The Games Are Over….. Now What?
Mayor Lyn Hall has some ideas.
“I think we’ve created something here we need to build on.” says Mayor Hall. “Let’s pick out one particular thing, let’s look at the Plaza, entertainment and the opportunities there. It’s shown us we need to utilize that Plaza more, we need to bring those kinds of entertainment acts into Prince George, and we can do that.” He says when artists asked the audience in the Plaza how many were from Prince George, 80-90% of the thousands who were in attendance would make their voices heard, so clearly there is an appetite to have more of that kind of activity in the Plaza.
Up until the now, the Plaza usually only sees civic involvement and a party atmosphere when the Plaza is lit up for the Christmas season. Mayor Hall says with the City’s 100th Anniversary just days away (March 6th is the official date), there will be plenty of opportunity to use the Plaza as a public space for celebration over the course of the year “I think, what we saw downtown is something we want to try to replicate during the 100th Anniversary celebration.”
Mayor Hall says he will be sending a note of thanks to the City of Ft. St. John thanking them for stepping up to the plate when the weather in Prince George made it impossible to carry on with the long track speed skating events. “That was a contingency plan in the works, but they had to step up to the plate very quickly, and Ft.St. John is such a great community, that’s the way the North is.”
Most importantly, Hall says the two weeks will go a long way to telling a positive story about Prince George among visitors and locals as well , ” People are going to go away from here and talk about their experience, and every experience I’ve heard is positive, so now, you hope it flows from coast to coast to coast and that’s part of the huge legacy.”
Comments
Now what?
oh maybe they will add up the debt that was created and submit it to council for payment…
Ice oval people will be screaming to get freezers…
Kin 2 and 3 people will be yelling for their improvements, after all why should Kin 1 get improvements and not them?
oh yes,
PAC… I am sure they will be rearing their heads real soon as well.
games are gone and Sewer,Garbage and water bill went up.
Now we pay pay pay.
Now it’s time for the media to dig into the real financial story where and how exactly was our money spent
Before we hold the next big party lets see how the financial responsibilities were handle
We cannot continue to fund these high impact functions afterall many locals are on fix incomes and struggling
“The Games Are Over…..Now What ?
Now we return the civic centre plaza to its usual inhabitants and scare regular folks away.
I don’t know how these games made an impact on locals. What exactly does that even mean? You poor poor babies. I’m low income and these games had absolutely no effect on my finances. I didn’t take time off for them, I did go down and spend $20 on two food items and that’s it. I didn’t find it to be anymore busier than usual, in fact I thought the city was dead. Spring break was a bad idea during these games. Back to normal and I’m happy with that.
I agree with 20142015. We need to get a reliable figure on the costs, before we get into too many more of these big functions.
Now we should be able to see the real balance sheet, and not the made up projections about game revenue compared to expenses.
You’ll find that regardless of the now ‘past’ costs being considered affordable or not, your governments will strive their hardest to get us “into too many more of these big functions”. This comes about because ‘future’ costs are the way an otherwise overall insufficiency of ‘incomes’ are currently distributed. This is one of the big attractions of temporary events, like the just closed Games, or back a few years, the Winter Olympics. They are repeatable expenses, on a fairly substantial scale. Whereas putting the same amount of money into properly fixing roads, or upgrading other infrastructure the way it should be upgraded, is just not repeatable enough.
We make a great mistake when we focus so much on the affordability aspect, and fail to focus at all on ‘why’ governments at all levels won’t deal with the far more basic issue of properly relating ‘costs’, ‘incomes’, and ‘prices’ (taxes, in this case). We should, in all instances regarding all the things we produce and consume, be able to fully pay FOR what we’ve done FROM what we’ve done. That’s the way it works ‘physically’, for there is no such thing as a ‘debt’ in nature. But the way it sits right now ‘financially’ we can only fully pay FOR what we’ve done, and ever decreasingly so, FROM WHAT WE’RE DOING or
ARE GOING TO HAVE TO DO. And this is utterly impossible long term.
I think this may be the part where nothing gets said now about cost by the city.
The taxpayers of PG deserve a financial statement on this . Brian Skakum should
bring it up tonight at city council.
Thank you to all the volunteers, You guys and gals did an awesome job. Talked with a lot of visitors into the city. they loved your hard work and all of our wonderful facilities. Yes, it was a good thing for Prince George. For those businesses that positioned themselves well, I am sure they made some money too.
Thank you, we had our little STAYcation. Stayed out almost every night and had a lot fun.
Once again, thank you to all the volunteers
What’s NEXT….. TIM Hortons Brier!!!!!
My understanding is that there was a shortage of volunteers. Far less than the 4500 figure. Perhaps closer to 3000. As a result those volunteers were run off their feet doing double duty for the past two weeks. If this is so., then double kudo’s to the volunteers for all the hours they put in.
Keeps some extra policing in the downtown as it was very nice to go down there and not be bothered or afraid. Also keep the corn dog vendor.
The Curmudgeons have been baited.
Same old mantra. Roads, garbage and tax dollars. Gets long in the tooth. Why do these Curmudgeo’z cast their negativity on the community………because they are negative, clinically so.
There is no utopia for them, not the smoothest roads, not a personal snowplow for their street, not the lowest tax rates in the known universe. We could live like some Eastern Bloc Countries or Saskatchewan, but a little color in ones life is a good thing.
Being part of the greater community has a cost but also has rewards. The rewards should not be overlooked.
Thank you to all that made the games a success, especially all the people who took time out of their lives to volunteer.
The weather will not likely be replicated in future February events. We got lucky and that played a big part in the success of the Canada Games Plaza. But it would be great to see more events in the plaza in the future. I think it was great for the spirit of PG.
Thank you PG! What a wonderful show of community pride and spirit. I’m so proud to call this city my home.
Reconsidering the plaza’s options for public events is a fine idea whose time has come. To those “Curmudgeons” (well said, Furbink!) who want to grumble about taxes / garbage / roads / taxes, taxes, taxes, I wish you well in your pursuits of your concerns. In the meantime, keeping the conversation on making PG an amazing city for residents and visitors is where I’d like citizens and council expend energy.
And to the Greencoats – you have earned a prodigious rest. :-)
Now I can go to PG for the weekend and not get ripped off by the Hotels.
We could live like some Eastern Bloc Countries or We could live like some Eastern Bloc Countries or Saskatchewan, but a little color in ones life is a good thing.
, but a little color in ones life is a good thing.
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What am great statement to compare Saskatchewan, with an eastern block country coming from ,someone living in PG.
Cheers
Uh-Oh ! Somebodies needle is stuck.
Somebody’s……ya ya I know
Its quite interesting that for the past two weeks I have found ZERO negativity, only smiles and friendly faces – except for the handful of curmudgeons on 250. It truly makes me sad to think how sorry you must be with your own lives to do nothing but whine and complain, digging under every rock for a morsel of bad in even the best news stories. Perhaps a little introspective is due, to find what is so wrong in your lives that cause you to, at best, point out negatives and, at worst, outright wish for the failure of good news events. Thankfully you are a tiny minority. Enjoy your basements, pothole season is here and then it wil be *gasp* mosquito season.
I’m off to enjoy another fantastic PG day.
Interceptor – to be fair, you spent the last two weeks among the converted. Green jackets, athletes, etc. The unconverted left town, stayed home, so unlikely you would run into a negative comment when surrounded by people who have bought into the show. Opinion 250 thankfully gives the other side a place to vent their point of view – I assume you wouldn’t have wanted all the detractors to show up at the plaza on a nightly basis complaining about how much it all cost.
Don’t kid yourself, plenty of people didn’t buy into this, but what could they do? Taxes aren’t optional, and when city council signed on, we were all in for the ride like it or not. Personally, I kept my thoughts to myself, and spent about a week elsewhere and spent my money elsewhere.
I find it odd people are mocking the curmudgeons for complaining about the roads, sewers etc. when they could have had a great time. That kind of budgeting is right up there with going out for dinner when the new visa card comes, even though you can’t pay off the other one. There was a choice made, and it was to direct dollars to facilities that benefit people who enjoy athletic pursuits – a small portion of the city population (and I am one of them), to the detriment of the greater population who all use roads, sidewalks, water services, sewer services. You had your party, and you got someone else to pay for it – good for you.
Now, we’d like the city to care about what matters to most of us.
Would be nice to see some businesses in the plaza or on the library balcony. Why not have a coffee shop up there overlooking the plaza, maybe some opening glass walls/doors so the area could be used all year. would be great to have a coffee while at the library and the more regular folks using that space the safer it is for all.
If we followed the train of thought most of you are posting, there would be NOTHING here.
No Library building (we had an old one downtown – why replace?), No Aquatic Centre (four seasons is just fine), no CN Centre (the Coliseum will last forever and who cares if no entertainment will come to town), no Civic Centre (the old beauty would last for another 100 years), no Art Gallery (Studio 2880 kicks ass, just the kind of thing you see in every modern city!), No new Kin I (the old one should have welled us up with pride, such a beautiful rink), no University (we have CNC after all!), no expansion & modernization of CNC (why, the old place was just fine).
The city shouldn’t go broke adding amenities, and each new project should be studied with fiscal prudence and proceed cautiously. However, progress is necessary if we are to have a city worth living in. If we have the smoothest roads in the free world and there is not a damn thing to do what’s the point in that?
And yes, sometimes you have to pay taxes for things that you don’t use. That’s never going to change whether you like it or not.
Actually Smiley pretty much everything you listed was done by referendum – so the majority was given a choice in the matter, CWG – no choice – we’re having this party, and you the average taxpayer is paying. UNBC – provincial expenditure. I mean, CWG happened, it’s done, the cash is never coming back. A few things got left behind, that appeal to a segment of the population, and hopefully the city removes the CWG line item from the tax bills.
Yes it is now back to the dirty dust streets, broken curbs, air borne particles, and smelly atmosphere after the winter games. Did the games cover all this up? Doubtful. Just pushed it to the background for a couple of weeks.
Umm I’m pretty sure it stunk around the city while those people were here as if industry would lower its emissions for two weeks…
ski51
To say the cash is never coming back is not entirely true.
Tabor Mountain will host a national championship shortly and the out of town competitors will leave town with less cash in their pockets than they arrived with. Any family and friends that come to watch will add to the total.
The head of ski Canada was on the news and said Otway is one of the three best facilities in the whole country and would be suitable to handle both national and international events.
I would say the challenge going forward is not to rest on our laurals and pat ourselves on the back over the success of the CWG but to use that success as a key selling point to show how well the city can host a major event.
All the improvements made to all the facilities is a legacy for residents to enjoy for many years to come, fingers crossed that they can be leveraged into more high profile events.
Memorial Cup?
Biathlon world cup event?
Briar?
Canadian Junior Hockey Championship?
sparrow – an event like that, will benefit somewhat, I agree. But, from my point of view, at least as a member of Otway, I’d prefer they not hold all these events. The grooming at Otway since the CWG has been horrible. And everytime Otway holds one of these high profile events, the grooming for the 1700 plus members who don’t care, but pay taxes in PG, and pay membership fees to Otway, get horrible grooming of the trails. The membership agreed to lease a second groomer this year, so that there would be grooming of non competitive trails, and that groomer got seconded to CWG and the regular trails were neglected.
So I wonder, and it would be an interesting study if some UNBC type wanted to take it on, I wonder just how much coin the local economy get’s, compared to the impact on the people who live here. Is it really worth telling 1700 people they’re going to have to play second fiddle this week because the Biathon World Cup is coming – and no, you won’t get a refund of your membership. Just pay, and shut up seems to be the message.
According to reports Otway received in the range of $3 million in improvments for CWG and you don’t want to share the greatly improved facility to host events that would return some of that money to the community …seems more than a bit selfish.
Hope that kind of attitude does not spread or will be hearing-
Can’t have a hockey tournament as it would interfere with my beer league game!
Can’t have an event at Tabor-I have a seasons pass and might not be able to ski the whole mountain!
Unless the 1700 members pony up the 3 mill then sharing the place every one in a while is a small price to pay for all the improvements that the members get to enjoy the rest of the time.
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