Council Supports Grant Application
Tuesday, August 27, 2013 @ 3:58 AM
Prince George, B.C.- The City of Prince George has endorsed staff’s plan to apply to the Northern Development Initiative Trust for a $30 thousand dollar grant for the Civic Plaza renovations.
The maximum allowable under this particular NDIT fund is $30 thousand dollars. Councillor Wilbur was hoping there could be a larger amount under a different fund. Mayor Green outlined that while there is another fund, it would have to result in economic growth and jobs in order for a grant to be qualified “I don’t think the beautification of a community facility would qualify.”
The City has set aside $500 thousand dollars to the project and staff are working on finding funding from other sources in order to have all of the proposed enhancements included in the plaza renovation. There will be an application to Heritage Canada and another for French signage. There is also talk the Winter Games Society may seek corporate sponsorships for the project.
Council has also agreed to support a similar application from the Prince George Ice Oval Society, which is calling on NDIT for a $30 thousand dollar grant from the same fund.
When asked if the Ice Oval request would be competing with the City’s application, Mayor Shari Green said there is enough money in the fund to support both.
Comments
How ironic. The mayor thinks the feds are stupid? A grant to put up French signage only covers the cost of said signage so no gain for the city anyways. And we need French signage in PG like we need another hole in the head.
No surprises here. It would have been big news if they had voted down the application.
The businesses in PG (even Tim’s) mostly have “Wet Floor” signs in both languages. Even a school bus has a rear exit sign in French. Methinks all those businesses get uni-lingual French people slipping on their wet floors constantly. Let’s put French everywhere then maybe they will stop talking about separating. I doubt if one writes a letter to city hall in French they will get a reply in French. Oh well, as they say, sale a vee. Is there a word for “ninny” in French? My guess would be “le ninny”.
It is the Canada Games. The official languages are English and French. Those also happen to be the official languages of the Olympic Games.
I suspect that there may actually be a few people coming from Quebec who do not speak English for the same reason that most around here do not speak French.
We have to remember that Canada is not like Switzerland where most people speak three of the four official languages of the country (German, French and Italian)plus English for many of them.
They do not have wet floors there because the words on the sings they would have to put up would be so small that they could not be read.
“while there is another fund, it would have to result in economic growth and jobs in order for a grant to be qualified âI donât think the beautification of a community facility would qualify.â
So what the Mayor is trying to convince us of is that having a beautiful city is not part of criteria for recruitment and retention which is one of the elements of economic growth and jobs as we have been reminded of recently by others.
BTW, there are enough funds that have been given out in the past by NDIT for sprucing up (read beautifying) community arenas with new paint, etc. in order to be more attractive to tourists, etc.
I believe the tourism industry is one of the biggest in BC and creates many jobs.
And to think that Councillors just sit there without responding to the ill thought out pontifications of the Mayor on such occasions.
Gus, your last post speaks volumes.
Reading from a speech that has been carefully constructed and sanitized is often preferable to just daringly shooting from the lip.
do ya thing the anti-mayor and council rhetoric ever gets a little tired? if it’s founded go for it but I’d be reading a lot more Opinion 250 if it wasn’t so predictable and repetitive.
How would restricting what sort of opinion visitors may express help your reading enjoyment? Wouldn’t the site be even more predictable and repetitive? If I were you I would post your own pro-mayor and council rhetoric, if you have any. That would really liven things up, don’t you think?
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