Where were all the people that day after day complain about how awful this city is and how bad it’s run? I say put your money where your mouth is and try to make a difference. This was set up for imput. Where were YOU????

This is opinion 250, where people come to bitch and whine, as for offering an idea to help remedy a problem? Your in the wrong place.

Good point opinionated, I wasn’t there and I have no excuse except for I was unaware I could attend and that one is on me because I didn’t keep myself informed.

One thing I do find amusing though is that Ms. Greene says “It is possible the City could undergo a core review process again five years from now.”

I am assuming that she must be thinking she has won her second term in office already.

This was an information session, laying out the process of how the audit will proceed, no chance for public input.

I don’t think I could drink enough coffee to stay awake listening to an accountant speak about how they do their job;)

Why no public at the meeting.
Given the performance of the present city council, mayor, and city hall, people have just given up on city hall being at all capable of listening to public concerns, operating the city in an efficient manner without spouting lame excuses about winter conditions causing the extremely poor quality of the roads, and the tunnel vision approach that raising taxes is the only option available.
The core review should start at the top.

If voter turnout is as apathetic as the turnout for this public input event, then she very well could win a second term.

My excuse… I don’t live there anymore. But my parents and siblings do, an that’s why I stay tuned in to what is going on in PG.

Even though I’m no longer a resident, I’m still the most informed one of our family. Everybody else is “ya ya ya whatever”. By this turn out it it sounds like I don’t have sole exclusivity to this attitude response.

I wonder after the My PG process where citizens volunteered lots of their time to tell the City what we wanted PG to be like and thought we had a process underway, till the Green Goons got in and laid off all the people that were achieving what we wanted. We wanted action on the environment, social action and good parks / recreation.

Things like good roads, clean water, working sewers and garbage collection is something any city should supply and any politician who can’t deliver on those base services needs to think seriously about what they are doing.

Thought about going, but would rather go to the actual public imput sesions. Part of me feels though that they arent listening so why bother. Bad attitude perhaps but i suspect a fairly common one.

I decided not to go because I thought the chamber would be packed with standing room only! It wasn’t broadcast live on the city’s website either and the question is why wasn’t it? No lack of interest on my part, but that’s the way it goes.

“The 5 B.C. cities are Kelowna, Chilliwack, Kamloops, District of North Vancouver, and Nanaimo.”

These five cities have an immediate financial advantage over Prince George because they don’t waste hundreds of thousands of dollars every year on needless chemical water fluoridation! How stupid is it to keep doing this when 98% of B.C. is NOT doing it?

It’s money down the drain, folks! It’s not even good for the lawn and worse for those who drink it in their tap water!

I was unaware until yesterday morning, when it was posted in a story here, on O250. My own fault.
However….. I don’t feel that the city listens or cares at all about what I have to say, or what reasons I have for those opinions. So why bother. In the past, public input has been sought, and ignored. I am not an “apathetic” voter, nor am I uninvolved in my community. I do feel that the current council and mayor consider “us”, the voters and tax payers, to be the little people, who don’t know what is best for them.
Just my opinion.

No one was there becuase most folks are smart enough to realize that this “core review” was nothing more than an election promise and campaign platform. Now that Shari Green is in she could care less and it shows. Its not a hard fix of where to cut $ at city hall…..UPPER MANAGEMENT positions where 3-4 folks all do the same job!!

I think it would be fair to say that the people of Prince George want the City to reduce costs by millions of dollars, quit increasing taxes, and become fiscally responsible. **No more expensive Mega projects**.

The hard decisions have to be made by the City Managers, Mayor, and Council. They have a $350,000.00 Core Reveiw group to help them. So the question becomes.

Why do they need public input??? Can they not make realistic cuts to spending in various departments and still maintain the present services?? I think they can. By having public input, they download their responsibility to the public, and say, **This is what you asked for**

Problem is that is what we asked for when we elected this Council. Why would you expect people who have little or no access to the inner workings of City Hall to be able to make the correct decisions. Even if they could, its not their job. This is the responsibility of the City.

The City needs to come to terms with its spending. Its just that simple.

“Its not a hard fix of where to cut $ at city hall…..UPPER MANAGEMENT positions where 3-4 folks all do the same job!!”

It’s not just upper management; it’s all city employees.

i tried to go, but my car got stuck in a pothole…

It is interesting to note that no one so far has tated that they did not go because they thought it was going to be live streamed from the Council Chambers.

That is what it stated in opinion 250 article yesterday, and it was stated that way in previous announcements.

http://www.opinion250.com/blog/view/24396/3/core+review+team+in+town?

I will try to participate as much as I can. One of the things I am going to be watching out for is the process and especially the public participation part of the proces. Why? Because, in my opinion, the City does a lousy part of informing the public about such processes.

I just finished going through the city web site, thinking I could review the presentation of last night. I found nothing that jumped out and told me anything about the process nor anything that indicates that it was available to view or ever was intended to be available to view.

I had to put the core services into the site search engine to find the page linked below.
http://www.princegeorge.ca/cityhall/mayorcouncil/csr/pages/default.aspx

One core service is communications with the membership of the community, the ones who give the City Council and the Administration the mandate and the reason to exist in tthe first place.

For the time being, until we see some activity, THAT needs to be put in place so that it works properly; it needs to be outlined with some key milestones, even if those milestones do not have a date attached yet, or the date that is attached will be changed. There are always components which are fluid.

So, back to the page linked …. the session and the date and time are listed …. the location is not. Neither is a link on the home page … nor media releases … nor hot topics ….

So, how about making it an objective that at the end of this core review process, a system will be in place which will be the start of a template of how public participation can be handled so that the general public can have input and not only the ones who always get called upon to participate so that the organizers can say that the public had input.

I was unaware of a core review meeting why don’t you advertize its happening so more people could aware of it. I believe that I keep myself aware of what is happening in PG as wellas any one in town, and my wife and I do go to meetings if they are posted. One complaint that I have is that the mayor avoids 250 news. I rely on 250 for my news as the Citizen is next to useless as a news outlet IMO. If the mayor is afraid of getting some verbal muck on her pretty pink dress then maybe she should wear her Mayors Clothes and learn about what PG tax payers want.

Palopu wrote: “I think it would be fair to say that the people of Prince George want the City to reduce costs by millions of dollars, quit increasing taxes, and become fiscally responsible. **No more expensive Mega projects**.”

You may think it is fair to say that. But that is just you and a few others.

I would not say that because I would not know. Most certainly, I have another view.

There are many questions that are going to be asked throughout this project. The ones that KPMG are going to deal with and will not require input from us is what are the standards and how are we doing compared to other communities.

We likely should have some input as to the standards we are willing to accept. Also, what are our priorities. And, probably most important of all, how do we make those kinds of decsions. Not everyone will agree on an acceptable standard or a priority.

In the case of Toronto, I understand that at least one public session went all night long due to the number of presenters and the public interest on the issues.

So, this community does not give a chit in your opinion? Or you want them to make up their minds so that you can keep on complaining?

You got your issues, I have mine, and the rest of the people in the community have theirs. That is premise number one in this process.

Premise number two is that those opinions should come out and be counted/recorded for input.

The core review is not the only public review opportunity that was poorly attended. The Official Community Plan recently went to council for public hearing and only two members of the public bothered to provide input. Pretty surprising seeing as how this document provides the legal framework for all city planning and development for the next 5 years.

Anaswer to Albus Antiquus Vir the only whining and bitching I see is on your post. When a person makes a post on 250 itis to point out a complimenting or argumenting point of concearn and by and large I am in agreement with most of what is posted here.

Excuses, excuses.Let’s blame city hall for eveything so much easier than getting off your butt and trying to make a difference.

I found the “City Matters” ad in the Free Press on line. The date was May 4, 2012. It states in the City’s own ad that the session will be webcast …..

So, from the horse’s mouth.

The question now becomes, if the City said one thing in public and did not come through with what they said for such reasons as altering their plans, or meeting with some technical problems, will they explain what happened or will they just hide it under the rug?

Since one of the Councillors was “disappointed” at the turnout, I think it is important to understand that there may have been people who had intended on watching the webcast either as it happened or at a later date.

I was there. I asked questions as did several others. I did not take notes of any details because I figured I could go home and pick up anything I missed.

People do make plans for a variety of reasons. Some rely on the information presented. I know, I should have been smarter and figured that there might be a technical glitch or some other reason that the City would not come through and taken better notes accordingly.

Sorry Gus I don’t buy it at all., “Since one of the Councillors was “disappointed” at the turnout, I think it is important to understand that there may have been people who had intended on watching the webcast either as it happened or at a later date.”

Again, sitting home watching it on a computer doesn’t contribute a darn thing! Getting off the chair and going down there face to face WILL make a difference.

Folks start being part of a solution and try to make PG a better place and STOP blaming it all on CITy Hall. Believe it or not some good does happenen when you work together.

“Where were all the people that day after day complain about how awful this city is and how bad it’s run? I say put your money where your mouth is and try to make a difference. This was set up for imput. Where were YOU????”

Where were YOU????

Worried about city waste and mis-management? That’s easy. Just get rid of the artificial water fluoridation (AWF)which we’ve been poisoned with since 1955.

Not difficult to figure that in all that time, literally MILLIONS of tax dollars have been squandered on the stuff – “down the drain” one mite say.

NOW is a perfect time to say: Get it out -and stop mass-medicating the entire population against our will, which is a violation of basic democracy and liberty. We can finally save a bundle! So let’s say bye-bye to our toxic tap water! And good riddance!

I made a suggestion here with an earlier comment about the costly, needless and potentially harmful fluoridation of our city tap water. This is not a new idea, in fact it has been presented to council on three separate occasions through proper scientific and polite presentations before council.

In every instance it was rejected. That does not mean that it is dead. In fact, it is alive as much as ever, perhaps even more so NOw when 98% of the whole province is artificial fluoridation free!

I know, it’s only 100 grand, peanuts in the city’s greater scheme of things! However, if just a few dozen more individuals come up with an idea how to save 100 grand per year (and every year thereafter!) we will be realizing savings of a few MILLION dollars per year, just the kind of thing the core review is looking for!

Since there never was a referendum to legitimate fluoridation in Prince George the city does not need a costly referendum in order to just stop it altogether!

If it is NOT stopped as part of the core review at least those who are opposing fluoridation will know for sure that NOBODY really cares about any public input, no matter how important!

The mayor, all the councillors and everybody else who is responsible with their decisions for the health of the citizens of Prince George has received a lot of information about this issue and not one of them can claim in the future not to have had sufficient knowledge about it.

If they do not wish to inform themselves why 98% of the province either never did fluoridation or stopped it in the meantime – there is virtually nothing the opponents of this practice can do about that.

The issue itself will never go away, of course!

They aren’t going to listen anyway so don’t waste your time.

Note to Albus, Opinionated. Have you also sent your complaint to the readers, viewers, listeners of the other media in town about the lack of attendance at the meeting? I mean they must have been aware of the session, right? Or is it just Opinion 250 and its audience that you choose to criticize because of the concerted effort to talk about the tough issues? And, believe it or not, the people here DO want a better city, a better-run city, and make suggestions regularly on how to go about that. Question is, is anyone listening or are they just ramming through their agenda? People here are willing to work together for the betterment of the community (look at the result of the AAP on the dike). They certainly seem to realize that you don’t incur more debt when you can’t provide the basic community needs, and that is key to being “part of the solution”.

Things like good roads, clean water, working sewers and garbage collection is something any city should supply and any politician who can’t deliver on those base services needs to think seriously about what they are doing.

Is that so hard to figure out! You need the lowly tax payer to hold your hand TO FIGURE THAT OUT!

GET STUFFED Albus Antiquus Vir!

“Again, sitting home watching it on a computer doesn’t contribute a darn thing! Getting off the chair and going down there face to face WILL make a difference.”

It was an information session; that’s not really the time or place to make any difference. Viewing the webcast would have been sufficient to obtain the information necessary to understand the review procedure.

Of course, the city failed on that simple task.

I intended to watch the webcast (so much for that)

There is a hell of a lot more at stake here than attending public meetings and trying to make a difference.

1. What makes you think that the Mayor or Councillors would listen to or act on your input.?? Did they ask your input for the Community Energy System, or the $3 Million dollar new office buildings on 18th and Ospika.

2. A number of councillors indicated that they would not support an AAP on significant spending during the election, but did so immediately thereafter.

3. Comparing ourselves to other Cities to see where we stand is a mugs game played by all Municipalities. The problem with this comparison is that every city in the study could be in the same situation as Prince George. When they see how many Police we have per capita they will want to increase thier police force. If we may more taxes than they do, they will want to increase taxes. In any event its a mugs game.

4. When you have 25 Managers getting paid over $100,000.00 a year. A City Manager that gets over $200,000.00 A Mayor that gets over $93,000.00. and 8 reasonably paid Councillors, I suggest that someone in that lot, should be able to figure out how the hell to run this City.

5. Its bad enough that they need to hire a core reveiw group, however it is even worse, that they need the public (who hired or elected them) to give them ideas on how to proceed.

6. These public meetings are an abdication of responsibilites of the Mayor, Council,. and City Management, and if they have any purpose at all, it is to confuse the issue, and let them off the hook.

7. This will be a good case to see just how much input is actually received from the public, and how many of the recommendations are actually used.

“Excuses, excuses.Let’s blame city hall for eveything so much easier than getting off your butt and trying to make a difference.”

Exactly how does attending an information session make a difference? They were planning to talk, not listen. That is what an information session is.

“This is opinion 250, where people come to bitch and whine, as for offering an idea to help remedy a problem? Your in the wrong place.”
*you’re*
This is an OPINION site. You gave your opinion, I can give mine. So can everybody else. Why post here if you don’t like that? Perhaps you’re in the wrong place?

I think it’s important as few people as possible attend. These accountants are costing us by the hour, and the more people who ask them questions, the more hours they bill, the more we pay, when we all know in the end, nothing the public is going to say is going to change anything. If the public knew the answer, why are we paying these guys hundreds of thousands to find it. The public hearings are just window dressing to make us feel included, but the cost of that feeling is quite high.

Wow, you people have a lot of time on your hands.

And we can make all kinds of suggestions to the core review but will our City head those suggestions is the question
Cheers

Interesting how you folks who think this site is full of negativity and whiners and bitchers keep coming back here to see what’s going on. Think maybe a lot of people are coming here for their info? Think maybe members of council and real and wannabe movers and shakers visit often?
Fact of the matter is if there was a bona fide discussion going on in this city, it would be making much more progress than is the case. But some people don’t understand that a discussion is, at very least, a two-way proposition.

“will they explain what happened or will they just hide it under the rug?”

You are correct gus that communications from city hall leave a lot to be desired. It seems that Chris Bone is as invisible as Mike Davis was during his tenure.

Maybe the core review will show them the difference between filling a position and doing a job.

Karjai wrote: “Wow, you people have a lot of time on your hands.”

That is the neat part about this whole core review process. We are told that we have a high level of vounteerism in this community. It does take time to do that.

But look at the bright side …. KPMG can take advantage of people in this community having the luxury of being able to donate time, ideas, personal experience as well as business experience to the community.

So, we should be able to get a really good study completed in PG. .. ;-)

All of my friends are on Facebook ….. and twitter …. and text each other continuously …..

You would be amazed how much time I have on my hands by not doing that…. :-)

There were a few interesting issues raised last night.

One I took particular note of was the question asked of KPMG whether people who responded to the process by e-mails, for instance, would get published or not.

If found it surprising that there did not seem to be a definitive answer to that question. It seemed to me that neither the Mayor or the consultants were prepared for that question. That was not a very good indicator of an open process to me.

I understand that some people do not want to have their names published and that by having anonymous submission, more information/opinions will likely come forward.

That being said, I am used to reports such as this which use surveys, open forum discussions, public hearings, opportunities to write in, etc. having all that raw data included in appendices.

The City of Toronto web site, which deals with their services review, seems to be a good source of how this can be done, especially since it was also conducted by KPMG. But, KPMG is a large company, and large companies often are really just an agglomeration of small sub offices which take different approaches based on clients’ wishes.

So, there are published e-mails on the Toronto site. All they have done is remove the name of the authors. Simple, isn’t it.

So I am puzzled why the run around last night. This sort of input is standard in this kind of process and the method of handling it should also be standard.

So I have to wonder whether the City is holding this back, or KPMG, or both?
http://www.toronto.ca/torontoservicereview/results.htm#003

click on the various raw data links, including “letters and emails from the public” to see the format they used.

Also click on the input from “Councillor-led public meetings”. I would love to see that here, having councillors take on some of the work and getting their “hands” dirty for a change.

This is a particularly good set of data gathered at a Councillor run session
http://www.toronto.ca/torontoservicereview/pdf/councillors_colle_matlow_mihevic.pdf

Toronto also publishes their Council Briefing Book on line for people who are interested how the City governance and administration functions.

http://www.toronto.ca/civic-engagement/council-briefing/index.htm

Towards an open governance structure. Wow!!!
——————————————
Hey people, is this positive or negative feedback.

How’s grumpy doing so far? Will you be able to keep up …. ;-)

To Albus I think the only bitching and whining is your doing. The people that post comments on 250 make good or bad comments according to how they feel about certain topics. Today I’m not too pleased with the raidio anouncer that replaced Mr. Miesner because he praised Kevin Falcon for doing such a good interview. Kevin Falcon said that getting rid of the HST was stupid. I believe Mr Kevin Falcon has just called the majority of BCers stupid. Well good luck to you Mr. Falcon on getting re-elected. Be cause the majority of BC electorate have voted the HST out for obvious reasons. They are tired of paying the corporations taxes. If the core review wants to compare city costs go outside of the box and compare us to Mckenzie, Vanderhoof, Burns Lake then scale down the size of Prince George or increase the size of the above.

Ahhh, did I hurt some feelings? Strike to close to home? Funny how I voice my opinion and I am told that maybe I shouldnt be here. I dont remember telling others they are in the wrong place.

“I dont remember telling others they are in the wrong place.”

Posted by: Albus Antiquus Vir on May 16 2012 6:52 AM
This is opinion 250, where people come to bitch and whine, as for offering an idea to help remedy a problem? Your in the wrong place.”

It seems to me that anyone who offers remedies (snake oil ??? LOL) was told they were in the wrong place.

Alzheimers setting in??? ;-)

Bitch and whine? Nah! People here make observations. Doncha know?

Kevin Falcon would have to be pretty stupid, to make such a stupid comment.

He just confirmed what I suspected all along, he’s stupid. Hopefully he wont run again, along with Hansen, Abbot, and the other members of the **Anybody but Christy group**.

Why sit through all that crap when you have no say? If you are allowed to speak it’s only for “I’m listening” which they are not. They’ll do whay they like regardless, after all we voted them in to look after our tax dollars which they don’t seem to have a problem stuffing it their jeans.

Gus:”The City of Toronto web site, which deals with their services review, seems to be a good source of how this can be done, especially since it was also conducted by KPMG.”

I downloaded that KPMG report some time ago. I seem to remember that in it KPMG suggested to the city that a very substantial saving could be made by eliminating artificial fluoridation, since other communities have done this already.

Calgary and Waterloo have recently taken this logical step.

CBC report….
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2011/07/11/toronto-budget-report.html

“However, one of the more bizarre suggestions from the comprehensive report called for the elimination of fluoride of Toronto water beginning in 2013 which it warns could have some consequences. “The fluoridation of drinking water could be eliminated, with impacts on dental health,” it said in the report.”

BTW, one of the concerns I have is what the credentials, both education and experience is on the team that is looking at the services review.

This one has me very suspicious, for instance. It appears to me that the literature is not certain on which way to go with fluoridation. Thus, I find it interesting that the wording appears to agree that removing fluoride will affect dental health negatively. I would feel much more comfortable with that suggestion if I knew who reached that conclusion and what the level of expertise in public health was of that individual or those individuals..

Gus you make too much common sence go to the back of the room!!

It is interesting the conclusions some draw from the lack of public participation.

Could it be that most of us thought we gave our ideas, suggestions and priorities during the two years of consultation on “myPG” (which now appears to have been tossed to the curb so to speak). What a waste of thousands of tax dollars on that effort and a slap in the face to all those that actually thought the city was serious about changing towards a more sustainable city. (see good post by “lunarguy” above)

Could it be the majority of us don’t care to participate in this just like the majority don’t vote?

Could it be people realize this is just a political exercise to try and give credence to a core review commissioned to address a manufactured crisis?

Could it be that we actually had a nice night and a pretty good hockey game on the tube :)

Just my all speculation but as possible as any of the other conclusions made by others.

Mitch2: “Could it be the majority of us don’t care to participate in this just like the majority don’t vote?”

Yeah, I would love to know how many of the people expressing the faux indignity and outrage over this didn’t bother to cast a ballot. It probably would be shocking.

Mitch 2 and lunarguy spoke about the myPG exercise.

Please remember that exercise was to create a vision of what a well run Prince George community COULD look like by 2040.

In fact, when one reads the document it is mostly presented in “positive” syntax. There are a few “how are we doing” pages, and of course the scenario components where people were trying to write four science fiction movie scripts. Actually more likely they were recalling science fiction movie scripts they had already seen. Reminded me of the population projection made for PG in the mid 1970s era that projected a population in the 200,000 range by now. (which is one reason why we have the sprawl that we do – 1965 to 1975 planning ideals projected into 1985 to 2015 reality.

It does not explore how well we are doing now in the areas which were covered. That would, of course, require a critical assessment which is typically required to advance to an improved or advanced state.

It did provide a very cursory (at least that is the way I view them when I read them carefully) idea of how to achieve some visions/objectives.

For me, too many of them deal with the City in an advocacy role since they do not have the responsibility or the authority to deal with many of the proposed strategies.

So, contrast that with the current core services review.

First of all, it is supposed to deal with core (required) services. Many of the myPG visions dealt with notions which were typically not core services.

For example – myPG dealt with monitoring of water quality. It totally missed establishing a community standard for what quality water actually means. Thus there was no discussion on fluoridation. Since the raw data is not available on line I have no idea what was brought forward at meetings, etc. and what was discarded. So, I do not know whether that is new thinking or whether those who advocate the cessation of that treatment were simply not among the participants). It also totally missed the maintenance of a water delivery service.

There is, however, one page in the entire document which deals with “fiscal responsibility”. It is worthwhile to repeat that here since the core review, in my opinion, is the first serious action that deals with implementation of that.

It states “Prince George carefully budgets to ensure effective and responsible use of financial resources.

1. Engage the public in discussing service levels and choices in priority-setting”

The core services review will allow that to happen for the first time the way I understand it.

So, myPGers, this is the time to get re-engaged since this is the implementation of a component of the myPG outcome that is probably the most critical since most of the other nice-to-have visions cannot be implemented without some level of funding.

It also states under the fiscal responsibility page: “Investigate the factors driving rising recreation and fire protection costs, and develop strategies to reduce these costs”

Again. I think it would be appropriate to include that in the core services review.

The question of the RCMP services was raised. Since it is difficult to control due to it being a contracted services with other clients involved, fire services does not have that complicating factor. Neither does recreation.

Of course, putting in a proposal for the Canada Winter Games did not exactly helpo to contril the rising cost of recreation in this community.