Did snow removal also get moved to the utility bill – increasing it even further?

No I’m sure that will be extra too…

Yet another reason to get out of this burg as soon as retirement arrives. The reasons just keep piling up.

Its just the beginning!Watch for an “Enough Is Enough” protest coming to a town near you soon!

I have to agree with but on January 28. As soon as I retire I will leave Prince George. The house prices may be lower but I am disgusted with the gouging from city hall. Absolutely sick. Every year it’s the same thing. How do these people show their faces in public? Absolutely disgusting.

Another money grab, and who will profit by it? Crooked politicians that’s who!!!

Are we paying more for water, sewer and garbage collection than other cities? Or are we just shooting from the hip? Just curious .

It is just the beginning. We are starting to realize the true cost of maintaining infrastructure and providing these services.

We have been sold on the idea for too long that we can have it all and low taxes. The city’s credit card is maxed out.

This has been going on as far back as Kinsley, maybe even a little farther. At some point, someone decided that it wasn’t sexy to focus on the basics of running a city.

We need the Core review. Yes, it is going to make some people angry. We also need someone who isn’t afraid to lead, and stop the insanity.

I realize that if we want certain services and a certain lifestyle, there is a cost involved. What I don’t understand is these kinds of annual cost increases in combination with seemingly lower service levels.

If most of us are seeing salary increases of between 0% and 2% annually, how is it that the cost of services is increasing by 19%, 19%, 18%, and so on? It can’t be cost of labour. Also, inflation has been well below the level of those increases – what gives?

Everywhere, cougs. But nothing will change. People will question why one thing or another can’t be cut, and maybe a few things will be, but at the end of the process your utility bills and taxes will still be higher.

Reminds me of when the Reform Party first got going, and Preston Manning made much political hay out of a National Debt that was ballooning into the stratosphere. So much so that the CBC commissioned a panel of citizens from across the country to look at the Federal Budget and see how much they could cut out of it, while they televised their deliberations and findings.

What they finally came up with was miniscule relative to the overall Budget, and many of the things cut would only have resulted in a likely increase in other costs elsewhere. So where’s the answer?

Every indication points to it NOT being where anyone’s been looking. Or the problem would’ve been solved, somewhere, at some level of government, long ago. And it hasn’t been.

So maybe it’s time we started looking where we HAVEN’T been looking, at just how these ‘figures’ that add up to higher taxes and bills for all of us year after year after year are actually being arrived at. At whether the system of accounting governments at all levels use is accurately reflecting the physical reality its supposed to be capable of accurately reflecting. And if it isn’t, WHY can’t it be changed?

Functionally, there’s really no difference between a government delivering goods and services to you in return for taxes than there is a private enterprise doing the same thing through prices. With the exception that the prices are optional, to a very large degree. You can choose not to buy, in a lot of cases, or where to buy in many others, if you think those prices are too high.

But with government taxes you can’t, they’re a mandatory exaction that’s going to be taken from you whether you like it or not. So a government doesn’t have to compete for your business, it’s a monopoly. But that shouldn’t give it license to do its accounting differently than the way a private business does. Especially when the way it’s doing that accounting mis-represents a lot of the ‘capital values’ we’re supposed to be paying for in taxes.

There is no denying that those who work for government, providing many services and a few goods to us through government, should be directly paid through our taxes.

But what about the Capital Costs of all the infrastructure and equipment, etc., that governments build and acquire? Are these things ‘expensed’ into taxes in the same way similar assets would be into prices in a private business? Or are governments trying to collect back from us in taxes our money at a faster rate than these things depreciate, and with no way to measure accurately and credit us with how having them has ‘appreciated’ our overall well-being?

I guess since the taxpayer has no other choice than to use city services the gouging of the taxpayer will continue. Increases in the 20% range along with millions spent on the new RCMP complex, millions on an energy project to buy units of heat from Lakeland mills, trips to China,PG hotel purchase, etc, certainly lead one to believe city council in its present state are incapable of fiscal responsibility.
Someone has to pay for their screw ups.

thinking of building our own home in the next few years, will not be on the grid. check it out we need more of these homes http://earthship.com/canada

Because we have always payed our utility bill in advance of the due date in order to get the 10% discount why then am I being taken advantage of by losing the discount. That means I will be paying an additional 10% more than the folks who have never paid prior to the due date. Also I question the legallity of setting tax increases for a 4-5 year period in advance. Why is it in this town that it appears that it does not matter whom gets voted in here they always take the easy way out by ripping of the tax payers of this town.Right Lynn Hall. You should resign because people thought you would be a great addition to council but your no better than the rest of the losers.

My monthly utility bill payment has increased from $55.00 per month to $69.00 per month, a 25.5% increase.

Honestjoe, just think that next year it is going up by another 19% next year so that means another $13.11 for sewer rate and another 15% for water for another $10.35 for you next years bill probably total $92.46. The following year 19% again.

Not that I’m overly happy about the increases and that we’re playing catchup, but this thread is a great example of how you can use percentages to make things look worse or better than they really are.

Oh no, twice in one day.

JB “Not that I’m overly happy about the increases and that we’re playing catchup, but this thread is a great example of how you can use percentages to make things look worse or better than they really are”

Agreed.

Further, I think most people, myself included, do not mind paying taxes and do understand that we need to increase to catch up and get us all back on track….

Here’s the problem: This will not happen!

As long as we have the kind of council we have now (previous ones, too, c’mon if we are honest) that WASTE our money of crap we don’t need like Stolz’s conference so that our suits can play “that guy” to other suits, and new buildings (holy hell!) like the new cop shop and as long as WE are the only ones paying our share while certain businesses get huge tax breaks and “flipping fees” (cause that is what they really are) – we will continue to pay more taxes, for less and less services and less people will have decent paying jobs to keep the retail and service industries afloat, hence less business will set up shop and less people will move here and we will continue to go backwards.

That’s why I sold my house and moved into the country.
2 years ago, taxes and utilities costs me $ 9.00 per day. So quite expensive to live in PG compare to what I got offered.
I am happy everyday, that I made the change and moved out of city limits.

I’m just pissed that only now is City Hall recognizing that they need to actually charge what the services cost and set aside funds for the depreciation of assets. As the boomers retire and flock south, young familes will be left behind to pick up the deficit.

The fact that the city felt it needed a Core Services Review at all proves they don’t know how to look at what they are doing objectively. And then the fact that they spent 350,000 of OUR dollars on it, tells me that maybe we need to wipe city hall, the mayor and concillors clean and start over. Why can’t we sue (class action) for the misdeeds of these cretins, going back twenty years?
One person could have looked at this whole thing and probably come up with a better review.
Listen, we have a democracy here. Why, when we elect certain individuals to represent us, if they are not doing it, can’t we fire them on the spot and find someone else to do the job right?
Why can’t the citizens band together and fire the whole crew of them?

Agreed BCNorth. There is no question that current and past city councils have pi**ed away millions of dollars on useless projects (the District Energy System is a good example) and gotten away from the unglamourous business of such things as keeping the roads in good shape and maintaining infrastructure. That needs to change. Soon.

Now, more than ever we need to have our output garbage weighed. This is getting rediculous. Why not have the biggest outputters pay for the service? After all we pay for what electricty we use, gas we consume and so on. Those who put out the least garbage should pay the least. Simple. This is one user fee I would like to see.

Give more on January 28 2013 12:20 PM

Now, more than ever we need to have our output garbage weighed. This is getting rediculous. Why not have the biggest outputters pay for the service? After all we pay for what electricty we use, gas we consume and so on. Those who put out the least garbage should pay the least. Simple. This is one user fee I would like to see.

We need to give people a choice for garbage pickup. Here’s what works elsewhere. Privatize collection so that those who don’t want their garbage picked up don’t have to pay for that service. However -since nothing in this world is free- they need to start charging at the landfill. $X.00 dollars a tonne with a minimum 3~4 dollar charge.

Givemore: “Now, more than ever we need to have our output garbage weighed.”

I disagree. Weighing individual garbage bins sounds like an administrative nightmare waiting to happen, fraught with potential errors.

Like axman said, we already have three bin sizes. Privatize collection. If people find that that doesn’t work for them or think they could do it cheaper by themselves, let them opt out and pay for their own removal.

Mind you, having said all that, there would probably be a segment of PG who would get their garbage service for ‘free’ by opting out, and taking their trash and illegally dumping it on forestry roads, or burning it in their backyards. If you think PG smells bad now…

How have the Mill Rates between corporate and private property taxes changed in the last few years? Same with the charges for ‘water’.?? I remember a little blurb in the paper about changing water rates—shortly after reading that water meters were not self sustaining at the water rates being charged when they were talking about bringing them in.

I suspect you seeing some off loading from the corporate sector again…just like the HST.

People of Prince George are being **rooked** by City Administration, and Council.

We are in debt over our heads, we are over taxed and under serviced. We continue to do things the same as in the past, even though that is what got us into trouble.

Prince George, and how it is run is a bloody joke. Seems all they can do is increase the cost of taxes, and services.

Anyone who wants to take the time to look at the cost of running this City would immediatly see that we have a serious financial problem, and first and foremost we need a 10% decrease in ALL budgets. After that we can look at further reductions of unneccesary costs and services. This has to be done now.

We have a Council that got us into the Winter Games for a cost of at least $15 Million dollors even though they knew that we were broke, and this money could (and should) have been put into infrastructure.

Council and Administration are playing a **Mugs** game, and are trying to get some things done before the next election because they all want to be here for the Winter Games. So they need to be elected in 2014. After that Im sure they will do the same as the previous Councils, and let the City go to Hell.

We as Citizens of Prince George have no representation on City Council. We only have the appearance of representation., Special interest groups, and commercial enterprises, have far more representation than the average Citizen.

So what we have is taxation without representation, which was the cause of the American revolution. We need a tax revolt in Prince George. I think it is fair to say that the threat to not re-elect Councillors or the Mayor is not sufficient to make them make any meaningful changes.

A tax revolt would have to entail the withholding of paying taxes until the City Administration, and Council can show that they are serious about solving these problems.

At this point I dont expect anyone to do much but *bitch* however within a few years you will see some pretty upset people if they continue to increase the costs of living in this City.

Time to stand up and be counted.

One reflects back onto the implimentation of the current garbage collection system and the promise of a cheaper service. I guess we’re still waiting for the cheaper part. The guarantee the city signed up with Horizon Air. City paid that out early instead of waiting through a complete winter season ( when so many of us escape the cold). The travels overseas to entice development. Can someone point me towards a business in PG that was a result of one of these trips? One that completely offsets the city expenses of these trips with city income?

More and more people will vote with their feet. Its stuff like this that confirms why people are doing that. The property tax is a hostage tax unless one sells their house and moves along. People in PG can’t be counted on to vote for decent candidates IMO.

Where are they going to go, Eagle? It’s the same in virtually EVERY other community of which I’m aware. EVERYWHERE, in this province or out.

They sell their house in PG, say, for less than it’s assessed at, just to get away. Tax assessments fall as a result, and the City raises the mil rate to make up for the shortfall in revenues. And those who are left get dinged the same, or likely even more, and the downward spiral accelerates.

You could have a tax revolt, like Palopu suggests. It was done once, in California, years ago, when their voters enacted ‘Proposition 13’ to try to stave off being taxed right out of their homes.

But while that stemmed the tax take, and resulted then in the inevitability of populist-legislated, financially mandated, cuts being made to services, few people were satisfied afterwards with the way those cuts ended up impacting them.

They didn’t like the fact that if you needed a cop, say, you’d better make sure it’s on a day when one is available. Because other days one isn’t going to be. The ‘figures’ dictated the ‘facts’.

Only in the end, the good people of California still ended up with a massive overall debt, in spite of all the attempts to cut everything possible at the municipal and county levels to the bone. And that debt has virtually bankrupted that State, to the extent any State can go bankrupt.

The problem can’t be solved with a prospective solution that’s ever going to come from where we’ve been looking, because ALL those prescriptions involve the ‘re-distribution’ of an OVERALL quantity of money that’s always going to be collectively insufficient to do ‘financially’ what we’re already more than capable of doing ‘physically’.

We have to change the accounting. To make the ‘figures’ FOLLOW the ‘facts’, not be the determinant of them.

To say, as many are wont to do, that this, “Can’t be done, ” that we cannot change a man-made system to better serve our needs and take full advantage of our actual potentialities, many of which already exist physically and are grossly under-utilised, has got to be the greatest example of the power of ‘black magic’ witnessed.

We laugh at the poor black people of Haiti and the psychological power a ‘voodoo’ doll with a pin someone sticks in it somewhere can have over them. But are we any better when we let a mere mass of ‘figures’ arranged in an accounting-demand system we call ‘money’ so confuse us that those figures no longer REPRESENT anything accurately, and have been given a life of their own, with the power of life or death over us in the hands of those who manipulate them?

We need a revolt alright, but lets not make the mistakes made elsewhere before, or here, too. Again and again. Look for the REAL ’cause’ of the problem. It’s not THAT hard to find, nor to cure.

A tax revolt would a least get the attention of the Politicians.. on every level.

We need some honesty in Government. We also need people in Government who are there for the benefit of the community as a whole, as opposed to looking our for their own selfish interests.

I realize that there is no Utiopian way to fix this bloody mess, and perhaps having it all crash is in fact the best solution over the long term.

Have a nice day.

City council’s imagination begins and ends with, “tax and spend”.

No, there is no Utopian way to fix it, Palopu, and a tax revolt could indeed be a very good start. Public anger is a very potent force, but it’s also a very difficult force to focus, and keep focused, on the REAL issue.

Witness the outcome of the public anger over Campbell’s attempt to ‘sell’ the Coquihalla to a private operator who would’ve collected tolls on it for the next 60 years.

A widespread public revolt against doing that got the attention of his MLAs, and they found their voices and effectively killed that idea. But where was the same anger when he subsequently raised the toll from $ 10 to $ 13 on a highway that former Premier Bill Bennett said had been already fully paid for back when the NDP was in?

So yes, by all means, we should make our feelings well known, but at the same time be more aware that we’re up against masters of deceit who will attempt to divide and conquer in any way possible to retain the perks and positions of influence the present system enables.