Dike AAP Deadline Less Than Seven Business Days Away
Monday, April 16, 2012 @ 1:00 PM
Prince George, B.C. – 5p.m. Tuesday, April 24th 2012 is the deadline for submitting the elector response form to the City of Prince George in the Alternate Approval Process on the city’s intention to borrow just over $3.5 million for the River Road Dike project.
Once the vote deadline has passed, the response forms will be tabulated, as per the Community Charter, by the corporate officer, who in this case is the City’s Manager of Legislative Services Walter Babicz. Babicz acknowledges that the role is designated to corporate officer and that there is no oversight person or body involved in the count. Responding to a question of whether there will be more than one count of the returned responses, Babicz says the counting of the returned forms “will be done in the exact same way as has been done in previous AAP processes, so it’s up to me to be satisfied as the the accuracy of the results.”
Babicz says the only page of the two-page Response form that need be returned to City Hall is the one containing your name, signature and address. There had been a question of having to return both pages. “That’s my preference because the form is two pages long, but I’m not going to be invalidating a response form that only had the first page returned. Those will still be valid forms.” Babicz explains what would invalidate a returned form. “If the form isn’t completed properly, or there are multiple or duplicate responses from the same person.”
You can submit your form by hand delivery, mail, facsimile or by email as a Pdf document. Babicz says “I think the intent for council approving it this way was to definitely simplify the process for the electorate. It give them more options to return the forms in the most convenient way for them.”
Following the vote count Babicz says the results are going to be reported at the April 301th Council meeting “so the results of the AAP process will be found in the report and considered at that agenda, and depending on what the results are that will dictate what council’s options are.”
5351 forms opposing the dike borrowing must be submitted by the deadline to force a referendum on the issue.
Comments
What about the folks on the other side of the river? What are all their properties worth now?
How about we borrow $7,000,000 over 20 years and fix all of our streets that are crumbling before our eyes? Doesn’t anyone think that this would be a good reason to borrow money? We seem to have the desire to borrow for any other projects we can’t afford, so why not borrow to rebuild our streets?
I propose that we begin replacing the 20% of the streets that handle 80% of the traffic immediately. The ones that are an embarrassment to anyone giving out of town family and friends a tour of our fine city.
We can’t overlook the actual costs to our taxpayer for the bent rims, blown tires, shocks and suspension damage caused as well as the increase in potential accidents dodging and weaving trying to miss the potholes.
Doesn’t that cost us all too?
Imagine how happy people would be? I don’t understand why this isn’t happening? What else could possibly be a priority for our citizens?
This new found concern about our roads from some members of Council is laughable. If it really is a priority they could have made it a priority in the budget they just passed.
I think that is the first time in a half dozen years that more money hasn’t been put into roads. Kinsley and Rodgers both ensured every year that Council put more and more money into the roads. What does our new mayor and this Council do with her first budget? She froze the budget I suppose in essence saying status quo will have to do.
They did make a navel gazing exercise (core review) and their own salaries a priority. Nealy a half million for the core review would have filled a lot of potholes. Nice that they also are giving themselves a 30% increase in pay while telling everyone else to cut back.
As much as we complain I guess we also need to look in the mirror as we elected them.
Don’t forget that we have to have 7 million every year, year after year. Right now the budget is only 3.5 million every year so if we borrow 7 million we would only have enough to tide us over for the first two years – then we are in trouble again.
It takes a lot of money to run this city, there are about 700 employees, 450 vehicles, the cost of debt servicing, the cost of the RCMP and fire protection, etc, etc.
The city used to add the cost of roads to the debt, we were told that our taxes were increased to pay for the roads as we go, now we are back to square one and the next thing to come along will be another tax hit for roads, together with usual hits for inflation and the surcharges for the Winter Games, etc.
Every election we are being told by the candidates that they are the real McCoy, that we should vote for them as they are the best and only choice when it comes to wisdom, experience and financial acumen.
Right efter the election it seems to be the same old same old. Forces beyond their control are insurmountable, voters are being unreasonable when they become angry and disappointed or when they question priority decisions which involve millions of dollars of borrowing.
It’s not the fault of those who manage and make the decisions, it’s Mother Nature, or bad luck, or a combination of totally unpredictable circumstances, like lack of maintenance over decades, allocation of funds to the wrong projects, lack of a vision or direction…well, there we go again!
We need an Auditor General for Municipalities, a person who is neutral and simply digs into the financial expenditures of municipalities to expose waste, inefficiencies and the precise amounts of taxes that were spent needlessly, unwisely and even foolishly.
“We need an Auditor General for Municipalities, a person who is neutral and simply digs into the financial expenditures of municipalities to expose waste, inefficiencies and the precise amounts of taxes that were spent needlessly, unwisely and even foolishly.”
Agreed. Every municipality needs this, and perhaps Regional Districts, too.
I think it is high time we started to cut back on the number of police in this town and utilize them efficiently. We have all of the North District cops here as well as our own and all of the gang cops. Crime is down drastically so why haven’t we started to cut back? The amount of blacked out Suburbans and Tahoes running around here is crazy.
Seems to me we all are Auditors General judging by always second guessing these ninnies at city hall. Keep the pressure on these 9 people. They will crack before we do. The downside of this is we are not neutral and possess different agendas.
Ah yes……what we have here is 9 cases of the post-election common sense labotomy.
Good point was made, what about the traffic fines that was for roads? again spend on what they believe is important, hope for snow 2015 cover up this bloody mess not something to show case for all canada, what a joke.
If the city had just 1/2 the debt presently being carried the interest charges saved would be 6 million a year. 6 million plus the 3.5 in the budget would go a long way to repairing our roads. The downside is council would not be able to add to the debt with so called energy systems, buying up all the derelict property in the downtown, tax holiday for new downtown businesses and winter games.
Get rid of the AAP and go to referendum on major spending and the taxpayer will ensure the gravy train at city hall comes to an abrupt end.
I agree that we need some sort of oversight for Municipal Spending, however we dont want to set up another level go Government that costs us a fortune.
The most effective way to get these politicians in line is to get enough petitions signed to force this issue to a referendum, or have them drop it alto-gether.
They need to be sent a message that they and their spending will be watched very closely from now on. Time to cut back on the fancy projects, and get back to the basics.
Dont get me wrong I would love to get the roads fixed…but these people in The Hall cant even get the lines on the roads,and we expect them to fix the roads?
szd: “The amount of blacked out Suburbans and Tahoes running around here is crazy.”
Just keeping up with the cream coloured Escalades.
Comments for this article are closed.