Trustees Support City’s Summer Games Bid
Prince George, B.C. – The Prince George School Board has thrown its support behind the City of Prince George’s Summer Games bid.
The City is hoping to host either the 2020 or 2022 Games and came to the Prince George School Board seeking approval, which it received tonight.
In giving its support, the Board has agreed to make available school facilities to stage sport competitions and accommodate participants at no cost to the Host Society, the City or the BC Games Society.
Both sides have agreed that additional costs that may be incurred by the District in providing this support be identified and recovered through a letter of understanding between the Host Society, the City, and the District.
The Board last supported the City during its bid to host the 2015 Canada Winter Games. That support included providing Duchess Park Secondary School as a sport venue for the Games at no cost to the Society.
Additional costs the District incurred through additional staffing (i.e. custodial, trades, and grounds staff) for the event were recovered from the 2015 Canada Winter Games Host Society under the terms of Venue Agreement.
The Host Society was also responsible for the cost of additional services and equipment and any damage done to the school district facilities and equipment.
Comments
Please. Whoever is in charge of handing out these boondoggles. Give it to some other idiot city and give us property taxpayers, who are tired of funding these money losing circuses, a break already.
Here are some of the 2015 Canada Winter Games economic impact assessment numbers:
Tax revenues – $11,900,000 accrued to the federal government; $9,700,000 accrued to British Columbia; $2,100,000 accrued to Prince George and $1,100,000 accrued to other municipalities in BC.
I did not read the report yet, but the question is where did that $2.1 million for PG come from? Was that the increased levy on property tax? Was it the hotel tax? Was it user fees or licenses? The City does not collect sales tax. All that benefit from the activity went to the feds and the province. From the feds point of view, it really does not matter where in Canada the games occurred and BC does not care in which city the games occurred. Both benefit from the consumer taxes on travel, accommodation, meals, recreation, etc.
The total industry output (or gross economic activity) supported by the event was $123.4 million, with $83 million occurring in Prince George.
The main benefit I see is that we received a needed rebuild of KIN 1. The Feds and BC each provided $3million to the total cost of $16.5 million according to a CPG media release from February 2014.
How much will we be paying for the summer games and how much will we receive from senior governments?
To this City Council and Administration – please provide us with a user friendly, easy to locate explanation of the financial benefit. I have no problem understanding the social benefits. I think many of us would like to know at what financial cost those social benefits will come.
The City receives a percentage of the Gas Tax Revenue, plus Gambling Revenue, and of course the 2% additional Hotel room tax, so perhaps this is where the money came from.
In any event tax payers paid out $15 Million in extra taxes over 5 years.
The single line item tax for these games has been removed from this years tax bill, however I doubt if the tax was removed. It would be hidden in the assessment, and the argument would be that if it was actually taken out, then our increase in this years taxes would be higher.
We need to find a different way to gauge City spending. The way it stands now you need to be a professional magician to follow the money.
Isn’t that with any financial affairs when dealing with any kind of government either federal, provincial or municipal?
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