Will never happen. Council can’t afford to set a precedent like this. I’m not subsidizing other people’s services. Too bad so sad. I paid for mine in the price of my house. Adding sewer services to your homes will add value on resale and you have to pay for it like everyone else.

Sine Nomine. Don’t forget that these amalgamated areas twice voted to stay out of the City, and it was only when the citizens of Prince George were allowed to vote on the issue that it passed.

So in essence they were dragged howling and screaming into the City, and then 39 years later the City wants them to pay through the nose for services that should have been provided at least 30 years ago.

Perhaps they should have to pay in say 1985 dollars.

Good for the homeowners for doing their homework and putting this city to task.

Absolutely unbelievable that the city could not come up with a more concrete $ figure.

What this city did on phase one was absolutely highway robbery to the residents to say the least…saying they could not get to a closer cost figure. Get real! Why can they do it now? Gee someone at city hall in Public Works not doing their job again?

Blackburn and Haldi and a few others are still left holding the bag to get what was promised to them almost 40 years ago. This city attained $6 million dollars when the amalgamations happened and it is really strange no one at city hall knows where it went.

Speaking of Haldi – I hope they go to council and then the Province to get the dickens away from the City. And many members of the city put the people in the area down when they kept pushing the water issue to the city.

There was a Freedom of information done on their first go around and a major department of the city even told planning in an email the amount of water was not sufficient for the facility… Go figure………

Councillor Hall wants to know more……
and “let`s talk about it”
I`m starting to see a pattern with him.

At the time of the amalgamation I went to dozens of houses in the Hart area and asked if any of the residents were in favour of amalgamation. There was not a single one who was for it! Just like Palopu said: They were dragged kicking and screaming into it by the other citizens of Prince George! A few years later some of the amalgamation funds which the province provided were used for sewer and storm sewer installations on one main street and one side street. All the other streets got nothing.

Yes and after forty years of doing nothing to the streets that are falling apart they now want residents to pay for repaving the streets.

And Hall was at the meeting held in June for the phase one of the sewer projects so he certainly heard the conversations by all concerned individuals – it is absolutely ridiculous to have to pay for sewer in the excess of $26000+. Also Gaal could not come up with a definite cost and was asking the residents to give a blank cheque for the sewer and all other costs associated with the project. I guess he wanted the residents to pay for the paving of the streets as well as everything else. Strange when it came down Nixon Crescent it only cost $600. It was the citizens of PG that voted the residents into amalgamation not the residents of the Hart. The question that has never been answered is where is the $6 million? Looks like the city does not keep records.

Phase 1 residents logged countless phone calls and have many unanswered e-mails in their quest for answers re: grant money and tendering. They are paying for it and had no say or oversight-this fact and concern also expressed to council. They told council that there was a communication problem, and Gaal sat in council chambers in May saying he was shocked that they were upset because of lack of communication. Fast forward to last night-and all of council asking admin if they had learned the lessons from phase one and are they communicating. Phase 1 residents were telling the truth, but it appears that they are the throw-away experiment that will cost each of them at least $30 thousand.

Nixon Crescent indeed was the one side street! One also has to remember that at the time of amalgamation the Hart area in question was much smaller than it is today! Previous posts mentioned that the millions given by the province to the city for amalgamation of the Hart were specified to be for the installation and cost of sanitary sewers, eliminating the need for septic fields and for nothing else.

Filtered “Phase 1 residents logged countless phone calls and have many unanswered e-mails in their quest for answers re: grant money and tendering.”
These questions were answered BEFORE the VOTE was taken. The City (Bill Gaal) stated MANY TIMES there was no grant money and the project was not going out for tender. Then came the vote, 61% took the time to file the yes vote with city hall. Maybe they just got tired of answering the same questions over and over again.
The fact that the Phase 2 residents are working hard to come up with funding is admirable and good for them. If it doesn’t work they can still vote for or against.
Don’t forget that the city did not come and force this on the area. The residents petitioned for it under the LAS.
Funny thing about democracy, those not in the majority seem to always cry foul.
No I don’t work for the city. I am however a Phase 1 resident who has had no problem with the information provide before the vote, the communication during the project or the end result.

Vestedinterest “The City (Bill Gaal) stated MANY TIMES there was no grant money and the project was not going out for tender.”

That is not true. He said that before the vote they (City) they would look for grant money and look to put it out for tender. They did neither. He didn’t even look at comparable bids from local contractors!

Careful with assumptions: you state that anyone who speaks out is not in the majority. You’re mistaken

Filtered:
I was at every meeting and know what was said.

1. They DID look into grants. There were no grants available that the project qualified for. Please look into how grants become available and how they are dispersed. It may clear things up. At the time of the vote it was made very clear that there were no grants. (The project was still voted in)
2. In the very preliminary stages (first meeting to see if there was even enough interest to continue with the design and estimate) they had not determined if the project was going to go out for tender or not. He said “this will be determined at a later date”.
Being in the construction industry, I can tell you that cost would have been higher if this went to tender. The estimates would have been the same however the contractor would tack on profit and risk for a hard dollar job. There are current marketplace factors that would drive this cost up as well.

3. Read what I wrote again. I did not state that anyone who speaks out is not in the majority. Read it as many times as it takes for you to understand. If you get a simple statement like that wrong, its no wonder you don’t understand a democratic process.

One can and should speak out, its admirable and necessary, however in the case of phase 1, the time for crying is over. The information was presented, the vote was taken. If you are in the minority and didn’t vote ‘Yay”, don’t go crying that you were lied to, or that the city pushed it down our throats. They only did what they were asked to do by the MAJORITY of the neighbourhood.

Sine Nomine you are absolutely correct. I don’t mind paying for my share of the costs as they will benefit me and my neighbourhood. However, I don’t expect the rest of the city’s taxpayers to foot the bill. Nor would I want to help pay for sewer installation on your street.

One item I don’t agree with the City on is the cost to the residents for paving. It was stated that we are paying 25% while 75% is coming from Capital. In my opinion, the pre-existing condition of Wallace Cres warranted 100% from the Capital program.

Vestedinterest- What makes you think the cost of installing sewer lines would be more if it was put out to tender? You have no proof of that. This area is one of the easyest places to dig to install sewer lines and very easy on equipment. I will not be in favour of this progect unless it is put out to tender and that does not only apply to PG contractors.

What makes you think the cost of installing sewer lines would be more if it was put out to tender?
Oldman1: Coming from the construction industry and seeing what is happening today I can come to this conclusion:
1. Shortage of qualified workers/trades is driving wages and benefit costs up thus transferring to over all cost
2. An abundance of work is keeping contractors at or over capacity thus allowing them to get higher profit margins
3. Contractors mark up subcontractors and materials
4. On a hard dollar contract, contractors tack on contingency to reduce risk of unknowns. Also adds to overall price
5. As qualified workers are hard to find, contractors are finding themselves paying travel and LOA. Transfers into the overall price.
Contrary to popular belief, the City is doing this at cost. No mark ups, no profits and contingency if its not required. Hourly rates are comparable to the private industry.
We are looking at a very similar cost to do the work, but not paying the profit and markups.
I have to definitive proof but in order to get that, it will cost the residents of phase 2 extra to go through the tendering process to find out what the same thing the market was telling us all along.

Can you imagine a private contractor giving a competitive bid to reinstate 100 properties to pre-existing condition? Each home owner standing on their lawn with there own idea of what that was. I’d bet my home there would be huge contingencies tacked on to that cost alone.