. Free to take more of your tax dollar$.

A think a certain downtown developer is in control after the election. He doesn’t like Tim and wanted him gone. Fine, I get that. But why does the City have to set themselves up for a defamation suit?

Seriously, I can’t see that Tim has done anything wrong. You might be upset with the City for forcing Tim to leave, or the IPG Board for paying a severance, but what has Tim done that was so wrong? Why does the Mayor have to vilify him?

To all you UNION bashers on here and you all know who you are….THIS doesnt happen to a union worker…you quit or get fired you get a see ya later deal…gotta love free enterprize….just keep forking over those tax dollars for downtown farses…

Irri,
He’s down, he’s gone. You’ve won. We don’t need to keep kicking him.

“but what has Tim done that was so wrong?” .. what did he do that was so right? What progress did PG make under his direction? What did he bring to PG? No one seems to be able to answer that. Some just say what a great guy he was. Not so great in my books taking the PG taxpayers to the cleaners like he did. Legal or not, it’s just wrong.

IPG was set up to be distant enough from the city to avoid political interference. So much for that lofty goal.

Our new mayor made it no secret that she didn’t think much of mcewan and the fact that she’s cosy with certain business interests that really had it in for him, it seems obvious that the writing was on the wall.

Despite the denials all the evidence suggests that something or someone influenced the board to do a 180 and turn on their ceo. They continue to say he was doing a fantastic job. So why did they decide that he should move on?

But wrote:
“but what has Tim done that was so wrong?” .. what did he do that was so right? What progress did PG make under his direction? What did he bring to PG? No one seems to be able to answer that”

I will tackle it, perhaps not to your or anyone else’s satisfaction.

Tim is not the first one to head up IPG. Nor is IPG the first organization run by a corporation that is not City Hall, but does have a contract with City Hall.

I think you can look at Dale McMann, Exective Director of the Prince George Regional Development Corporation, Gerry Offet, IPG CEO, as well as Tim McEwan, IPG CEO and anyone else in those kinds of positions, including various Mayors and City Managers and ask yourself, what did they do to cause things to change here, both for the good and the bad.

Due to the nature of the positions and especially due to the nature of what drives business to locate here and leave here, it is extremely difficult to point fingers.

I would say that most tried their best with helping to sell the City, being of service to people needing help, typically with providing factual information, leading through processes as best as they can without showing favouritism, introducing people to the right parties that may be of assistance, etc. etc.

That was and is their job. That is how they should be evaluated, by those people who have required service and have or have not received it.

The evaluation of IPG that was done mid last year and has been linked on here elsewhere indicated the the job IPG was doing was at the worst average and at the best better than average when assessed by those receiving the service and also when compared to peer organizations.

As they say, one can lead a horse to water, but one cannot force them to drink.

The various organizations that we fund as well as those who support organizations that do business here probably do as good or better a job as their peers in other communities do.

Put yourself into the shoes of any one of these people. How would you go about trying to do the almost impossible?

One needs the tools if anyone is going to try to do something. One does not need a micromanaging City Council. One needs to work with an organization that has the clout to affect action.

San Diego, Califronia, has one. Centre City Development Corporation. As they describe themselves – “Implementing Downtown Redevelopment on behalf of the City of San Diego”.

IPG was never allowed to do that nor was the PGRDC. The current Downtown Partnership group also does not have that clout. In fact, the PG downtown activities have no plan, no authority, and no accountability. If one wants to blame someone, the buck stops at the Mayor’s desk, and not just the current one, but all the administrations that have furthered sprawl and have not provided the right tools to offset that by properly promoting the downtown.

http://www.ccdc.com/about-us.html

“IPG was set up to be distant enough from the city to avoid political interference. So much for that lofty goal.”

Totally ridiculous notion. The San Diego Centre City Development Corporation has a board appointed by the City Council. Has been successfully working for more than 3 decades.

So the city is going to pump $2 million dollars into the downtown core, not to make improvements but to try to convince others to do so. GLWT. Fine collection of pawn shops and second hand stores. The only thing that has popped up in recent past are a few low paying call centers who bailed as soon as the freebies ran out, like a guest leaving a party as soon as the booze and appies run out.

Does this mean the effort to attract cargo airlines for technical stops is now on the back burner or gone altogether? What about the millions spent on Boundry Road improvements….wasted? Are we no longer interested in becoming an inland port and logistics park? One look at Atlanta will show what logistics can do for a local economy. With the amount of competition out there the “Field of Dreams” method to attract business will not succeed.

Everyone running for office in the next election should be tested for Downtown OCD syndrome and we can use the results when we decide where to put the X. Face up to facts, the sprawl genie is out of the bottle and as long as the local economy and population remain stagnant so will the core.

What happened to the Bladerunners’ building behind The Keg (across from the old Norgate buildings), it’s vacant and I saw some City workers in there. Did the City just purchase another building to add to the portfolio or is this the final piece of land assembly for the PAC?

This has nothing to do with Free Enterprise. What a ridiculous statement that is to blame the severance costs on free enterprise. Some people may be communist or just plain ignorant to make that connection IMO.

Free enterprise is about equal opportunity through a rules based economy to run a private business.

Free enterprise is not about free markets where all that matters is the dollars that can be had regardless of ethics

Huge difference between free enterprise and free markets.

I think the money paid out is a payoff to expensive for the home owners of PG to have to pay for a political decision made by the mayor, so that she can get her tax break for the downtown agenda. I said during the last election campaign that electing Sherri Green would be electing huge tax subsidies to the downtown at the expense of the neighborhoods and home owners of the city. I wish I had been wrong, but its more apparent each day that people on fixed incomes will be paying the property taxes to subsidize those that paid for our mayors election campaign. I suspect this is only the beginning.

IPG should be shut down IMO. Save the money and invest in the city.

Ever since I heard Mark Feldinger as a spokesman for Canfor during a labour dispute some years ago, I dislike that man.

Rounder .. if you go to PG Map on the City web site set your computer up to allow you to open up the software, activate the layer which identifies city owned properties, you will see that the entire portion of the block from the laneway to the east of the Keg and ex Tony Roma’s is owned by the City.

As to where a PAC might ever be built, your guess is as good as mine. Just because the City owns property somewhere right now does not mean it will be built on any of those peices of property.

There are no guarantees in life …. most certainly not in the life of city planning in any city until the “sod” turning ceremony. Even then, there are no gurantees.