Everitt Says Slow Steady Growth Will Serve City Well
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But Everitt says that kind of growth is not likely to happen over a 4 year term “Steady growth is what will be the benefit for Prince George, and slow and easy will do us well as we go.”
Everitt is seeking re-election to City Council. “If we can attract industry to our community that will increase our population and our population.”
When pressed as to why a labour leader wasn’t slamming his shoe on the Council table when it came to the manner in which snow removal was dealt with last year. Everitt, who is president of the Local 1-424 of the Steelworkers, says “slamming your shoe won’t get you anywhere” he says the combined factors of successive dumps of snow, lack of equipment, and lack of contracted equipment were to blame for the mess.
Everitt says people have been disconnected with City Hall. “I think we need to reconnect with the city’s residents in order to rebuild that trust.”
He says one of the ways to rebuild that trust is to improve morale among workers at City Hall, “If you have a happy workforce, you get things done.”
Everitt says Councillors have not been getting enough information on the goings on at city Hall, that is why he and Councillor Brian Skakun have put forth a motion calling for more transparency. “You don’t want to be picking up the information from citizens or the media on what is happening at the City.” Councillors were recently blind sided by news eleven layoffs had taken place. 250News broke the news to Councillors who were at the UBCM convention at the time.
He says the Core Review, which cost the city about $350 thousand dollars, should be graded a 4. “We didn’t look at the core services and projects, instead, we ended up increasing a lot of user fees.”
On the Performing Arts Centre, Everitt says he supports the idea of supporting a PAC, “But that is not gong to happen in this term or the next I believe.” He says the Performing Arts Centre Society should be working to collect money privately for the project and there would need to be funding from the senior levels of government as well. “There isn’t a lot of things in the community that aren’t subsidised” says Everitt, but the level of subsidy for a Performing Arts Centre has been bandied as being anywhere from $400 thousand to $800 thousand a year.
The big issues facing the City, in Everett’s mind are snow removal, infrastructure, road repair and creating a downtown entertainment centre.
Comments
Frank; We need you to focus on SAFE healthy neighbourhoods and listen to the people living in them and protect the seniors from the bad elements that have been affected by the City transfer system.
Frank already has 6 other jobs, read his site.
The more I see the alliances forming through these comments (skakun and frank both obviously want their buddy Hall for mayor) the more strongly convicted I am that we need a lean sweep. If they are on current council than DO NOT vote for them. That means voting Zurowski for mayor. Whether you like him or not at least he is not tied to current council. If we are not careful and try to pick and choose we are going to end up with a core group carried over from this council, including the mayoral candidate, and we will be in for four years of the same crap.
He has my vote.
Cheers
You are so right interceptor. I have been saying since the beginning that we need some new blood. Maybe we should start a movement to impose term limits. If you have been on council for a decade and you raised my taxes and user fees 89% time for you to go!!! Skakun has a god complex so I just ignore all his attempts at manipulation.
Zurowski had 9 years as a Councilor and basically did nothing. Why would you elect him as Mayor?? He was rejected as a Mayor when Rodgers beat him by some 2500 votes in 2008. Why is he even running?? Does he need the job??? Is he unemployed???
A FOI – Freedom of Information was done in regards to the Haldi fiasco.
Quoted from an email from Dan Milburn in regards to Councillor Everitt dated Dec 12, 2011.
…….He asked about the Haldi Rd rezoning and wanted to know if the covenant had been registered. I said that condition established by Council on Oct. 3rd had been satisfied……….
I mentioned that Council could approve or deny the bylaw at final reading. He mentioned that would be a difficult thing for a Council to change its previous direction, but that he understood the process…..and the email continues….
1. If Mr Everitt knew the Process why did he go to talk to administration after 3rd reading??? This is not allowed.
2. Why does Everitt feel council cannot change previous direction?
Editor’s note:
the email being referenced was one Mr. Milburn wrote to himself to have a record of events as he recalled them happening. Mr. Everitt’s recollection of this event is not included.
The above comment in question one, should read: It is not allowed to talk about any new information after third reading.
He asked if they were continuing to do work on the site? I said I did not know, but was concerned that I not provide new information to him. So I specifically spoke in generalities and mentioned that many property owners will do work to their buildings, which may not necessitate a building permit, but that when the occupancy changes a building permit is typically needed.
Editor’s Note:
again, a reference to an email which Dan Milburn wrote to himself as a record of events as he recalled them happening.
Palopu, you have a bit of a revisionist memory when it comes to our Mayoral candidates.
I will point out that during Don’s 9 years on council or 3 terms there was little or no turnover of councilors. This would indicate to me that the citizens of Prince George were satisfied with the job that our councilors were doing at the time. The fact that Don was elected and re-elected 3 times indicates to me that the citizens of Prince George were satisfied with his performance as a councilor.
No to Mr. Hall, all the commentary that I am reading and hearing about the currnet council tells me that it is very dysfunctional and that the citizens of Prince George are not satisfied with their performance. With Mr. Hall being one of the primary instruments of that dysfunction how could you consider his record on council as superior to Don’s?
As for Don losing the Mayoral race to Dan Rogers, do you not remember that Dan Rogers lost the previous Mayoral race to Colin Kinsley by a narrow margin? I would suggest that Rogers won the 2008 election based on the strength of his previous campaign and the fact that he no longer had any council baggage!
A vote for Hall, and or any of the current city councilors is a vote for status quo, and more of the same!
So has the Haldi road recovery centre ever opened?
I wonder how much money was spent pushing that through? It had to be a lot….that went on for ages. Does anyone know?
Frank, what you and the rest of Council have to do, is turn things around and start telling administration what to do. The tail wagging the dog has got to go.
And, how bout delivering infrastructure to the Haldi Road area.
But, you have my vote.
We need to have another study/consultation.As to why ppl are not going into the core?
Cause it is a hole in the ground!! Like the one I am sitting on…
Posted on Wednesday, November 12, 2014 @ 12:38 PM by gitterdun
So has the Haldi road recovery centre ever opened?
I wonder how much money was spent pushing that through? It had to be a lot….that went on for ages. Does anyone know?
You will never know. This is like fort Knox locked up tighter than the X fort Knox. Thank your leading contender of Caribou riding and X mayor Shari Green. Supported by Bid Group of Companies, Brian Fehr.
Retired 02
Hey Kim, don’t know if you are getting the ol’timers or the part timers but residents of Abbotsford do not get to cast a ballot in the PG civic election.
As smell is one of the last things to go,before you sit down at the keyboard step outside the front door and take a deep wiff. That unmistakable mix of cow dung mushroom compost and car exhaust will remind you where you now reside.
Frank as you want our votes , rather beating around what you want to see . Put down on record what you have done for the city and in bringing in any new business options for the city s taxation dollar and what you feel is your greatest economic credit to the city for your portfolio.
To say morale at the city is bad well they all go look for jobs elsewhere , where the pensions and wages are better than most in the private sector
Sparrow you hnave no idea what you are taking about so here is some imformation for you.
Since I notice one of the councilor candidate brought up “clean air “ for PG. As some think that Abby is the arm, pit of the Fraser Alley I thought that maybe we could revisit that idea.. Oh yes and the mushroom farm are smelly as well.
It Appears that some of the good folk in PG have never herd of Environment Canada’s air quality monitoring program. Check it out and see how the smell of the Fraser Valley compares with three pulp mills and a belching refinery.
And then there is the crowd that climbs into their big 4X4 belching diesels exhaust on a trip down to Superstore. And there is the statistic of the many deaths in PG from respitory illness.
Cheers
Report released by the Cdn Federation of Independent Business Oct 30/14
BC Municipalities have been increasing their operating spending at an unsustainable pace since 2000.
BC Municipal Spending Watch ranks 151 municipalities based on 2000-2012 inflation-adjusted operating spending growth and the most recent spending levels per capita in 2012. The worst ranked municipalities show inflation-adjusted spending far outpacing that of population growth, and had higher that average operating spending per capita.
**Far to many municipalities have charted an unsustainable course over the past dozen years.**
BC’s population grew by 15% from 2000 to 2012 while total inflation adjusted municipal operating spending rose by 55%, three and one half times faster.
The ranking is from 1 to 151 with 1 being the best and 151 the worst. Prince George ranked 58, which is not good.
These were the Kinsley, Zurowski years so read it and weep.
Considering that Hall was elected in 2011 he can hardly be blamed for the bloody mess left by previous councils. In fact to blame him just shows how ill informed some people are.
Make no mistake about it. Zurowski was part of the **Let the good times roll** years ie; 2000 to 2008.
He now wants to come back and do what???? Clean up the mess he helped make in previous years. Hmmmmm.
There is lots of respiratory disease in Abbotsford too with one major difference, when the people down there quit breathing it is merely a side effect of lead poisoning when caught in the crossfire of the drug wars. In the Abbotford hospital emergency rooms it is known as Glock Syndrome.
Looks like Pacino got relocated.
Retired 02 – are you that homesick? Then come back home!
100,000 in four years. Folks make promises to get elected and then say, “well, that was just an election platform”.
Stick with Hall, thanks. Little more realistic.
I agree Grizzly2
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