Info Gathering for Community Services Master Plan Continues
Prince George, B.C. – Don’t be surprised if you get a phone call asking you about your Prince George recreation wants and needs. “We are conducting a telephone survey, calling random homes in Prince George to find out what their recreation needs are” says Laurie-Ann Kosec, Park Planner with the City of Prince George. That survey is underway this week.
Kosec says there has been a great deal of feedback provided for the development of a Community Service Master plan for the City. “We need to hear from the silent majority” says Kosec who says the City wants to know what kind of recreation needs and facilities it should look towards planning. As the population ages, the needs of that growing demographic of seniors could mean a switch away from some options, and increases in other areas such as dog walking parks “Whatever it is that you like to do, we want to hear about it.”
So far, the public engagement portion of the process has involved round table discussions, an on line survey, paper submissions and now, a telephone survey.
While the opportunity to take part in the online survey closed for most folks last week, Kosec says youth will be able to fill out the survey until April 11th, “We found that with the March school break, it may have been too difficult for many young people to take part in the survey, so we have extended it. It’s important that we hear from them as their needs and interests are always changing.”
Once all the information has been submitted, Kosec says a background report will be developed and presented to City Council in May, and a draft Community Service Master Plan rolled out to the public in June.
Comments
Another project another tax hike, what next..Performance Art Building ….then right a new City Hall.
Remax I will be calling you, time to relocate to another city / town.
Seems to me that phoning 500 random homes to get information for recreation needs is a somewhat dumb way to get information.
It would be interesting to see just how they select these random numbers. Would there be a portion from say College Heights, Hart Highway, Miller Addition, South Fort George, North Nechako, VLA area South of Victoria St.,
Why would the City not be aware of the needs for recreation in this City. We already have swimming pools, ball fields, hockey rinks, lawn bowling, horseshoe pits, parks, Pine Valley Golf Course, Curling, PG Golf and Curling Club (Semi private golf club, open to the public)
Also why is it necessary to have this report finished in May and presented to Council and a Master Plan rolled out to the public in June.
Does the pending election have any bearing on the timing of the report??
Seems to me this is nothing more than a smoke screen for things to come in the recreation area. If they can show there is little support for certain recreational facilities they can then look at selling them off, or closing them.
Keep your eye on the ball.
Won’t be any different elsewhere. May as well stay put. (Sorry ReMax ~ not trying to pop your balloon!)
Whatever city/town you move to the ‘books’ are done exactly the same way. It’s borrow, spend, and tax.
And if you look at it in context of the whole economy, including what the senior levels of government are also doing, much ‘public sector’ borrowing and spending is done simply so that ‘private sector’ borrowing can be more fully repaid.
Without it, under the current financial set-up, we would very quickly go into a full scale depression. With greater loss of the all-cherished ‘jobs’ that everyone continues to put such great store in as the be-all and end-all of everything.
So, in short, if you want everyone ‘working’ ~ if that’s the desired ‘end’ in itself ~ be prepared to be increasingly working for less and less as the servicing of what’s been borrowed publicly taxes you more and more.
It doesn’t have to be that way, but so long as the ‘bookkeeping’ remains just as it is, where, in essence, we record public assets as financial liabilities, it’s not going to change. Be happy in your ‘work’!
The trick is you don’t have to move far. Just outside the city limits of any town should do it!
I think first and formost their master plan should be Maintain what we already have! Don’t spend any money on anything new until we fix up what we got. The river loop trail system from Carry Jane park to Cotton wood park is a good example. There used to be some pretty nice informative plaques along that trail that need to be fixed up. Masich place track needs a new running surface. There are quite a few little parks around PG that have been neglected.
Shine it up and keep it shiney.
You can’t have anything nice in Prince George. It’s quickly vandalized.
Masich Place also needs an all-weather turf field, but I’m sure the punks and punkettes would figure out a way to set it on fire.
There was an article a little ways back about how inaccurate phone polling is now, because so many people – mostly 30ish and under, don’t have published numbers (cell phones), so they can’t be polled. Thus, any results from this survey will be skewed to what the 40 and over crowd want, not the 39 and under crowd who will shoulder most of the future tax burden – sounds like a deal to me.
First question is regarding live entertainment. I didn’t answer as I asked where they were calling from and they are using a Victoria based company. I think that if they are doing a survey with our tax dollars they should use a Prince George company.
Ski50, you’re absolutely right. I’m in my late twenties and don’t know a single person my age with a landline unless they still happen to live at home.
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