Northern Mayor Talks Community Revitalization
Prince George, B.C. – Game one of the Canucks/Flames series didn’t deter a large crowd from attending a free lecture by Fort St. John (FSJ) Mayor Lori Ackerman last night at the Prince George Public Library.
She was there to tell the story of FSJ, and how its managed to revitalize itself as a community.
FSJ Mayor Lori Ackerman – photos 250 News
Ackerman told the audience things weren’t promising when she first moved there 35 years ago, and spoke of how the town nearly went broke when the National Energy Program was brought in.
But how things have changed since then.
She said through a process that included strong community leadership, vision, and fueled by the oil and natural gas industries, it’s now a place boasting the second largest community north of Kamloops, has a census area of 26,000 people, and is currently growing at a rate of 3% annually.
Ackerman said that was accomplished with a “can do” attitude.
“When we go to Victoria with a problem, we go with a solution,” said Ackerman. “We need to pick up the mantle and move this province forward.”
She said that’s been accomplished in part by attracting skilled professionals and creating attractive amenities.
“If you’re building a community that can attract them they can go anywhere.”
Specifically, Ackerman said FSJ has a three phase downtown plan to make it more attractive for professionals.
She said it includes such aspects as downtown living, a market plaza, restaurants and sidewalk cafe’s.
Ackerman added they wouldn’t be where there are today without a solid community plan she knows inside out.
“So I know how my community feels about development when new projects come up.”
And development won’t be slowing down anytime soon with the recently approved $8.8 billion Site-C project which she said required extensive community engagement.
“We went above and beyond with community engagement. For example last summer I spoke to everyone in town, including the school district (one of the few in B.C. still growing) Northern Health, non-profits and the RCMP.”
So how can other communities like Prince George learn from FSJ?
“The key for places like Prince George will be to take FSJ’s ideas and “Prince George-ize” them and make them their own,” said Ackerman.
The lecture was organized by the Community Development Institute at UNBC.
Comments
Ft St John is a hole and always will be. Prince George continues to be a much better place to live IMO.
“So how can other communities like Prince George learn from FSJ?”
Easy! AFTER all three phases of the FSJ plan have been physically implemented and AFTER some time has gone by they will be either a success or a failure.
Well first and foremost the community need to acknowledge it has issues* (*not just talk about them, actually address them, fix the issues and then move on. Sweeping them under the carpet just makes for a bumpy carpet). Development means getting stake holders involved, not just property owners but also active businesses in the area of the “proposed development”.
It’s like the Cities round three of jamming a bus stop down the business’s throats on Fourth Ave between Dominion & Quebec after screwing the businesses last year out of 30% of our incomes by ripping the street up for three of the busiest months of the year (thanks for that by the way).
With any hope the new administration will be learning from the disdain vented by businesses that have been affected by shot gun development.
Six figure people in positions they shouldn’t be in, need to be removed from the positions they hold. Starting with head cheeses at Northern Health. They have been told time and again that the needle exchange needs to be removed from the downtown core. They respond with the arrogant and stupid response of “you’re just a NIMBY”. It’s got nothing to do with my back yard, your facility is in my front yard and this stupid privileged attitude needs to change if we want to effect and real growth and development of the downtown core.
Parking downtown only to find that somebody vomited on the window and front of the business you wish to enter was quite an experience!
Professional, you will never get the needle exchanged moved as long as Murry Krause is on council.
@Duffer, Sure it will get moved, Embarrass enough big dollar, high profile people and stuff will get changed. It’s a game of chicken, who will flinch first…lol
The Community Development Institute at UNBC didn’t need to pay the Mayor of Fort St. John to come all the way to PG to tell us how to do it, all they needed to do was check out the city’s website.
http://www.princegeorge.ca/citybusiness/longrangeplanning/studies/smartgrowth/Pages/Default.aspx
As it notes, the City worked with numerous community members, expert planners, stakeholders from various organizations and did the work noted by the FSJ mayor just a handful of years ago. There was also the Downtown Partnership that was in formed to work on implementing that change. The great irony is the former mayor of PG, who rode into office saying downtown needed to be a priority, actually killed the Downtown Partnership maybe thinking it was Mission Accomplished? Ha.
The problem in Prince George isn’t lack of knowledge it is lack of long term commitment.
Perhaps the new mayor and council will dust off the plans and get on with making the changes that are needed and well articulated in the vision established in 2009. Considering how many of our tax dollars were spent developing the concept plan the least they can do is make sure it doesn’t gather dust on the shelf.
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