Shut off the fluoride yes but provide drops to those that require it? Really? Who decides that someone requires fluoride? Someone please tell these morons that there is fluoride in toothpaste so they won’t need to provide drops to anyone.

Contract out city hall to the lowest bidder!Lottsa morons on this site would do the mayors job for next to nothing if you would believe all the bleating here.

“Stop investing in Green Vehicles until it is the most economic solution based on life cycle costing” .. why would this be taken OFF the table? This suggestion seems to make perfect sense to me. Why would you want to persue a technology that is far more expensive that what you aready have, instead of wait until the technology is such that it is worth investing in? Seems if someone can throw the word “green” in things it must be worthwhile persuing. A lot of people are getting rich on that notion. Dumb.

Just looking at the first line item.

RCMP Parking lot – is this the parking lot next to the Library? If so, then how come the people who proposed the hotel-condo have not already put an irrevocable and conditional offer on it? Has the street not already been closed for them and are they purchasing that as well?

Wood Innovation Centre – If it is the PG Hotel site and not some other site(s) which may have been held in the back pockets for that or other projects, we are really not going to sell it, or are we? I thought that was to be the City’s donation to the province in return for the province to build one more downtown life-saver.

Seems to me this brings up an interesting dilemma of dealing with real estate transactions as well as senior government transaction which are normally handled in closed session. I suppose by now the rumour mills and public announcements by those involved have brought it out in the open.

There are two things that come to mind, But, when I read that:

1. They want to keep on investing in green vehicles even if they are more expensive and maybe even less effective to operate than more standard efficient vehicles.

2. They do not know how to read for content.

Dominion and 6th for student residences – One of our Mayors sure got snookered on that one…..

See how we have to hold these people’s hands? I mean, the City financial auditors would not do that. I would think that all financial transaction on that project met the bylaws. But they sure wasted everyone’s time and actually may have raised expectation by some in the City who do not have a good foothold in reality.

City owned downtown commercial sites … no estimate

Great, we have a person in charge of City Real Estate and yet the City does not have an idea of the value of City owned property?

Everything is for sale ….. let’s get a realistic price out there …. starting with the current assessed value would give one a ball park figure and then a realistic asking price.

Am I surprised? Of course not!

Re-engineer Police report writing and administrative duties so police can focus on crime reduction

Would this not be standard procedure for RCMP across the country? Services are contracted. I would think it is the Service provider’s responsibility to provide efficient and effective services. Why was this not part of the contract negotiation? Did KPMG and or Admin look at this and determine that the process was inefficient? Or is this just some pipe dream?

Establish fees in planning department for:
· Providing comparative and analytical information
· Development works agreements
· Legal agreements
· Proforma agreements
· Amendments

Does this mean that in a user pay environment this is not already in place? Unbelievable. So developers are not paying for these services they get from City Hall?

I mean the big ones people have been pointing to already …. golf property development planning in the hundreds of thousands of dollars as I understand it.

Please shut off the chemical fluoride! Our children are being over-fluoridated as fluoride is in many things – toothpaste, processed foods and beverages. This is not 1955 when water fluoridation started.
If you see brown smudges, white spots or ridges on your teeth or your child’s teeth, it is fluorosis – damage to the surface of the tooth caused by excessive exposure to fluoride. Over 40% of American adolescents have dental fluorosis. Health Canada doesn’t track these numbers because they consider it a cosmetic issue. Tooth whitening is a multi-billion dollar industry.
We should be able to turn on the tap and have clean, clear water, free of chemicals from the phosphate fertilizer industry. It’s not even pharmaceutical grade fluoride they’re adding! Reverse osmosis removes the fluoride, but it also removes ALL the minerals required by our body (fluoride is not required), so it is not recommended for longer than three months.
Although Northern Health will have you believe that the concentration has been lowered to help prevent things like fluorosis – the flaw in adding hydrofluorosilicic acid (fluoride) to the water supply is that the DOSE cannot be controlled – body composition (adult/child) and water consumption.
This flies in the face of modern medicine – it is not one size fits all.
Let’s join the rest of BC and end artificial water fluoridation

^^^ Well, what do you know? PG is back.

some interesting ideas here but to suggest the brain trust at KPMG and the core review came up with this is a stretch.

All these ideas have been talked about before including stopping flouridation. Council in the past including our current mayor and some veteran councillors have always leaned towards public health but maybe another flip flop on the way?

What I see here is not to regurgitate the results of a core review but a real need for a management review.

One example is the real estate holdings. This department should be looking at all the properties that they hold on a regular basis, confirm that the reason that they were bought is still valid and plans have not changed. If they no longer fit with current plans sell them at least then they will start to bring in property tax. Not sure where the North Nechako land is but any future flood mitigation costs should be taken into consideration before selling it.

If fleet services is not already reviewing equipment usage a department head should be getting a pink slip.

Financial department needs an outside party to tell them they can increase revenue if the collect unpaid taxes????And the head of this group is now (bad) acting City Manager????

Do you really think the new hotel/condo project is still going ahead gus? I think the proponents were far to optimistic on the demand for 300-800k condos in PG and the project hinged on a good pre-sale. I’ll believe it is a go when the cement trucks start filling the footings.

Shut off chemical flouride injection system? $50 thousand dollars? Only in Prince George would it cost something like that to STOP doing something. I’d personally like to see the reciepts relating to the shut down of flouride. I’ll shut it down for $25 thousand dollars. Just give me the owners manual. Ninnies at city hall now. And predictably again after the next election.

“lonesome” do you really think the real estate department hasn’t already been open to offers on the city properties mentioned? Somebody should ask the development director if selling real estate owned by the city has ever been considered.

and do you really think fleet services hasn’t been reviewing and looking for ways to cut costs?

and you don’t think financial services has been aware of the challenge with mobile home owners not paying taxes? The challenge is once the city seizes them and kicks the people to the street, then what do they do with the trailer they just took?

If you think these are new ideas then you must be drinking from the same cup of political rhetoric that mayor green has been serving up since taking power.

Harbinger . The chart shows $50,000 savings not cost.

Yes just why are we investing in so called green vehicle technology? What are the costs? How is the study going? Seems to be a secret.

Could that money not be better spent in potholes, improving street sweeping and snow removal. Heck the Little Prince budget is just a fraction of those green costs and it brings joy to thousands not a hand picked few as the so called green vehicles.

Not to mention that electric car factories are more toxic than normal car factories and that electric cars were deemed to be worse for the environment in a study by The Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

http://joannenova.com.au/2013/01/electric-vehicles-could-cost-2000-per-year-for-our-electricity-network/

Hydro at times buys super cheap, what greens call evil coal fired power mostly at night from the US and Alberta when not forced to buy very expensive power from IPP’s. So those thinking they are green with electric cars, think again, they are at times in BC coal powered. So called green electric vehicles in the US and Alberta whose electrical generation is mostly coal fired, are recharged by evil coal.

http://joannenova.com.au/2012/10/electric-cars-are-worse-for-the-environment/

So just how much money is being spent on this latest fad? I think just this one topic indicates the uselessness of this core review.

Mitch2

I was not involved in the core review but those doing it must have seen failures in department procedures and opportunities for savings. The city is the largest landholder in the core…..is there any kind of a plan on what to do with all these properties?
What was the rationalization for the purchase of the old CKPG and Outrigger…plan B for the WIC location?

A Patricia Bvld talking head once said that the city was buying up all these properties so they could bundle them to developers, I cracked a rib on that one.

It is not just the elected ranks at city hall that are in need of a shake up.

My mistake gus, according to IPG construction started last summer and the hotel/condo will be finished by the end of this year.

http://www.initiativespg.com/Documents/InitiativesPG_DowntownMidyearUpdate_FINAL.pdf

How about the city stop buying up property. Period? They are already proven to be real suckers (PG Hotel) for a “terrifc” opportuntiy.

For a city with annual revenues and expenditures of over $100M in each category, why is council wasting their time with 75% of the items on that list?

A projected savings of $15,000 (a whopping .015 of one percent of total expenditures) to remove funding towards the operation of the Little Prince Steam train? Are you serious Prince George City Council??????

OMG, what the heck is in the water in PG now????? It’s certainly stronger than fluoride!!!!!! These people have completely lost their mind.

The Little Prince has the potential to be revenue neutral with ticket sales.

I guess they had to compile a list of SOMETHING to make it look like the CSR was worth the money…although “optics” is something Green/stolz/wilbur tag team is not concerned with (I pick on them, in particular as they are the most relevant targets – what is that saying about opening your mouth and removing all doubt?)

Many good posts here.

For most of the areas i.e. fleet services, real estate, etc do we not have a manager supported by a department to ensure we are running them as efficiently as possible – all year long, every year? If they are not, it should be the first line of the job description and failing that then they should be replaced. C’mon some of these positions are staffed by people who have worked within the City for simply DECADES and DECADES.

One one hand Council extol the virtues of how excellent their staff is and how dare you ask them any questions – to this group of Councillors that have never done their jobs – that they will know best thru discussion?

As far as selling out of parks: Keep private enterprise’ mitts out of my public service dollars – I mean it – bugger off, you have your own world in which to make a profit, stay out of mine. I want input and transparency on how, where and with who, my tax dollars are going.

The Little Prince…OMG, I have to laugh. why is not Theatre Northwest ($120,000 per year)or any other related expense line on the axe block? Yeah, that’s right, Stolz, pick and choose and anyone that has shown you some balls – well, it’s payback time, right? The museum approaches council every year and council, along with all taxpayers, is privy to the presentation and financial statements so you may make the decision, on our behalf, on a case by case basis.

With what we paid for the CSR and all of the tens of thousands and thousands of collective hours spent assisting them – is your biggest boon doggle yet.

Sorry “with what we paid for the CSR, in addition to the tens of thousands of dollars invested in the hundreds of staff hours assisting it – this is your biggest boon doggle yet”

Sorry, get all “hepped” up and my fingers and brain don’t meet.