Passing grade for council after one year
Monday, November 23, 2015 @ 3:45 AM
By Bill Phillips
It’s been a year since we elected a new mayor and council. So how have they been doing?
Mayor Lyn Hall was elected on a promise to do things differently at city hall. On that he has certainly delivered.
The confrontational atmosphere on Patricia Boulevard has pretty much disappeared. ‘Us and them’ has been replaced with ‘we.’
And it’s not like council has been ducking controversial and/or tough issues. One of the first actions of the new council was to get rid of city administrator Beth James. Not an easy decision to make one month into the mandate, especially for a rookie mayor with three rookie councillors in tow.
But the move did set the tone, almost immediately, that things were going to change. Unlike the previous council, this one then decided to look within the city to fill key roles. It promoted long-time city employee Kathllen Soltis to the top administrative role and then also brought in Rob Van Adrichem, who has worked wonders at UNBC since its inception, to handle external relations.
Several of those who were sent packing under the old administration were also brought back on board.
Top marks for hiring locally.
Council also pulled the plug on Initiatives Prince George. However, that wasn’t too tough of a call. Other than the board and the IPG staff, not too many people in town were upset with the move. Having economic development moved in-house, however, makes it tougher to track exactly how much is being spent. Pegged at saving the city $500,000 a year, the new in-house department now has one less staff than the independent crew, so those savings won’t be in staffing costs. (From the where are they now department: Former IPG boss Heather Oland has moved to the Ramada and was joined recently by former Downtown Business Improvement Association manager Carla Johnston).
The most controversial issue that council had to deal with was the renaming of Fort George Park to Lheidli T’enneh Memorial Park. The main criticism there was that it was done so quickly … two weeks from first notice to done deal. From a community perspective, more notice would have been nice. From a council perspective, the debate was divisive, so limiting it didn’t hurt.
It’s worth noting that council wasn’t overly divided on the issue.
Council, for the most part, has been getting along. Heck, even Coun. Brian Skakun has been relatively quiet (except for the bowhunting in city limits diversion).
The most vocal councillor is Jillian Merrick. Her push to have bike lanes used as bike lanes instead of extra parking, got some traction (sorry, poor pun, but couldn’t resist). Other newcomers, Terri McConnachie and Susan Scott, also seem to be settling in.
This council has also followed through on Hall’s commitment to, egad, step outside of City Hall. It has followed through on holding meetings with residents in the neighbourhoods in which they live.
Increasing access is never a bad thing.
It’s been a pretty good year for the new council. It’s been a year of change, but most of that change has been for the better.
Bill Phillips is a freelance columnist living in Prince George. He was the winner of the 2009 Best Editorial award at the British Columbia/Yukon Community Newspaper Association’s Ma Murray awards, in 2007 he won the association’s Best Columnist award. In 2004, he placed third in the Canadian Community Newspaper best columnist category and, in 2003, placed second. He can be reached at billphillips1@mac.com
Comments
Wow, first day back from vacation and I find myself agreeing with Bill Phillips,it must of been a better holiday than I had thought. Well said, Bill!
Typical Bill Phillips article, he is totally out of touch. I wish just one of these ‘columnists’ were in the construction industry for a day, and understood how badly the city is with zoning, permits and direction. It’s ‘business as usual’ at city hall allright, whereas nothing gets done and nobody cares one way or another.
Let’s face it! The bar was set fairly low by the previous council.
Trip to China became known to the taxpayers after the fact ..and the Mayor and the councillors were so busy they totally forgot to let the taxpayers know. Good beginning!
A passing grade is a P … not D or C or B or A. So, nowhere in the excellent category.
Not that we can change history, but what we can do is have a retrospective view of past councils as well as administrations and compare the current one to those. The contrast between Green and Hall is stark. That between Rogers and Hall not so much if any at all.
We could start with the Dan Rogers years. Seems to me we may have caught up to those once more. Certainly better than Kinsley’s which got us into the borrowing for infrastructure phase, or that is the way it seems now. Also got us that Terasen deal. And all those downtown student residences pipe dreams.
I think the City changed a lot during the Kinsley years from the post Pulp mill construction decades before his administration.
Has anyone written book about the various eras of this City from a political and development point of view?
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