I would say the bulk of that $30k/yr is heating and hydro. I should put in a request for the city to pay my heating and hydro costs for 3 years.

why should the city cover the growing expense, the society needs to cover the costs

minion why should the city cover the cougars costs at CN center, or the soccer fields or we can go on and on.
City covers their pet projects and the rest have to beg and grovel and then get turned down, or so it seems.

30,000$ a year is alot of money to “forgive” away. Is this society’s operating budget 120,000$/yr? Thats alot of wood shavings! (Or a good salary or two). I actualy have no idea what else they need to be spending their money on…but if you ever drive by Pinnacle Pellet on your way South (just North of Dunkley on the left AND right) and look around, you will see a whole lotta horse bedding…any chance this good corporate citizen can spring for a annual sponsorship/donation? 400% increase in anything is ridiculous. And since the “demand” for the product (chips/shavings, or whatever) has been created by bio energy needs (thus plenty of profit for a Pinnacle type business) it seems like a responsible and fitting suggestion. On the flip side, if the Society cannot stay at the Agriplex, and vacate, what will happen to this income stream the City now enjoys from them? Will another group move in or will this building stay vacant until it dies?

I don’t understand why the good ole taxpayer should be on the hook to sponsor somebody’s hobby. If you have a horse you cant afford to feed & shelter, sell him to someone who can. Find another pastime.

$30,000.00 a year or $2,500.00 a month is not going to be a make or break amount of dollars when it comes to the city of PG budget.
Far more than that gets wasted on consultants who do work for the city. Point in question is the latest dig at Davis and Ospika where a consultant did the preliminary engineering work only have to be redone by city staff after the errors were found.
If everything in PG was to be user funded then closing ice arenas, soccer fields, parks, civic center, swimming pools should be on councils agenda.

There are many more people that use the arenas, soccer fields, parks, etc. Perhaps thousands, compared to 50 or so horse people. Where should the money go?

To Hillbilly171, you present an old argument that has little foundation when you think about it.

To Hillbilly171, you present an old argument that has little foundation when you think about it.

Soccer, hockey, jogging in parks, skateboarding in special facilities, sitting on park benches, swimming, running under waterspray parks, tennis and a multitude of other activities for which the City provides facilities are hobbies. In case you did not know it, a hobby is defined as an activity done regularly in one’s leisure time for pleasure.

Such facilities are fully or partially funded by the City. The question is who should get how much. We really have no clue what the subsidy per user is. Not even an approximation. Time the City told us.

To duffer. If one does comparisons they should be a rate. In other words, the cost per person. It costs much more, for instance, to build a $17million dollar ice arena and maintain it than an exhibition building that is likely over 70 years old, along with some fencing and small shelters against the weather.

The ice arena is not going to last for 70 years. The most recent replacement was for a 40 or so year old building.

I think a good reason that the city covers the costs of CN center etc is its actually people getting out and getting some exercise. That is never a bad thing.

But I do have a problem with helping someone pay for their hobby. If this goes through there could be a line up of groups wanting help as well.

I have a few hobbies and I pay for them all. I dont expect to get financial aid for any of my hobbies. If I cant afford them I stop doing them.

Also I drive by the horse stables fairly often and its very rare to see a human in sight.. I feel sorry for these horses.

I know a surgeon in town who is one of eight doctors in the province that does what he does. If he didn’t live in PG, everyone in Northern BC would have to travel to Vancouver – and this is not optional surgery, if you need it, you really need it. Why does he live here? Because Prince George fits in with all of his hobbies quite nicely. He also enjoys the lower cost of living, the smaller community, etc. Now, I do know horses is not his thing.

But my point that I tried to make the other day, is we are all looking at this with a narrow focus. So you don’t give them the grant, they shut down the facility, and then you find your hip replacement isn’t going to happen because your surgeon’s daughter is a competitive equestrian participant and his wife has demanded they move to Kelowna where “there’s a much better arena anyway”.

On this site, you tend to look at the “privileged” as some kind of plague forgetting that as owners of expensive properties, they pay more taxes per family unit than 90% of us, and many of these “privileged” provide services that we desperately need, and compete with other communities to obtain.

And comments about those poor horses. What about all the poor dogs in town? Dogs love to roam, don’t believe it, open your front door and see what happens. But we keep them in kennels, back yards tied to a post they get wrapped up around, etc., and no complaints, because a lot of you own dogs and they seem happy enough to you.

A well cared for horse does just fine in a paddock. My wife and I own two, board them at a private facility out of town, and we ride them lots, and they’re quite healthy and happy. Contrary to popular belief, horses in fields are at more risk for injury from other horses kicking them, roaming dogs/wolves running them, the elements (paddocks often have shelters).

In fact, a horse attacked by a dog/wolf in the field, has less chance of survival than in a paddock. In a paddock the predator can be cornered and stomped to death. In the field the predator can run the horse until it’s exhausted then take it down.

As has been said above, it is time that each activity that is subsidized by the taxpayer should be reviewed as to the subsidy level for each user.
True, the horses at the Exhibition park are there at considerable cost to the taxpayer and that cost is not going down. But, let us not begin and stop at this activity. Let us ask the City to properly evaluate what and who we are helping and work out from there. I suspect we have some severe contrasts in our financial support system.
Perhaps financial help for this part of the community is justified, perhaps not.

There is room to board 60 horses at the facility; they’re essentially asking for a $500 subsidy from the taxpayers for each of those 60 stalls.

A horse is a luxury item, there is a cost associated with owning that item and if you cannot afford to keep your toy, then you need to pass it along to someone who can.

Good point axman. Or, an extra $42.00 a month. If the facility I boarded at asked for that much a month or they’d shut the doors, I’d pay it. There’s some parts missing to the story that’s in the other news outlets story. The society claims that the relief from the utility bills will enable them to upgrade the facility for the 2020 BC Summer Games Bid. Maybe this is why it got kicked back to administration to investigate. If it’s true, then they’re not asking us to subsidize their hobby, they’re asking us to free up the cash to put on an event the city council has put their blessing and our cash behind. So I guess it follows if they don’t get the utility bill relief, they’ll leave the facility as is, and see if we can get the Summer Games in spite of not being up to grade.

But on another note, the horse discipline my wife is involved in, has had nothing but grief in dealing with the PG Horse Society. They are mostly English/Jumping riders, and they pretty much detest anything with a Western flavor, and when you ride in the arena, you know it. One of the reasons the PG Reining society cancelled their major event this year was because of the increase to the fee they were going to be charged to use the facility – by the PG Horse Society. They felt no need to ask government to kick in cash so they could hold their event. But that also meant lots of people didn’t travel into PG that weekend and spend money here. So like I say, we have to be careful about narrow focus. The dollar we save here might cost us ten elsewhere.