Why dosent Ms Bone just mind her own business. She just repeats the info available when the survey is done.

If the City has all the information on the Core Review why are they not doning the Review. Too busy looking out the window.

Notice the City also makes a hefty contribution to the Barkerville Historic Town. Basserman and Councilor Murry Kruse are,allso contributers. Appears BC Parks has downloaded what was once a Provinial Park Is now a town for profit.Wonder if the Core Review will pick this up. Guess I shall tell them.
Chees

“People recognize the complexity of city service generally and understand that in order to have an opinion about service levels, whether they need to be decreased or increased, it’s important to have background information”

I think a lot of people who are involved with the City and have a long history of caring and participation do understand the “complexity” if you wish to call it that.

It is, however, no more complex than running any other organization with the scope of budget, payroll, departments and associated spectrum of operations – Northern Health, Canfor, SD57, UNBC, CNC, ICBC, etc. etc.

The survey is simple. It asks the respondents whether they wish to:
•Decrease the cost of the Service level
•No Change
•Increase the cost of the Service level
•No Opinion
In my opinion that question is not only extremely limited, but it is meaningless as a result of that limited range.

One ought to be looking at the quality standard that legislation or the city sets for each service, then whether the city delivers to that standard and then the cost of delivery in order to determine the “value for money”. In other words, I would want to find out the effectiveness and efficiency of the City operations. THAT is what I thought this was to be about and THAT is why I was supportive of the amount of money this review was to cost.

There is very little in the background material which gives me much hint of efficiencies and effectiveness of City programs, projects and departments.

So far, I am unimpressed.

I asked for the credentials of the people working on this project and that information was refused by both the Mayor and the proponents. I think I am starting to understand why.

This is Thunder Bay’s snow page
http://www.thunderbay.ca/Living/Getting_Around/Winter_Road_Maintenance.htm

These are their published standards: Once snowfall amounts reach five centimeters on the ground, the plows are out. Plowing begins at 2 am on what are considered priority routes – arterial roads to keep emergency and transit routes open. Priority routes are roads that carry the highest volumes of traffic. Arterial roads, hills, overpasses, collector and emergency and school bus routes have the highest priority. It takes about seven hours to clear these main routes.
Snow-removal crews move to residential streets and secondary routes after 10 centimeters of snow is on the ground and the main routes have been cleared. Clearing all residential streets can take up to 72 hours to complete.

How well those published standards are delivered, I do not know.

This is Prince George’s snow page.
http://www.princegeorge.ca/cityservices/transportation/snowoperations/Pages/Default.aspx

There is just input information on there. No standard that they say they will meet.

This is the core services review page which deals with snow removal
http://www.princegeorge.ca/cityhall/mayorcouncil/csr/csrsurvey/documents/5%20CPG%20CSR_Public%20Works_July%209%202012.pdf#page=18

It states: “winter control services have some aspects higher than standard, such as driveway clearing and response after 10cm of snow on residential streets.” Thunder Bay has 10 cm as the standard for residential streets and 3 days in clearing residential streets after they start. That sounds very similar to PG to me.

So it gives some figures for PG and Thunder Bay. I have added the population figures for 2011 for the city limits.

Thunder Bay
•1,994 lane km of road
•188 cm of snow fall
•$8.62/cm/lane km
•Total cost = $3,231,431
•Population = 108,359 (2011)

PG
•1,281 lane km of road
•216cm of snow fall
•$12.48/cm/lane km
•Total cost = $3,453,000
•Population = 71,030 (2011)

Based on that Prince George pays a little more than twice as much per cm/lanekm/person as does Thunder Bay
and about 45% more per cm/lanekm

Now, that is where I am looking for KPMG to find out why that is. And that is why I asked for the credentials of those conducting the service review and/or those who they have as consultants to give at least a good overview of why we have this situation. It needs more than bean counters. It needs someone who understands how to run such departments and has actually done so and has excelled at it.

For instance, is it all because we are clearing all driveways. Or is it something more than that?

So we are asked whether we want more or less or the same or whether we even have an opinion. Well, what I want is to know why the difference in cost on a unit service….

Yes I want to pay less but have the same service ….. or pay the same and have better service.

Did you know Gus the city not only opens drive ways but if your home has two walkways the loader following the grader opens those as well. It takes a couple of extra minutes BUT a loader cost about $1.66 per minute. If you take a drive at night when the snow blower is blowing some times you will find 15 trucks lined up behind the blower @ $2.00 per minute. Follow a city grader some time and you might see one driving accross town to timmy’s to get coffee. Just a couple of idems that I observed.

Seems to me that the high cost of snow removal in Prince George is the fact that the City is spread out over a huge area. Approx a 10 Mile radius. Not sure how that compares to Thunder Bay, but would be willing to bet there are significant differences.

Just came in on the Hart to-day from MacKenzie, and from the City Limit sign to the intersection of Highway 97 and 5th Avenue it is 27 Kilometres (10 Miles) It is about the same from 5th and 97 to the City limits West of the Baldy Hughes turn off.

So we have this huge area with residential areas all over the place from Haldi Road to the Chief Lake Road, that has to have snow removed. This is a huge area, and would explain some of the costs.

The City Administration and the Mayor and Council have to be fully aware of all the problems within the City, and the cost there of, and the solution.

Going through this reveiw process is probably just a red herring so that when the axe falls they can say the people have demanded we make these changes.

At the end of the day, every employee at City Hall,including MS Bone will have a perfectly justifiable explanation as to why their job is necessary. It has always been this way. So in the final analysis all you can do is cut the budget for every department by 10% and let the chips fall where they may.

Should read 17 Kilometres not 27.

Gus, excellent comments on this issue and others on this site! Keep it up, as your contribution here is of great benefit.

Why are we always comparing Prince George with Thunder BAY? Seems we are comparing apples to oranges. They are two differnt cities. Why not try Red Deer that has a similar climate and a sligtly larger population(83,000). Other then climate there are Cities in our Province that are similar to PG but they do hsve a much differnt operation then ours..

We have already gone there and formed our own opinions we dont need the opionios of Ms Bone or Gus for that matter.
Cheers

“Why are we always comparing Prince George with Thunder BAY”

Thunder Bay is quite a bit bigger than PG, but I’d hazard a guess that it’s a better comparable than Red Deer because like PG, it is fairly isolated, it serves the role as a service centre for smaller outlying communities, it has a similar climate to PG, it has a very similar reliance on the resource and pubic sectors and I think it has also struggled with growth and trying to find “its place” beyond what got it to where it is now. I stayed there for a couple of days when I drove out to Ottawa and it actually reminded me of PG in many ways. Now if only PG could trade the Nechako and Fraser for Lake Superior, LOL :)