Core Review Committee Dissolved
Prince George, B.C.- CORE review, it was a process which polarized many in the City of Prince George. The issue surfaced again last night at the regular meeting of Council as Council was asked to dissolve the Core Services Review Committee. Mayor Shari Green said “the Core Review Committee feels that it’s appropriate to be disbanded at this point, that its tasks are completed.”
With 16 tasks outlined in the Terms of Reference, Councilor Garth Frizzell wanted to know if all of the points had been completed. The Mayor would neither say yes, or no, instead, she responded “the Committee felt comfortable that it has completed its work “. Councilor Frizzell then tried to ask again if all the points had been covered, and the Mayor repeated “the Committee felt comfortable that it has completed its work.”
The review cost about $350 thousand dollars, and at the end of the day, although KPMG had been hired to conduct the review, City staff ended up doing much of the work, and then revised the plan and came up with the CORE Review Implementation plan.
At the end of the day, the measures approved by Council in July of last year, were supposed to result in $57 million dollars worth of savings, efficiencies and revenues by the end of 2016.
That figure will need to be readjusted as several of the CORE Review ideas have either been scrapped (eg: selling the Pine Valley Golf Course) or recently rolled back as was the case in the off street parking fees.
Councilor Brian Skakun wanted to know how much of that projected $57 million would come in the form of fee increases, it was a question the Mayor side stepped “That information has already come to us, I think Ms. James you delivered that to us a couple of months ago, and that was broken out in that report already.”
City Manager Beth James says she will be coming back with a report to Council this summer with a break down on the progress of those savings and efficiencies and revenues. She admitted the $57 million “would be reduced given some of the recent decisions of Council.”
“I don’t see a fee increase as a success necessarily” says Councilor Brian Skakun “There was a lot of work that went into it, but in the end all we did was increase fees.”
Councilor Frank Everitt, who was a member of the Core Services Review Committee, says people will debate the value of the Core Services Review long into the future “Whether its 57 million dollars in 2016, or $3 million dollars this year, there is some more revenue coming into our City, and again, people will debate whether that was a good idea, (the Core Review) we will all have to stand up and take those conversations as they come. The CORE review has left us focused on how we do business in the future and I think that’s the win out of this thing.”
Council has dissolved the Committee.
Comments
Well, that was a complete waste of time and money.
It turns out that there were no Core Review items which didn’t require some fortitude and leadership to implement.
the more I read about the city spending, etc. the more upset I get, I’m sure everyone else feels the same. Totally a bunch of blue collar workers spending our money and doing things the wrong way. Really sad for us all in PG . We will continue to pay for these stupid reports and changes.
Sure have to like it when the mayor can’t even answer wether or not the core review committee completed their work. She evidently doesn’t want to admit on record that it was a complete waste if time and money.
We need lots of new blood in the next election, PG is really becoming not the place to live, hell yeah our City Hall is in big trouble …remember Mayor Green’s famous words years ago, there seem to be a distance thing happening in the City Hall, well its gotten further and its really bad, and Mayor Green your no solution, you have joined the problem and is now deeper and wider and we’re in big trouble .
The Core Review was a complete flop. There is no way that this review saved the City any money. As pointed out by Skakun, all the increase in revenues probably came from increase’s in service fee’s.
The Mayor can wear this Core Review into the next election if she wishes, however it will not generate her any votes.
Actually, I haven’t seen anything yet to indicate that the Mayor will actually run again.
Could have saved a lot of money.They could of read a review from another City,it would have brought up all the same issues.
Mayor green was anything accomplished by having a core review ?
Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah aren’t I pretty.
There goes another 350K funneled out of the taxpayers pockets!
350K? Make a memo, stick it on yer fridge and read it again in November.
the core review was nothing more than an expensive political exercise meant to get her elected. And it worked. PG voters took the bait hook line and sinker. Now the question is will they be fooled again? Hell Rob Ford may get re-elected in Toronto and Sarah Palin might run for President so anything is possible.
Not a big surprise. What actual skills do most mayors have. They should required to have business degrees and at least some sort of experience at running multi-million dollar companies. The whole idea of selecting a mayor to run a city based on popularity is a joke!
“…she constantly shows her beligerance towards the citizens of this town…”
How true! The other way is to listen respectfully to others, to ask for input and find the middle way which can result in an acceptable compromise.
Honestly, the core review would have been considered successful to me if Pine
valley was sold. As much as I didnt want to see it go, it is something that every city is getting out of. The golf course business is not something a municipality should have the burden of.
Didn’t the mayor say on the tv news that the core review is on schedule to save millions, don’t have the episode on the PVR anymore but I think it was some rediculous number that made me snort my coffee
phje: “Honestly, the core review would have been considered successful to me if Pine Valley was sold. As much as I didnt want to see it go, it is something that every city is getting out of. The golf course business is not something a municipality should have the burden of.”
Careful with those comments, you’ll incur the wrath of Palopu with such talk. Btw, I agree with you, but like many of the Core Review suggestions, the City lacked the intestinal fortitude to implement it because a small group of protesters showed up one evening.
slinky – Didn’t the mayor say on the tv news that the core review is on schedule to save millions.
I hope they saved millions because a rumour has it, the city is being taken to court for hundreds of thousands of dollars by a local resident, Does anyone else have any information on this?
Does any one know how one can search court records for further information?
So we went from a 10% cut in all departments, to a $350,000 core review that was used to justify $56 million in new service fee revenue? And then to top it all off the mayor side steps any ownership of the review, and is talking of them as a third party… go ask them response to questions that should be asked as to the value that was achieved?
To me this was a political exercise to use a boggyman bad guy (the core review process) that would take all the blame for the mayor doing the opposite of what she ran on in the last election. Its a far cry from taking ownership for your own ideas and then arguing them on their merit in an open and transparent fashion. This is the state of democracy and accountability under the leadership of Sherri Green.
Seems we need a little history here. The lands that make up the Pine Valley Golf Course were given to the City around 1946 by the Federal Government, to be used for recreational purposes in perpetuity. This land used to be the original airport.
Sooo. The City (over time) developed this land into the Pine Valley Golf Course, and hired an independent operator to run the facility, and over the years made a lot of money,.
In the past few years the course has cost the City approx. $54000.00 to operate. In other words it lost money. Why?? One on the main reasons is that the City sold off the Driving Range, which was a money maker, and thus created the loss situation. Of course there is no mention of what happened to the money generated from the sale of the Driving Range.
So what is the situation.
1. The land belongs to the Citizens of Prince George as a gift from the Federal Government to be used for recreational purposes.
2. The City has been encroaching on this land for a number of years, and has relocated the ball fields, horseshoe pits, tennis courts, and soccer fields, and then sold off the land for a nice bundle of cash.
3. Not being satisfied with what they have accomplished so far, the City now wants to start selling off the Pine Valley lands, even though with re-instating a driving range, and doing a little upgrading this course could easily make money.
4. The City will eventually also sell off the land that the Playhouse Theatre sits on for a tidy sum.
5. Technically the City should not be able to sell this land, however over the years through skullduggery they have been able to skim it off.
6. Don’t for a New York minute believe that they have given up on selling this property. They are conniving at this very moment to sell it.
7. We need this course where it is presently located, for senior, youth, and people with mobility challenges. We do not need to sell the land for more car lots.
Time for this City to grow up and see the big picture beyond short term profits, and ego tripping.
“Seems we need a little history here. The lands that make up the Pine Valley Golf Course were given to the City around 1946 by the Federal Government, to be used for recreational purposes in perpetuity. This land used to be the original airport.”
If it was the airport, it wasn’t being used for a recreational purpose. As far as what the Federal Government decreed in 1946, times have changed.
The land Pine Valley sits on is worth far more than the course itself.
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