Larsen Calls for Balance
Larsen was speaking on the Meisner program on CFISFM this morning.
A graduate of the CNC Management program, she says the downside of what his happening in Prince George, is ineffective management “There seems to be a lot of counter productive things in Prince George, and I would like to bring some things forward.”
“There’s been a lot of finger pointing rather than facing the challenges our city faces, specifically snow clearing.”
She said increasing the threshold from 10-12 centimeters was not a good move.
“I think the City failed our taxpayers, you pay for a service you should get that service.” she says she would support putting more money into snow removal as the current amount does not address the costs “We need at least $6 million in the snow removal budget.” If you calculate the needs for fleet services and equipment replacement, she says that budget should be somewhere between $6 to $8 million.
She says there would need to be a $2 million dollar saving found, and would need to examine all the budgets to see where those dollars could be found. “We may need to look at wage cuts for the top administration (in protective services) to find those savings.” but adds that without having the full budget in place, she can’t say where those savings could be found to redirect the dollars into snow clearing and infrastructure.
Larsen says she would like to keep taxes at their current level.
She supports the $2.5 upgrades to the entrance of the P.G.Library, and does not support the Performing Arts centre “That should be a private enterprise.”
Larsen is currently unemployed, and says the fact she is on unemployment insurance shouldn’t matter “I think the voters will vote for the best person for the job.” She says she believes voters understand that “life happens” and that each resident has a responsibility to do their civic duty in running for office.
“Water sewer roads, protective services, we need all of it, but we need balance and Prince George has been out of balance for a long time,”
Comments
What to say? Yeah, try wringing 2 million from the top administration in salary cuts. Wouldn’t want unionized workers to think you meant job cuts to them, right? Unemployed? Next.
One problem is not to look at where the money can be found, but rather in the services that are being provided.
Before the snow clearing gong show started (it has been a few years already, just a lot worse last year)they were plowing the main roads only. Now they plow all the alleys, and they do it every snowfall.
I live in the downtown area, and the first 7 years I lived in my house, the alley behind my house would get plowed 2-3 times a year. Last my alley got plowed more than the paved street in front of my house.
Think of all the alleys in Prince George and how much of our snow clearing budget and resources it takes to maintain them. If they would reduce the service back to the level it was before (and it was just fine the way it was previously), it would be just fine.
I explained this to a member of council last winter and they were shocked and said they were going to look into it. A few days later my alley was plowed again and yet the main street in front of my house wasn’t. So I contacted this council member again to let them know that it had occurred again. The response was that they were overwhelmed with over 50 calls, and 3 of them were calls for alleys to be cleared.
At this point, I realized that council really had no clue as I was explaining that clearing alleys was one of the biggest problems with the snow removal budget and as you can see from the numbers, less than 6% of the complaints were due to alleys.
Personally as a homeowner I don’t feel the alleys should be a priority in any way for snow clearing and would rather see my tax dollars spent on the snow clearing that affects more of PG’s citizens, rather than my little backyard access lane.
Ever notice how many vehicles are parked in back yards off allies that have no main road access. Look beyond your usage.
No question that Ms. Larsen was not in an enviable position having to go first. It was almost a bit unfair, but that’s the way it goes.
If there’s a lesson to be learned for future candidates, you better be prepared to answer the question of where the money is going to come from if you support adding X million to the snow budget and paying for such things as Library entrances.
If you can’t answer that in a direct manner, you’re in for a rough interview.
To expect new people running for Council to be able to answer any and all questions is ludicrous. Even those Councilors who have been around for years, couldn’t and in same cases wouldn’t be able to answer all the questions.
One of the problems is that newbies don’t have all the information, and need to be in Council for a few years before they start to understand how things work. Even then, they will have problems, because they are expected to be **Team** Players.
What people don’t seem to understand is that if the **Team** doesn’t play by the rules, then you do not need to be a **Team** player.
Larson tried to be as honest and upfront as she could, and of course is being criticized for it, while on the other hand, Zurowski and Stolz operate under the Mantra of **Bull S..T** baffles brains, and that approach, at least for Zurowski seems to be acceptable.
The mere fact that people would assume that being on EI somehow is not ok, is a prime example of how ignorant people can be. It wasn’t Larson that designed and implemented the EI program. In addition she, like the rest of us has paid for this out of work insurance, and is entitled to it. EI is there for a reason, even if the Government over the years (especially the Liberals) have stolen all the money in the EI fund.
At least newbies add some truth to the coversation. To be honest I don’t think the time to run is when you are on EI. But its a free country, good luck Coralee.
The municipality per capita tax burden for PG residents has increased in a rate in line with Port Coquitlam (PortC) in BC
for the period (2005->2014):
-PG residential tax per person: 393->632$
-PG total tax per person: 732->1170$
-PortC residential tax per person: 344->546$
-PortC total tax per person: 589->932$
But those in Kamloops have done a better job reducing the rate of increase of their tax load in the period of (2005->2014)
-Kamloops residential tax per person: 463->634$
-Kamloops total tax per person: 805->1062$
The next council and mayor should try to reduce the burden per person by around 100$ to the levels of cities like Port Coquitlam/Burnaby/Abbotsford. Surrey by 360$ (residential tax) and 522$ total tax per person is still one of the lowest in BC, but its population is 6-7 times bigger than those mentioned.
Source: http://www.cscd.gov.bc.ca/lgd/infra/statistics_index.htm
Good luck to Ms. Larsen and other genuine candidates. The above online data may help for the debates.
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