Brian for mayor!

Any self-respecting and successful business run by a board of directors would have a chief operating officer and senior staff who would have long ago prepared a plan to fix one of the company’s main assets and prepared a report to the Board of Directors of alternatives to implement.

Maintaining its infrastructure in order to continue its business is a key to the success of any business. One should not have to rely on a Board member to ask to arrive at a plan to present to the Board. It should be considered as a standard operating procedure for senior staff.

Why are cities different, or why is this city different?

“Why are cities different, or why is this city different?”

Municipalities are different because they are accountable to no one. That and the fact that -unlike a business- they will continue to bring in revenue regardless of how lousy their product is.

“Brian for mayor!”

Ditto That!

Why is Brian the only City Councillor that’s talking about this? Surely this an important issue for the other councillors, as well as the Mayor? Yet, we don’t here much from them on this issue. Must be too busy spending that pay increase…..

I have to laugh about the City staff telling the councillor that the capital projects are already earmarked so he can’t change anything. Who’s running this ship anyway?

And for pete’s sake, CUT SOMETHING!!! Even if that cut is to something important, we have to realize that this is important. Roads need to be a priority for 1 year possibly longer. But it happens every year……”roads are important, but only until someone else says they aren’t”. Come on!!!

I am not ready to entertain the thought of more taxes to pay for roads, until they can resolve the issue for why a road around here that is paved is only good for about 3 years. If that is the original asphalt, how it is put down or the maintenance or lack there of afterwards. At this rate it is better for us to leave the old original roads around as the new ones fail so fast. We will never get ahead.

It is nice to see that at least one person on council is thinking about a plan for the roads. Thank you, Brian Skakun.
I am hesitant to fully support a rise in taxes for the roads, only because I think there is a lot of waste within the City budget. However, something must be done, and if it involves a gas tax, so be it. The status quo cannot be sustained any longer.
I do hope that the Council will:
1, deal with the City manager(s). A very crappy job is being done, IMO. These are your employees, not the other way around.
2, SPEND LESS. Until our crumbling infrastructure is fixed, and fixed properly, there should perhaps be some austerity type measures put in place. No celebrations, no arts and sports funding. It would be a nasty year, but it would probably be only a year. All the grants etc. should be put on hold, and every dollar put into infrastructure.
3, Sell all that City held property. Or give the tax payers a really great reason why we even own it. It brings in no revenue, and no taxes. It is a liability.

Years ago Columbia Bitulithic and a Kelly Road High School student built a test road with asphalt combined with ground up rubber.(from tires) Does anyone know what became of that project? It sounded interesting at the time. If asphalt combined with rubber was much more durable it may be worth the added cost. The life expectancy of today’s asphalt is not acceptable.

At last November’s AGM the shareholders in our little corporation saw fit to change some of the faces on the board of directors including the chairman.THe message should have been loud and clear that something should change yet we continue down the same path.

After receiving such a message, the CEO of any public company would have been shown the door and that is what should happen in PG.

How is Brian’s plan a 7 point approach to fixing the problem when half of them deal with the gas tax(taz tad:-) I have seen most of the other points mentioned numerous times on this site so there is nothing new in this plan.Unless some of the provincial gas tax can be redirected this is nothing but a tax hike to cover the inept way they have handled the money and how poorly they have planned.

As for point #1 although the city may have slowed down in buying up every vacant downtown property they now have a multi year plan to purchase everything in the “Patricia Bvld Greenway.”

Regarding the capex spending, yes it is too late to postpone most projects this year so NOW is the time to revisit NEXT years plan and redirect some of the money to paving. Good god are they really that stupid!
Couple of items off the top of my head is $200k that is going to be spent to insulate city building to cut greenhouse emissions and seem to recall another $100k in boulevard irrigation that is no longer needed as the longer grass does not need as much water. There…two items almost 10% of the shortfall.

We are nearing the halfway point of 2012 yet the latest Statement of Financial Information on the city’s website is 2010.

With the amount of money spent upgrading the computer systems you would think it would not take half a year to produce an annual report.

Here is the 5 year financial plan passed by Council last night:
http://www.princegeorge.ca/cityhall/mayorcouncil/councilagendasminutes/agendas/2012/2012_05_07/documents/BL8421_Merged.pdf

If one looks at it, it is a sham to call this a 5 year plan. It is the budget for the 2012. The 2012 fiscal year started in January. That budget should have been passed at the end of 2011. I realize that they have been doing this for many decades, but it is simply poor business to pass an annual budget 4 months into the budget cycle.

That being said, there are a few project expenditures and incomes that are identifiable into 2013, up to 2016, but hardly anything that shows that any real planning has been done.

Standing out like a sore thumb is the continuation of $3.5 million each year for road maintenance. That, of course, will mean comparatively less spent each year due to inflation and the likely rise in the cost of oil based products.

A plan implies planning. There is no planning there. There is a plan to continue to fail and increase the rate of failure.

It is totally incomprehensible.

And yes, I agree with the notion that this is not a 7 point plan. These are 7 questions. That is different from a plan.

Those questions are far too specific. They actually let the City Manager and staff off the hook.

What is needed is for the Mayor to act as a Mayor, sit down for 15 minutes with the City Manager, exchange pleasantries, aned then direct him to come up with a plan to bring the roads up to snuff within 5 years and present it to Council by the end of June.

End of story.

If the city counsellors had the nerve to vote themselves a big raise, then they had better show us that they are worth it! Just because other municipalities paid their consellors more than we did might just say something about the job they did. I don’t think a raise should have been implemented until some good results were shown. Perhaps we should get another 10,000 signatures on a petition to roll back that raise until some good management is shown because guess what, WE are paying for that raise.

For those in city hall wasting money chasing a trace gas in the atmosphere

“An internal study by the U.S. EPA completed by Dr. Alan Carlin and John Davidson concluded the IPCC was wrong about global warming. One statement in the executive summary stated that a 2009 paper found that the crucial assumption in the Greenhouse Climate Models (GCM) used by the IPCC concerning a strong positive feedback from water vapor is not supported by empirical evidence and that the feedback is actually negative. Water vapor in the atmosphere causes a cooling effect, not a warming one. Carbon dioxide also causes a slight cooling effect but it so small it could never be measured by man’s instrumentation.

EPA tried to bury the report. An email from Al McGartland, Office Director of EPA’s National Center for Environmental Economics (NCEE), to Dr. Alan Carlin, Senior Operations Research Analyst at NCEE, forbade him from speaking to anyone outside NCEE on endangerment issues. In a March 17 email from McGartland to Carlin, stated that he will not forward Carlin’s study. “The time for such discussion of fundamental issues has passed for this round. The administrator (Lisa Jackson) and the administration have decided to move forward on endangerment, and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision. …. I can only see one impact of your comments given where we are in the process, and that would be a very negative impact on our office.” A second email from McGartland stated “I don’t want you to spend any additional EPA time on climate change.”

McGartland’s emails demonstrate that he was rejecting Dr. Carlin’s study because its conclusions ran counter to the EPA’s current position. Yet this study had its basis in three prior reports by Carlin (two in 2007 and one in 2008) that were accepted. Another government cover-up, just what the United States does not need.”

Fail to plan is a plan to fail!

Let them add a tax to Gas, and it wll never end, every year it will get more and more, No Gas Taxs.

I suggest that the lack of sufficient funds to maintain the roads is NOT due to collecting insufficient taxes! Enough taxes are being collected and have been for many years! It is in my opinion a lack of understanding of priorities. Wish list items were given priority over necessary items. We all know what they were and what they are.

Unless strong leadership sets right now new priorities (by cutting and slashing if that’s the only way back to sanity) things will never get better.

Unless some of the provincial gas tax can be redirected this is nothing but a tax hike to cover the inept way they have handled the money and how poorly they have planned.

We have paid, and paid, and paid,enough is enough I say! They give themselves raise’s without giving anything back! They should be ashamed of themselves!

This Provincial Government needs to investigate where the hell all our tax money is going and some heads should be rolling out the city door!
I’ll tell ya, I’ve had enough of this reckless spending. Stay out of my pocket! The mothers of this Mayor and council need to crack the whip on these people….
You can’t keep TAKING and not give back any return… It just won’t work!
We already pay too much for gas in comparison to other cities. WE ALREADY PAY A ROAD TAX! Where the hell is that money?!

Isn’t it peculiar that our other governments will readily chip in money for a dike, but nothing for the roads that are a basic necessity to get around in any developed society (rich or poor) and have been since Babylonian, Greek and Roman times?

What 7 point plan? I read over and over (worded differently each time) about adding a gasoline tax to an already obscene gacoline price. Property taxes have been increased have they not? Utility taxes have gone up and are going up again. Where in the hell does it all end? I can hardly afford to live in this city now. Everything one can think of has gone up, except of course for wages. I guess if I could give myself a 30% raise I would also be talking about raising all kind of taxes in order to pay for something that should of been budgeted for in the first place.
Common sense dictates that an individual and most certainly a business take care of the important things before spending money on niceties and definetely on ones self.
Our illustrious Mayor and councill members should have been more concerned with fixing our roads before they gave themselves a raise and before our so important Mayor hired an assistant.
This BS has to end and raising my taxes is not the way to go about it.
Lets not forgett that Skakun voted yes to his raise. So with 30% more money sitting in his pocket, its easy to suggest raising taxes or adding to the obscene gasoline price.
I say fire them all and get someone in office that knows what they are doing!

There are too many assistants hired, too many payouts to friends who have found new jobs, too many buildings being built (Kin Centre, Police Station, dikes) when the City can’t attend to the basics – like all the wrecked roads – Massey, Ospika, Domano, 15th, Foothills, Tabor and a lot more feeder roads.

I plan to remember and make sure that I vote against the Mayor and all incumbents next time around ~ because they are doing NOTHING about the road problem.

I never thought I would say that Skakun is the only incumbent I would ever vote for again – but it’s come to that.

Our roads are screwed! They need to figure out why they are deteriorating faster than expected before they just pave over them again. Just throwing money away if they don’t fix the road base and drainage issues.

I am hesitant to fully support a rise in taxes for the roads, only because I think there is a lot of waste within the City budget.
=============================================
How many of you have read the options that were given to council in regards to park maintenance. They have a technician for each of the three main parks in the City. When in fact one person should probably be able to do the job and they have have a “faller” on staff.

The entire options were mere window dressing for park maintenance. And council ate it all .

Except for the tax Brians plan is great. You forgot one important issue when it comes to asphalt. The asphalt that is laid down needs to be tested by a competant lab that does such work. Highways had their own lab to do thbe testing and still may have.
Chrees

The roads in Prince George are a national disgrace and WHY IS MAYOR SHARI GREEN NOT ADDRESSSING THIS!!!!!!

I agree with Gus and most others on this issue. The gas tax proposal is nothing more than another tax increase. Seems thats the only plan that Council can come up with. We need to do better. Lets look at the Seven (7) points, and the effect that this will have on the community.

1. If the City has a fire sale on the property it owns, it would end up selling for less than value. Far better to sell at market prices over time.

2. We already have revenue from the Federal Provincial Governments from the gas tax. Its called a Municipal Infrastructure Fund (MRIF) and we have borrowed against this fund for the next 10 years and put the money into our ill fated Community Energy System. Another case of misdirected funds, and not needed projects.

3. The Terasen Gas idea could work. We could borrow $25 Million from the Municipal Lending Authority, and pay it back with our present $3.5 Million per year we pay for road rehabilatation, plus when the $24 Million legacy fund becomes available in 2020, we could pay off the balance of the loan. This would allow us to do immediate upgrades to all the roads for the next few years and get back on top of the problem. I suspect that some of our borrowing will be paid out in the next few years so we should be able to borrow more.

4. A local gas tax is a non-starter. This tax would impact low income earners, and pensioners. It would result in a rise in local costs because business and transportation companies would download the increase in gas taxes on the consumer. So in effect we would pay the initial increase at the pump, and then another increase on consumer products.

In addition, people from out of town would not fuel up in Prince George because of the higher cost of gas, and local service stations would suffer.

5. A public survey is not needed. People are sick and tired of tax increases, and want the City to solve these problems within their present tax structure. The City should not have a gas tax, as they would increase it everytime they needed money, and we would be no further ahead than we are to-day.

6. The City should have had a cost benefit analysis on warranties years ago. It is hard to beleive that this hasnt been done, unless there are no benefits, which wouldnt surprise me.

7. The road situation needs action, to fix the roads now. We cannot continue to have maintenance fall behind every year. We need to think big, and get the job done. We need to do this without any significant increases in taxes. We need to look at all departments in the City with a view of finding some cost reductions. We need to avoid any new costly projects until the roads and other infrastructure problems are solved.

Councillor Skakun would be well served to back away from a gas tax now, as this is not a good idea by any stretch of the imagination. There are too many low income, and seniors on limited pensions in this town, who cannot afford anymore increases in taxes, or costs. In fact even those who make good money, are tired of constantly paying increased taxes.

Time to do things differently.

The cost of the winter games will double by the year 2015 and that always happens take a look at the cost of our olympics…no you can’t because the cost is too embarassing… I don’t think thed cost has been posted yet. Why the hell are we hosting a winter games any way? We can’t afford to have a driveway black topped.

He forgot point #8. Roll back their freaking raise!

I might be for a loal gas tax if they roll back the property taxes 10%. Heck put on a 5 cent per litre gas tax and roll the propery tax back 20%.

Forget about the gas tax. That will be money you never see again.

I remember when the Terasen Gas deal was a hot button issue in the community and there was a short time when a road got paved and a temporary sign went up proclaiming “This road paved with funds received from the Terasen Gas deal” (or something like that). I haven’t seen those signs since that one summer. What is happening with that money?

Raise the gas taxes, well then the petrocan station out west better hire more people.

I for one had no idea that the road paving benefit from the convoluted Terasen Gas deal was limited to the first three years! I believe that is when it ended! The impresseion was created that this was a lssting benefit. Beware of deals that politicians make. Often it is not important what is revealed but what is kept out of sight!

No new taxes, Brian! No gas tax! You guys get together and figure out how to get the City out of the road dilemma which is the result of long-term mis-directed priorities, in my opinion. This problem was NOT created by the long-suffering taxpayers! It’s in my opinion a problem of not managing the people’s money properly.

Except for point #3 everything else is just so many more surveys, reports and lobbying attempts.

I also remember when the City commissioned another expensive study (Dan Rogers was still on council) and the report (the recommendations of which were ignored!) stated that $60 million were needed to bring roads, sidewalks and some other neglected infrastructure up-to-date.

This bind is not something that just happened overnight! A blind bat could have seen it coming as it got bigger year after year.

Brain Skakum for Mayor? LOL and just when I thought folks couldn’t get bamboozled again like they did with Shari Green here we have folks wanting Skakum for Mayor! What a population! The man is a professional agitator and trys anything he can to get his name in the press but NEVER has any logical plans that make sense….alot of hot air does not make a mayor…..Oh Wait I guess it does cuz this city elected Shari Green!!

Despite all the political posturing from our current council the fact of the matter is the previous Council led by rodgers and the previous one to that when kingsley was mayor atleast listened and acted.

For the past seven years or more every Council has put more and more money each year into fixing our roads. Part of a long term strategy to address the poor roads. That was of course until this group took over and quickly accepted a status quo road budget frozzen at 3.5 million.

If Brian or any other member of Council thought it was important they could have easily made a motion to increase it when they discussed the budget.

Did any of them make such a motion? Answer is no – so please don’t try to make it seem you care now when you had the opportunity and choose to be silent.

As for the seven point plan – there is nothing new here just good political rhetoric to get some media coverage.

Brian for Mayor?……..

He won’t get my vote unless he gets off of this “gas tax” BS.

There are plenty of other ways the money can be found for road rehab and here is a big one.

No more spending period. Cancel the contract on that stupid electric car, vote a rollback on the pay council and Mayor receives, stop handing out $$$ to every little group that comes knocking wanting a hand out.

No spending unless it’s for important infrastructure.

I can see in the future that we will be seeing yet another AAP issue with a gas tax. Oh and if there is a gas tax then there better well be a “bicycle license” and perhaps a “electric mobility buggy” license as well as they use the roads too.

Anyone remember the big campaign signs, Cameron Stolz for better roads? I do, looks like just another empty promise now.

The funny for today should be ‘Brian Skakun for Mayor’. That is as bad as saying ‘Stolz for Mayor’ Ha, Ha, Haw, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha. – I cant’ laugh anymore my stomach hurts.
Prince George already elected one funny for Mayor, and some of you suggest we do it again.
Ms. Green are you an elected Mayor by the people of Prince George or an elected Dictator, who does what they want, when they want, at the expence of the people?
Take a deep breath, splash some cold water on your face, rein in your lackies like Stolz and start looking after our City and its people as you were elected to do!
Giving yourself and your council raises, hiring expensive assistants, refusing to talk to the media such as Opinion 250, taking citzens to court for expressing their opinion of you and your council, etc. etc. etc. does NOT make you a good Mayor or a very effective one.
So, can you start all over again and act and serve in a proper way? If you do you might get re-elected – if not you can forever kiss the Mayors job goodbye.

Skakun’s 7 points are nothing more than political posturing and a re-hashing of ideas that have been discussed by past mayors and council. At best his motion, if it gets a seconder, may generate a ‘conversation’ around the council table about the deplorable state of our roads but without a plan attached these are simlpy 7 empty fluff points. Lets not forget that all of council voted in favor of reducing the road rehabilitation budget to 3.5 mil, when it has been known for some time that the city actually needs to spend 7.5 mil each year to catch up.

This council is almost 6 mths into its’ 3yr term and the Citizens of Prince George still have no idea what Council’s short, mid or long term plans and priorities are…maybe council is waiting for the results of the 350K core review before deciding on a plan. They sure didn’t wait for the results from the core review before reducing the road rehab budget, or before making deep cuts to the social and environmental department or before deciding to add a special tax levy of 2% each year for the next 4 yrs or longer to pay for the Canada Winter Games. No one I know wants to pay another local tax to fix our roads. Most people expect our elected representatives to know what basic and essential services are needed to properly run the city and to spend our existing tax dollars to; at minimum, maintain our public assets and services. This council has no plans and they sure seem to be strikingly out of touch with the general electorate.

I remember before the last election people saying “You can’t do any worse than Dan Rogers, might as well vote for Green”. Well, the chickens have come to roost on that ‘old chestnut’. Ms. Green has so far shown no backbone or leadership on ANY issue as far as I can tell.

As far as “Brian for Mayor”… LOL!

I sure would like to know why the city spends in excess of a million dollars a year on new computers. They have Mac Book airs to play solitaire on and we drive on Atari roads. Time to lengthen the replacement cycle.

The same goes for mobile equipment-$900k in the plan(and I use the term loosely) for next year.What are the guidelines to replace vs repair?
The major components in a piece of heavy equipment are good for about 20,000 hours at which time it can be rebuilt to “as new” for half the cost of a new piece of equipment. Some equipment dealerships have complete warranty on the rebuilds.

Has this option been considered? Two life cycles on a piece of equipment for the cost of 1.5 times, substantial savings when the bigger equipment can be in the $500-750K range.

If Brian pushes for more taxes, he will lose the people that currently support him. If you want to go somewhere in politics Brian, don’t bite the hand that pays you.

Once again the best and brightest have done their homework and have come back with some sage advice, which serves to reinforce the idea that “those with the fewest facts typically have the strongest opinions.”
I’d put Brian firmly in this camp as well. I can’t tell if these inflammatory things he gets written in the paper are out of malice or if his heart is actually in the right place and he is quite simply too ignorant to realize the fruitlessness of what he often proposes.

Either way, he could have saved himself and everyone else the trouble if he’d only just done a wee bit of homework first. I’d like to address a couple of his “plans.”

1. Selling off land holdings to fund road replacement and repair is short-sighted because it’s not sustainable. What will you do when you run out of surplus lands, or more likely, interested buyers? Didn’t you sign off on the Sustainable Finance Policy Mr. Skakun, or were you absent that day? There are a couple of items in there I find interesting. http://www.princegeorge.ca/cityhall/StrategicFramework/StrategiesPolicies/CityGovernment/Documents/Sustainable_Finance.pdf

Except from policy point (13.2)
“The City will
depreciate its assets over their useful lives and will develop sustainable funding strategies for their
maintenance/replacement.” — notice the word sustainable.

Item (16.0) deals directly with the benefits that are to accrue from the Terasen deal.
“Maximization of long-term benefits to City residents will be Council’s guiding principle in making
decisions concerning the use of the Terasen Gas LILO Agreement’s revenues.”

Road repair does not qualify in my estimation, not the roads around here anyway.
2. To my knowledge, British Colubians pay thee highest motor fuel taxes in North America. The provincial government is not going to share that revenue with the cities without first raising the percentage rate. Our high fuel costs already put us at a disadvantage in the North American market place. Increasing that burden on top of the ever foolish carbon tax would marginalize even more people here I promise you.

3. The Terasen deal, like the lands the City holds in abeyance, is a legacy fund for the taxpayers of this City. I for one don’t want to see it squandered on this type of expense. It’s another band-aid solution, which will leave future council’s and taxpayers on the hook again down the ROAD, much like how we arrived at the problem we’re in today, which was ushered in by decisions made under Kinsley’s tenure I believe. It kept taxes down for a bit but now look at the mess and the same short-sighted unsustainable recommendations coming from not so bright people.

The rest of those points is more of the same sort of tripe. This is a simple formula people; we need to raise the road rehabilitation levy to a level that will keep our roads in reasonable shape. That can be achieved in a number of different ways.

I think it’s fair to say though that everyone is tuned in (well, maybe not Brian) so best dazzle us Mayor & Council. We’re a fickle lot, but our memories will stay intact for 3 years.

Brian for Village Idiot. Quit taxing us to death you moron. Try quit spending. Start with cancelling the 2015 Winter games. The cities portion of that is $ 24 million dollars.

There is a world of difference between Shrei Green and Brian Skakun friends Brian is the real deal make no mistake about that. The sad thing though is he is only one man and he has only one vote. I would venture to say that my opinion is the opinion of many Prince Georgians. Brian for mayor!

I too am surprised that Brian has opted for a gas tax. I am taxed out and I am sure that Brian was grabbing at straws by even suggesting a gas tax. But i too would suggest to you Brian to throw any tax increase under the bus because that won’t happen. With respect.

“This is a simple formula people; we need to raise the road rehabilitation levy to a level that will keep our roads in reasonable shape.”

I think what people would like to see is this: Don’t raise the levy/taxes. Reduce spending, and fix the damn roads. Once all the “extra” costs have been reduced, and the roads are in reasonable shape, and the pipes under the City are fixed, then maybe look into the “extras”.
When we can’t drive on the roads, and there is no water going to and from our homes, will the Council listen then? What can be done before that to get their attention?

The way the city and council spends money reminds me of the person who gets their paycheck, has a big fancy meal at shogun, spends money buying drinks for himself and his friends, purchases a number of non essentials at Costco and a day or two later realizes it is one week to payday and their are no groceries in the house.
Kind of important to look after the essentials before spending on the frills.

Bit off subject but the City’s website to report a pot hole is not operating. Overload condition. Better buy some new computers.

So you have been on council for 10 years, the roads have been steadily deteriorating during the entire time you have been on council and NOW you step up.
More than half your suggestions cost us more money, do you think we have an endless supply of money to pay in taxes? Why was not one of your suggestions to revisit your raise ? Lots of words that sound good but say nothing except cost cost cost us.

Just keep shooting at Brian Skakun….he is the only one I hear even attempting to address the issue by floating ideas…even if raising taxes isn’t a good idea it’s something that needs to be talked about. Where is the silent majority on this council???????

Brian, pick up the city budget and start cuttIng anything that isn’t necessary until enough is available to fix the city infrastructure. Once things are up to date, attach a budget allocation to maintain that level and look at refunding those things that were cut out of the budget. It’s the same thing you’d do at home if you were short on money to pay the mortgage, pay hydro and gas, and buy food. No more golf, cancel your gym membership, go off high speed and get cheap dial up service…..get it? Simple really you just have to make the tough decision.

My grandfather was a councillor in the 50’s and during the early 60’s said that he would not run again. The reason:
“People do not want to hear that yes you can have the new fire truck but your taxes will go up. They want to hear yes your taxes will go down and you have the new fire truck.”
Years later we were talking and he said we only got the type of politians we have now as we elected the ones that lied to us and each election the politians seem to be worse. He also believed the politians were bad because we pay them too much money, he said it never was to have been a full time job but everyday people giving their time for the town, province and country.

Skakun is an knuckelhead…. but at least he is trying I guess.

How about getting rid of 40 or so city employees? That should cover the road maintenance shortfall. Let’s start with the guy in the pickup truck who follows the street sweeper; there’s a totally unnecessary expense to the taxpayers. There has to be a dozen or so managers who have nothing to manage? Gone.

Getting rid of City Employees is not the answer! Then you have 40 familys out of work, the bottom line is the City of P.G is Top heavy with management, there are 5-10 people there that can go EASILY and save a ton of money but it’s not the folks runnin the equipment or in uniform or at the pool etc that need to be fired, its the 3-4 excess people in HR and other departments that can be doing alot more!

“Then you have 40 familys out of work,”

So what? We can’t keep people employed simply because they have a family. Guaranteed employment should not be one of our social programs.

There are way too many people (managers and front line workers alike) sucking at the taxpayers teat. It has to stop; it’s not sustainable.

I completely agree with ashfiem and others, stay away from my pockets!!!