Councillor Frizzell Addresses Public Hearing Time Restriction
Monday, March 4, 2013 @ 4:43 AM
Prince George, B.C. – Tonight’s meeting of Prince George City Council will include a public hearing on a proposed amendment to the Official Community Plan and a rezoning application to allow for a women’s recovery centre at the former Haldi Road school.
However Haldi Road residents were informed last Friday that Mayor Shari Green will impose a maximum five minute limit on those making presentations tonight. Contacted by 250 News on Sunday, Councillor Garth Frizzell had not heard about the time restriction but said “What we’ve done in the past when we’ve had a limited amount of time, and been unsure how many people were talking, is we’ve seen how many people wanted to speak and then we’ve divided it up fairly. Everybody should be given a fair chance to be heard. The practical limitations of having so many hours in a day mean we either have to limit the time down or we’d have to expand it into multi-day public hearings.” Asked whether an entirely separate, stand-alone public hearing should have been organized given the huge amount of interest in the issue, Frizzell says “it’s a novel suggestion and they do it in other places but it just hasn’t been done so far in my time in Prince George.”
The councilor says the rules of procedure “close us down at about 10pm and we can extend it to 11, but you can see the challenges. You also want to make sure that you’re giving fair consideration as well. If we’re at 2 in the morning and nodding off, it’s not fair listening, I won’t get a chance to really fairly hear.”
Frizzell says “there’s no way to know for sure until the night of (the hearing) exactly how many people will want to come forward.” Asked how a time restriction can be imposed then, without knowing how many people will be showing up tonight, Frizzell said “good point.” He continued “it’s best to set expectations as closely as possible. She’s (Mayor Green) the chair so she can make those calls, but I want to see what happens. There’s a lot of uncertainty.”
Councillor Frizzell adds “I like hearings, I like hearing from a diverse range of opinion and I think any reasonable person would conclude there’s going to be a lot of interest and a lot of people making presentations. So you do the best you can with the size of council chamber you have and the uncertainty over who is going to come forward, and if you find that during the time you need more space or you need more time, then you take reasonable measures. So I think we’ll just have to watch what the chair does.”
Comments
Sure, right, yeah . . . let’s all go along with what Sherri wants. (Yawn)
Queen Sherri looks down on us minions and laughs.
“Good point” he says. Way to put so much thought into these important matters, councillor. Most of this crew isn’t qualified to run a one-house paper route, let alone a city of 70,000 people.
How on earth does a hawker of comic books combine with a hawker of curios to form a two-headed beast that 7 other grown adults seemingly cower in fear from?
I just wish to remind ALL those on Council that they got it wrong twice at public sessions for the Core Review. People were rushed through. There was no discussion, which there should have been, and people were packed into rooms like sardines, even after additional room was found.
When a group has a representative speaking instead of each individual member then consideration ought to be given to that.
This is not the Supreme Court of Canada where briefs are given in written argument as well as verbal arguments to highlight what can more quickly be expressed verbally.
And this is the first time that a Councillor, or even other Councillors hear about this? How embarrassing!!!
Here we go again with last hour changes that this city is known for – suit city hall or is the applicants….
For over two years this council and city have been aware of this controversial fiasco. No other application or zoning bylaw changes have involved such outcry and media attention in this city.
All we hear are excuses. These submissions were put in well before Friday as well as all the submissions from all sides.
In reality mayor and council are showing their favor for this fiasco with their actions. Recently there have been a few other applications brought to council and were struck down right at 1 & 2nd reading due to the fact the did not fit into the OCP.
The OCP is just a gme.
When it suits them, they will argues
1. it is against the OCP
2. the OCP is just a guideline and is a work in progress.
Waffle … waffle … waffle
“Pretty obvious his mind is made up on how to vote long before the presentations even start.”
And so whcih way will he vote tonight. Come on people, lets see your cards …
Sounds like the fingers don’t know what the hand is doing,
I hope Frizzle does not mention again about the Native Friendship Center process that was put into his old neighbourhood. Oh right…
you had to move cause you had a growing family. Ya right
The outcome is of interest to all of us in Prince George so why not do this the democratic way have a vote on it.
The outcome is of utmost importantce to all of Prince George residence. We have an OCP…FOLLOW IT or get out of city hall.
Speak up Councillor Frizzell. The often silent, voting majority will support you. The loud mouths and Green Team supporters might not, but they are on their way out.
Brian will be remembered for his “no” vote. If he runs for mayor I will rejoice.
I am glad Frizzle brought up the Native Friendship Center process that was put into his old neighborhood, in which I still live, and how the people fought against it and lost. Where are the new people in town going when they get out of the Haldi facility ??What about the ones that drop out?? are they going to be given bus tickets back to where they came from or are we going to have more problems sent here? Then they wonder why our crime rate is so high.
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