Capital Plan Approved-Road Rehab Trimmed
Prince George, B.C. – There were some minor changes, but the capital plan for the City of Prince George has been approved as amended.
The big change this year, has the City opting to spend $5 million dollars on road rehabilitation, and the $2 million that had topped up that fund from the Community Works revenue, will be used for sidewalks and parks improvement.
Councillor Garth Frizzell had wanted to restore some dollars to the road rehab fund either by adding1% to the road rehab levy, or by cutting one million dollars from the projects earmarked for development. His council colleagues didn’t support that suggestion, although Mayor Lyn Hall expressed a great deal of discomfort with the decision “I think the maintaining ( roads) number is $7 million dollars”. Mayor Hall says he could support the 5 million and two million split because it was only for one year.
The capital plan also includes the replacement of the Four Seasons Pool and Fire Hall Number 1. Councillor Albert Koehler doesn’t support the Fire Hall number one project and was the lone dissenter in approving the capital plan.
One addition to the funded list on the capital plan is the entrance to the library. The new entrance has an estimated cost of $2.7 million dollars. Staff will come back to Council with suggestions on the source of funding, and the impact on debt servicing for future years.
Comments
Garth Frizzell has the right idea. $7M which is what the City used last year was a good number to start making a dent in our bad roads in PG. We have a long way to go. Sure the Mayor says they will only take the $2M for this year, but that’s a slippery slope. You can bet that there will be other projects that want that money next year and on it goes. Roads need to stay a priority.
I don’t have to travel far in this city to find beaten down roads that haven’t seen a decent amount of new pavement in decades. I can’t believe that the rest of City Council also didn’t follow his lead. They must live on streets that have already seen new pavement.
It wasn’t that long ago with Mayor Green where the City only spent $2.5M on roads, which was like giving a band aid to gun shot victim!!!!
Have to agree with mwk on this one. The City keeps moving the goal posts on projects and spending and as a result we find it harder and harder to give anything they say any credibility.
We had a five year period of financing the Winter Games by adding an additional tax, they then referred to the discontinuance of this tax as a loss of revenue. How in H can it be a loss of revenue when it was a special fund for a specified period of time.??
We also had huge increases in our utilities over the past 10 years and we lost the incentive for paying early or on time. This in effect was a tax increase.
The money for sidewalks and parks could have come from general revenue if they cared to take some time to locate the money. Buying less property and giving it to the Provincial Government for goofy projects could be a good start.
We need to maintain the road and snow levy’s as they are for a number of years to ensure that we in fact make some progress on improving service’s to those taxpayers who have been neglected for years.
We really need an in depth audit of the cities spending, as it is pretty obvious that it is in need a shake up.
Agree!! SSDD
How about a core review? ;)
Core reviews are only goof if Staff understands the purpose and know how to direct the reviewers to do their job properly.
It started when they only had one proponent and decided to go ahead without reviewing why they only had one proposal.
It was a disaster from the very beginning. $350,000 or whatever the price tag was completely wasted along with all the unknown staff time dedicated to it.
I’ve been saying for ever that the gravel roads should be seal coated to save costs on dust control😕 and grading. a year or so ago they said they’re going to do that. Still waiting to see some.
I think its good that the mayor is frugal at times. Maybe we should quit bitching and whineing.
Frugal? We had Kinsley who was frugal!!! That is why we are in the pickle we are in.
I was not watching Council. What was the reason they felt that they had too much money in the roads budget?
I can see them removing money from the snowclearing budget if the reserve fund is maintained at the level decided …. $7 million I think???
They want to take $2 Million in the road rehab budget and spend it on sidewalks and parks, thus reducing the road budget to $5 Million. The $2 Million comes out of the Community Works Fund, which is the cities portion of the Federal Gas Tax.
One has to assume that they already have some money in other funds for sidewalks and roads, so the question is where will that money go.
The property tax increase is being reported at 3.18 percent now for the city’s portion.
Alot of roads need work in this city . Problem is going to be when the water mains and sewer lines start breaking under the repaved roads . Now thats going to cost some big dollars .
Can’t believe they could not resist the temptation to cut the road rehabilitation budget!
Council should seriously reconsider this move. The $7M road rehab budget was just beginning to allow this city to make a positive difference to our long neglected streets. Many of the “repaved” streets were merely just recaped to buy some time in order to attempt to get things back on track. If Council thinks that these roads are now going to hold up for many years to come whilst they juggle funds into sidewalks and parks…. a few freeze/thaw/freeze cycles will show them wrong!
Many of the recently repaired roads were akin to putting a skim coat of spackle over shattered drywall. The underlying problems will soon resurface and it will be pothole riddled once again, not to mention the outdated water/sewer which is underneath these roads waiting to fall apart.
One step forward and two steps back IMHO. Time will tell. Next, I suspect that more “wants” will outweigh the “needs” and there will be a PAC (or another ill conceived idea) eating into the remaining $5M road budget and we will once again be the “pothole capitol” of recent history.
Did I read this correctly, the city is hiring a Social Planning Coordinator to the tune of $141,468.
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