Prince George, B.C. –  Prince George City Council has  unanimously  supported  adopting a  strategy to  give Community Associations in the City more help.

There are 7 community associations in Prince George,  and they offer a variety of programs   to residents in their  respective neighbourhoods.   But the volunteer  run Associations  are facing  challenges not the least of which  is  finding,  and keeping,  volunteers.

Although the City already provides some services and support, the strategy  makes four  recommendations to offer  further assistance.:

1. Increase staff support. Currently .4 FTE is allocated towards supporting Community Associations.  Work needs to be redistributed so that up to 1 FTE is allocated to supporting Community Associations.
2. Develop partnership agreements between the City and Community Associations.
3. Formally recognize that the Community Associations are the face of the community.
4. Examine how to best meet the needs of areas of Prince George that are not currently represented by a Community Association.

The strategy  also calls for a base budget of $20 thousand  dollars to help some of the  associations  achieve their goals.  The strategy concludes that the  recommendations can be achieved by “reallocating  city staff resources internally  and reaching  out to partnering organizations”.  Those partner organizations include School District 57 and the YMCA.

Councillor Susan Scott  wanted to know if there was any information on how many households might be included in the area that  is  not yet served by  a community  association, but was told that  information is not  available.

A number  of Community Associations already receive grants  from the City,  and the further  financial  consideration  of $20  thousand dollars will be part of the  upcoming  budget  discussions  which  are set for late January and early February.