Stolz Balks At Civic Plaza Reno
Tuesday, August 20, 2013 @ 4:00 AM
Prince George, B.C.- There are two opportunities today for you to have your say and talk with the designers of the renovation plan for the Civic Plaza.One thing to note, the clock tower will not be removed.
The project was part of the City’s bid to land the Canada Winter Games but if Councilor Cameron Stolz had his way, it wouldn’t be developed at the Civic Plaza. At last night’s meeting of Council, Stolz praised the work but asked if an enhanced project could be done, but at a different location. He expressed an interest in having a bigger green space located in another area of the downtown core. Specifically, he said there may be an opportunity to partner with the Province to spruce up the lots around the Wood Innovation and Design Centre at 5th and George. “I see this as an opportunity to do something bigger than what is here.” He says while he apologizes for throwing a curve ball at the last minute, the existing space is already being used and this is a chance to develop a bigger greener space in the heart of the City. He wanted to delay any decisions on the project until the other partners in the project had a chance to speak up on the possible relocation.
The space was outlined in the bid as being a celebration site close to the athletes village. Director of Community Services Colleen Van Mook says the work to date has been on the Civic Centre, and with less than 550 days to the opening ceremonies of the Games, there likely isn’t time to get all parties to agree to a change in location and a change in plan.
Councilor Murry Krause reminded his colleagues that this plan was also endorsed as a centennial celebration. Krause described the current Civic Plaza space as "desolate" and urged his colleagues to support moving forward with the renovation now, while continuing to try and develop a second large green space in the downtown.
Stolz was the lone dissenter when it came time for Council to vote on approving the "River" theme for the renovation of the Civic Plaza.
Part of the design calls for the development of a “vessel” that will hold pieces of communities from across the country. You may recall that delegates to the recent Elders Gathering in Prince George and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities event, were encouraged to bring a stone from their community for inclusion in this “vessel” which will be a piece of public art in the plaza. It will be a mesh basket or galvanized basket to hold the stones.
One of the key partners for the renovation is Heritage Canada, and to get maximum benefit from that partnership, there have to be elements that tell the story of Prince George, either inlaid in the pavement, or in vertical signage.
The designers say they want to have some key uses of wood in the plaza, both for medal podiums and for seating.
Plants will be from the northern region, something that can take snow and can handle snow removal.
The open houses are set for the Civic Centre, with the first taking place from noon to 2 this afternoon the second set for 5-7 this evening.
The renovations are to be completed by November 14th of 2014, that would mark the 100 day countdown to the opening ceremonies of the 2015 Winter Games
Council has unanimously passed the renaming of the plaza to the Canada Games Plaza.
Comments
Krause says it’s “DESOLATE”” ??? Helll from the way he has been pushing the no smoking thing, my guess is lotta people use that Civic Centre, and add on later the whiners that come after them complaining bout the smoking..
It’s a great idea to build this green area somewhere else where people can go to to enjoy it.. Make it a tourist attraction..
I think they should keep this down town. As that is down town the Civic Center. And to Stillsmokin I can’t believe some people are making others feel like criminals for smoking out side as the government still makes a killing off the tax of selling them. And lets face it PG is no perfect air quality town anyways, When I drive though the down town every day on the way to work it can be breath taking thick stench.
I urge people to come out to the meetings–But do we get a vote on this? I think it’s going to be rammed through, because the council is going to leave another edifice in the city that we get to pay for–but it will not get used, by us!
And to Stillsmokin I can’t believe some people are making others feel like criminals for smoking out side as the government still makes a killing off the tax of selling them. And lets face it PG is no perfect air quality town anyways,
ARe you referring to me as making others feel like criminals for smoking??? Actually, I was defending individual rights.. Smokers and non smokers.. They should live peacefully along each other and stop bringing up laws to appease themselves. Sorry if you misunderstood me..
I do not know what reason Stolz has to be the lone dissenter on this rather than finding another time much earlier than this to bring up a different approach
I, and several others from postings on previous occasions for this issue were, however, saying the same thing about the plaza being fine as it is.
The main reason it is not being used is because there are no people near the place to use it during the day in the summer and shoulder seasons. No one will use it in the winter unless the skating rink is upgraded to a larger piece of real estate.
We need green space in other parts of downtown. We are devoid of such a space. Might as well make it on George Street near the new building. At least we have the occupants of that building and Plaza 400 to use it for lunch and breaks during the day. On top of that, from a safety point of view, it will be much more visible to people who might care.
Good luck with getting people to reason this thing through this late in the game.
Just got my utility bill 100 dollars more than last year and the city wants to spend millions on green space this is crazy
The plaza is a wonderful space as it is. If we want to spend money–let’s spend it where we’re going to get more bang for our buck.
This was a done deal from the get go. As stated by Van Mook, the work was done on the Civic Centre location. So we can see that the voting on this issue along with the Open Houses, are just to give the impression that we the citizens (taxpayers) are involved.
In fact we had no input whatsoever, and it will cost us a cool $500,000.00 that will come out of the Capital Projects Fund.
So once again we have huge expenditures by Administration and Council while at the same time they are whining about not having sufficient funds to run the City.
Seems to me we need a serious change of attitude at City Hall, especially when it comes to spending OUR money.
I agree with the people who say that the Civic Centre Plaza is just fine the way it is. I also agree with Stolz saying that it should be downtown in the location pointed out.
It is great when people get along and live peacefully side by side. Sacrifices have to be made by everyone to achieve this, but when it comes to health issues like second hand smoke the one who smokes and pollutes the breathing air of others MUST be the one who refrains from doing so. I am allergic to tobacco smoke, sorry! So are others with asthma and compromised lung function.
It has nothing to do with being criminal and everything with being considerate.
Winter Games…… what does this mean. Snow lots of snow, covering what? The ground of course, so dress this up for what, to be covered in snow.
They just changed the PG city website, couldn’t access it this morning but now it has new menus and can’t find certain things anymore without a long and drawn out mouse clicking frenzy… wonder how much this backwards menu cost us taxpayers
Just trying to find out what happened to the third reading of McGuire Road but no info yet…
We have to remember that this is the way things went down.
1.Someone decided it would be great to try to get the Canada Winter Games. There was a request to Council. Council gave the go ahead. Whether Council of the day knew what they would be getting into financially or not, who knows? They were not voting on a money expenditure, so did not have to go to the people. Did anyone in the community realize what was happening? Likely not too many. If I recall correctly though, Councillor Munoz was one to oppose it on the basis of not having the money. But, the smart voters of the community voted her off the Council.
2.We had the go head. Administration put together a group who were sworn to total secrecy since there were three communities submitting proposals to the Games selection group. Total secrecy, of course, meant the citizen of the community were not part of the âconversationâ. This was all hush, hush. Celebration square, venues, housing, food, transportation, costs â¦. You name it and no one but the people directly involved with the process knew a thing. They may not even have known for how many yearsâ taxes would have to have a special Games surcharge and what that amount would be.
3.So, along came the award and people were jubilant ⦠until a few started asking how much this would costs us and how would we be paying for it.
4.So when Van Mook says it is late for someone to jump in on the planning that was done all along, she forgets that most of it was secretive planning which likely suited those in administration just fine. The perfect world. Spend the taxpayerâs money without the taxpayer having a chance to accept it or reject it in the first place and then not even having a say in how some existing civic facilities, which work just fine for the intended purpose, should be changed to serve some completely different purpose without knowing whether that would actually work. Another experiment on the taxpayersâ dime.
Summary, the people we elected have taken Carte Blanche at putting together a multimillion dollar project without the opportunity of the people having a say.
To be fair, I have to compare that quick analysis with the UBCM 2011 Community Excellence Awards for Best Practices given to Prince George. What was it for? Community Engagement Plan for the Civic Engagement during the 2015 Canada Winter Games Bid process.
I’m with Cameron Stolz on this one. Has anyone on council considered doing something with the old gas station just east of the City Hall lawn? Tare down the old ancient gas station along with the old Norgate Building and have the car rental agency relocate and develop that area instead. It would be an excellent green space, with room for people. Right now it’s beginning to look unsightly and will be an eye sore during the games. With it fixed up it will add some real class to all the work being done on the front lawn of city hall and you have some property to really put something unique to commemorate the winter games and Prince George’s 100th birthday!
According to the OCP, that is the site of the PAC.
So, since we all know there will not be a PAC built in PG for 40 years or so unless they can pull the wool over peoples eyes like they did with the Winter Games, I agree the sooner they tear those buildings down and hydro seed the ground, the better.
Then again, maybe they could rent it out to a paintball business so that they can demolish the buildings a bit add some graffiti and put in an urban combat zone staging ground. ;-
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