Congratulations to Quesnel.

A vision, a vote, some money, and they are now well on the way to a combined sports and cultural centre which the community is mature enough to support.

In the meantime we are fettered by a Council and Admnistration which cannot even figure out how it is able to maintain its roads.

http://www.opinion250.com/blog/view/5820

Oh, and it is jointly funded and went to a vote both in the City and the Regional District and was approved by both.

http://www.quesnel.ca/multi-centre.html

http://www.quesnel.ca/DocumentBank/Multi-Centre/FACT_SHEET.pdf

“When these components come together in one facility, synergies are found. It becomes a destination point for conventions and trade shows, offering maximum flexibility. The cost of heating the theatre and event space can be partially recovered through heat extraction from the arena.”

Quesnl, breathtaking.

No one has given me any money to buy a vote. How much have you received, BCRacer?

Most communities get about 20 to 25% of the project cost for such a project. Quesnel and the Cariboo have put up around 50% from the beginning. On does not see that kind of largesse around here for anything.

There you go PG! There is your new PAC. Not that far of a drive and I’m sure the fee will be reasonable.

Let me put the $30million to be spent in Quesnel into a bit more context.

Let us just say that it is part of an awareness raising as in “get to know your neighbour”.

Thsi just in … the 2011 Census results of population

City of Quesnel = 10,007 a 7.3% change since 2006
Quesnel Census Agglomeration = 22,096 a 5.0% change

City of Prince George = 71,974 a 1.40% change since 2006.
PG Census Agglomeration = 84,232 a 1.20% change.

Of the 25 largest CAs in BC, Quesnel ranks 12th in growth. Prince George ranks 20th of 25.

Now, here are the most meaningful figures.

If a city the size of Quesnel is able to get its citizens to back a $30million project, then a city the size of PG should be able to get its citizens to back a $252million project.

Or, if you lock at the CA area then it would be $114million for greater PG.

That’s were we find ourselves folks. The mindset of the community, the inability to muster the finances, and the inability to even meet our needs let alone our wants.

How did we get to this point? This has been a long time coming right under our noses. Someone has some explaining to do in my opinion.

A lesson my parents taught me comes to mind… if you want something start saving for it. This used to be fairly common among individuals and civic governments. Now everything is financed via borrowed money and money that has been saved not used as intended.

If the costs to carry this debt was not on the books just think of all the nice things we could have.Some things have to be funded with borrowed money like a person’s house(RCMP palace) but not a winter trip to the sun($3 million purchasing building)

“A lesson my parents taught me comes to mind… if you want something start saving for it”

So let me guess .. your parents never bought a house ….. ;-)

“Some things have to be funded with borrowed money like a person’s house”

Their house cost the princely sum of 7500.00. Lesson on saving must have stuck because through a bit of sacrifice our house paid off in 10 years….paying down principle every year.Amazing how much flexibility one has without a mortgage payment every month….could even afford to pay cash to repave driveway if it needed it. AND have a surround sound—big screen PAC—-FULLY PAID FOR :-P

Most of us live in places we have purchased and most of those live in places that they are still paying off a mortgage on. Most of the rest live in rented accommodation.

When we live in a city, the same thing takes place. The community is our “house”. Dwelling units require certain rooms as a core: A place to cook, a place to eat, a place for personal hygiene, a place to sleep, a place to “relax” and a place to store “stuff”. After that there are those wants – recreation rooms, media rooms, home offices, additional bathrooms, guest bedrooms, hobby rooms, garages, greenhouses, etc. etc.

Most of the infrastructure in a city can be seen in the same way. Some is a base requirement, even though there are people in the world who still manage to live without even those, and some a nice to have but not necessary.

So, let us just come to the realization thsat we, as a City, are not that well off. We are not one of those families who can afford a 3,000sf house for $500,000 in these parts. And most certainly not that size of house with some better quality finshes for $750,000.

In the bigger scheme of things, we are a community than can only afford a 1,200 sf house for half the price.

So, let’s make sure that we

1. have some agreement of what the basics are, then

2. ake sure we do not have more than is required, then

3. take care of the other nice to have needs next.

I do not think we have step one in place quite yet. That is what the OCP is supposed to be all about, as well as MyPG, but I think both of those processes are flawed.

Sounds like an old house if it cost only $7,500. My parents purchased in 1957 … for $16,000. I think they needed 25% down based on their income. My mother still lives in it and refuses to move. She now pays more in taxes in a year than they used to pay on PIT when they bought it.

She has a credit card for ease of transaction. It is paid off every month as it has been throughout most of her life.

Given here background, she trusts neither governments nor banks, although she does not go to the extremes of having cash hidden under the mattress …. ;-)

So you agree that the city could learn something and not give in to every whim and desire with borrowed money. Debt service charges eat up a substantial portion of the tax dollars we pay.

The problem is the city is trying to live in a $500k house with a $250k income— adding a solarium even though the foundation is starting to crumble—cannot be sustained for long.

BTW although they no longer live there, parents house is now over 100 years old and still going strong.

“So you agree that the city could learn something and not give in to every whim and desire with borrowed money>”

Actually that is not my first choice of where to find money. I think the City is spending too much on operations. Definitely suffering from the cost of sprawl. In other words, to keep on with the analogy, the house is far too large for the number of peoplke who live in it.

The house is poorly planned. Too many corridors to get from one room to the next. Let things go rather than doing proper preventative maintenance. Accept shoddy work. May not even know they have shoddy work until it is too late. Spinning too many wheels due to indecision. Simply not working effectively.

Council micromanages far too much. It takes them a long time to learn to direct and check results against objectives and hold people accountable. Much like the school system has turned out to be over the yesars. Pat Johnny on the head, even if the job is not well done.

I do not have the answer. All I know is there is something wrong that I cannot quite put my fingers on and very few people are any help in finding it out. Too many people protecting their turf.

And more importantly and most scarry of all is the mover to the right that was predicted about 2 decades ago showing up as “give it over to business, they know how it is done”. We saw that meltdown in the USA. Only an idiot would follow that path.

Anyway, hopefully the services review will find some of that if inefficiency and ineffectiveness if it is there.

Isn’t it obvious? Privatize the arenas, the pool, the library, the museum, the art gallery..and any other drain on the cities coffers! Make all of those facilities user pay, if they cannot support themselves then let them shut down.

To take the analogy one step further, think of the city as a residential tower with council being the condo board and admin the building manager. We have changed some faces on the board with no improvement might be time to change the building manager.

It is not the elected people that should be checking the work quality but a staff member in the appropriate department. If something is brought up they should pass it on and maybe check later to see that it was done. Mr. Bates gets about a grand every day he is at work about time he answers for some of the mismanagement in numerous departments under his direction.

I read on here a week or so ago that the pavement at the entrance to the university is starting to break up(forgot to look when I was by there). If this is the case the city should be all over the contractor especially given the amount of press it received.

Speaking of the US meltdown read The Big Short by Michael Lewis, credit default swaps and CDO’s etc scary stuff. Mattress might be the best place for your loonies and twonies after all:-)

“It is not the elected people that should be checking the work quality but a staff member in the appropriate department.”

I did not mean that the Councillor’s would do the actual physical check. However, they need to accept an audit system that checks up on the work of both in house staff as well as contracted companies. That is their responsibility. If people are not doing their work they need to do in Administration then they have to bite the bullet and find people who can do the work.

Gus must not have anything to do all day but monitor these blogs. Considering he/she found that article from 2007 is impressive but makes me wonder if he/she has a life outside of this website.