This is a surprise to no one, except maybe those who were involved in putting this sweetheart deal together.

Did Horizon bank on fuel prices dropping significantly?

I don't understand why the city would guarantee that kind of money to any business. Can somebody please explain this to me? why we have to pay because some business took a risk and made an investment that didn't pan out? hmmm.... didn't I hear something like this a couple of weeks ago about the gaming centre?

Well that was short lived! I had a feeling it was coming, but it sure did happen fast!

I am astounded that anyone would even think about committing to a deal like this !!

You folks in PG had better consider clearing house of anyone who was involved in this schmozzle... what an outrageous waste of tax money !!!

Is there nobody there with a firm grip on the wheel ... or is the ship floating around with a bunch of love-struck bunnies rolling on the floor of the bridge ???

C'mon people... when are you going to say that enough is enough ???


V.

Good thing we got that runway extended.

This was a stupid arrangement right from the get go. IPG and the City are now trying to blame the high price of fuel for the discontinuence of service, and thereby absolving themselves from any responsibility for allowing the deal in the first place. Even with the proration taxpayers in Prince George are out $200,000.00.

I doubt that the cost of fuel has increased by 30% in the last five months,in any event the main reason they are losing money is because very few people are using this service. For the last five months they would be very lucky to average 20 inbound and 20 outbound passengers per trip. I was at the Airport to-day and the flight had 14 inbound passengers and 19 outbound.

This is another case of information being reported verbatim as received from the Airline, IPG, and the Politicians without any investigation as to the accuracy of the information.

We need to know the average passenger load for the past five months and from that we should be able to determine that this venture was a flop from the beginning.

We need a change at City Hall. Maybe the Mayor, IPG, and the Councillors who supported this venture could catch the last Horizen flight ex PG in October. Seattle's loss would be our gain.

DOWNTOWN BIOENERGY PLANT, RIVER ROAD, HORIZON AIR, Those of you in council who supported these ill thought out projects should hang your head in shame. The majority of those posting on this blog told you so at the time.

The problem with all you armchair politicians is that its really easy to critique when something goes wrong while you sit on your buts in front of the computer. At least they are trying to do something.

I dont really see what determining that the venture was a flop from the beginning is really going to prove, but sure, go nuts.

As a general rule I do not support government intervention in the free market, which is exactly what a subsidy to a private company is. But again the hope was to increase people coming into Prince George and it was a worthwhile effort.

Its not that I even support PG politicians, I just have even less respect for the amazing hindsight of armchair politicians.

Born in BC writes..."At least they are trying to do something."

Trying is the operative word there.
They are like the energizer bunny except they keep trying and trying and trying.

You also write..."Its not that I even support PG politicians, I just have even less respect for the amazing hindsight of armchair politicians."

It just so happens that most of the armchair politicians here have in almost every case posted here on 250, warned the beggers and warned the beggers and warned the beggers.
The beggers simp-ly don't care what the people say or suggest, they carry on with their own personal agendas and in most cases they fail.

It's ok though because they are failing with taxpayers dollars.

"We need to know the average passenger load for the past five months and from that we should be able to determine that this venture was a flop from the beginning."

Good idea, but you'll never get it. All those involved look bad enough as it is. No need to rub salt in the wound.

Enjoy our $200K Horizon, thanks for the five months.

I don't know the BS agreeement but five months is not half a year, or a year. The payout should be nothing... or at the most $160,000.....

1 pissed of taxpayer...

I'm just thinking that Da Rogers wants to blow off $7 million on "trails". Can't imagine that kicking in another $750,000 for Horizon Air would even rate a second thought with Dan in the city council mix.

$200,000 is peanuts, it could have been worse. I emailed every city councilor at the time questioning the wisdom of an airline guarantee. None seems too concerned about my input. Wonder if I should email them again?

Born in BC. This has nothing to do with armchair politicians, it has to do with decisions made by the Politicians in Prince George and the fact that they do not EVER accept any responsibility for making wrong decisions that cost taxpayers huge dollars. One of the reasons that they can get away with it is because of people like you who say **at least they tried** You wouldnt last long in private business if all you can say is at least I tried. At some point results are expected.

We have numerous examples of this City spending huge dollars on projects that either did not reach the original goal, or were dismal failures.

Why would Horizen Air demand $400,000.00 from the City to provide air service to Prince George. Answer: Because they knew their was not sufficient passenger business available to make a profit without the City throwing in the big bucks.

Guess what? They were right, there was not enough business even with the 400,000.00 so they are bailing out.

Our high priced help at City Hall and Initiaves Pr George should have been able to figure this out. What the hell are we paying them for? Certainly not to say **well at least we tried**

I am an armchair taxpayer and I don't have money to gamble with and I resent those that chase rainbows in the sky on my tax dollar.

Sure it was 200k lost, but at least we tried to make it happen.

We gave it our best shot. Thanks Tim

PGAA, better be nice to Westjet. Give them what they need.

Your right giterdun... The majority of those posting on this blog told you so at the time.

Ok...do we really KNOW that this deal was a bust from the beginning? No. The market research was done. Every business launch has a risk of failing. I do agree that based on the current market and the state of the economy at the time of the launch, one would think they could have seen the price of fuel skyrocket especially with the carbon tax added on top. So, applying the clause was a prudent business call. Obviously they were betting on better numbers. This has not transpired. Better for Horizon and the city to get out now.
As for government bail outs..be prepared to see more of this. The world market is teetering. We have yet to see how our global economy is gonna play out. Gonna be a rough ride if we aren't careful with how we address the volatility of the markets.
IMO, I personally would not have agreed to this deal in the first place but I also have not seen all the details involved. Besides there have been worse deals made. In the grand scheme of things I really don't think we have a lot to squawk about. Sad to see another loss to our airport.

Please keep in mind that armchair politicians vote to put real politicians into office.

Lesson 1 - armchair politicians made a big mistake at the last election.

Lesson 2 - don't blame politicians; blame yourselves.

Gus, you're right. It's time that people stop and think about who they're putting into office. There are likely to be a horde of candidates declaring they're going to run in the November election. Here's the opportunity to check them out and make smart decisions about who goes in.

The other day I drove past the big Shreddies billboard on Queensway, the one that advertises the "new diamond" Shreddies, and I thought, our Council members are like the Shreddies ad.... you can turn them sideways, give them and new name and say they're exciting, but they're still the same old dry product! Let's have a taste of something different!

Good analogy there, getreal. I too am disappointed that the Horizon service has been cancelled, I was really looking forward to a trip to Seattle this winter. The 400K deal in my opinion was a bad move from the start. I have never ever supported the notion of governments supporting or bailing out private business.
metalman.

I really dont think the city should be
doing businesse. Its not their money.
They dont have businesse experience.
Im referring to the loss of Horizon.

Posted by: gus on September 11 2008 1:08 AM
Please keep in mind that armchair politicians vote to put real politicians into office.

Lesson 1 - armchair politicians made a big mistake at the last election.

Lesson 2 - don't blame politicians; blame yourselves.
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Posted by: Get real on September 11 2008 5:13 AM
Gus, you're right. It's time that people stop and think about who they're putting into office. There are likely to be a horde of candidates declaring they're going to run in the November election. Here's the opportunity to check them out and make smart decisions about who goes in.

The other day I drove past the big Shreddies billboard on Queensway, the one that advertises the "new diamond" Shreddies, and I thought, our Council members are like the Shreddies ad.... you can turn them sideways, give them and new name and say they're exciting, but they're still the same old dry product! Let's have a taste of something different!
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LMFAO
So what you two are saying is that everyone that voted these people into office knew that they would do exactly what they have done and it's the voters fault.
If that in fact was even remotely possible, then your statements would have merit.
In case you may not realize it, most new politicians start out with good intentions. They communicate those good intentions to the voters during election time. We vote them in and then we get to see the real person.
Your comments are ridiculous.

I too am sad I was unable to fly to Seattle. I was looking forward to sipping tropical drinks with umbrella's, under the Space Needle. OMG

I wonder if a few of those people above who are looking down their noses at us 'armchair politicans' might tell us who they would vote for in the next election or who they would have voted for in the last election?

I am a frequent air traveler and yes, I could see that this venture was going to be a major uphill battle from the start. No way should we have subsidized Horizon to get their business rolling when they couldn't compete with the airlines already established. They offered no real incentives cost-wise or scheduling-wise to fly with them.

Reading the local rag this morning, Horizon wanted us to up the ante to $750K to keep their empty planes in the air. Thank goodness we pulled the plug at that point.

Yay. Hopefully now we will get back the magazine shop - I really, really missed that!

uh, tinyapplecork, the market research was flawed in many ways. Particularly the lack of independence by the authors; they wanted to sell the deal to city hall. Reminds me of the market surveys and projections in a prospectus for another financial nightmare, Buffalo Brewing.

The best research around for everyone on here that denounced this deal at the outset would mention Edmonton.
If Westjet and another 4 airlines (mostly bankrupt) couldn't make money on a round trip service to that industrial megopolis to the East, could in gods name could anyone with a brain think that a Seattle route would work?

Reminds me of all the back slapping that went on at city hall when those idiots thought they'd pulled a fast one on the MOH and bot the Cameron St. bridge for one dollar...

Its monkey see monkey do. In Cranbrook Delto Airlines signed a deal with the City for a flight to Salt lake City. I believe the guarantee was 250 M. I wonder did the Association of BC Municipalities have anthing to do with these deals. Does anyone know if other Cities have signed similar contracts?

cheers

So would the posters on this site support an election platform from a councillor or Mayor that stated "We are going to run the operations of the city and let private interests (that means corporations) make decisions about spending money. It would result in a slight reduction in taxes."?

This is a serious question. I am not a PG resident any longer and I am certainly not going to run for mayor or councillor. But is that what you want? It is what I want, but I dont think that the general sediment of the Opinion250 posters supports this. They is always a distinct anti-corporation sediment on this board. Mostly anti-Canfor. Corporations make decisions that are good for Corporations, not whats good for Prince George or its residents directly. Any benefit to these groups is secondary.

The anti-corporate regular posters that are all over this site have something to think about here.

Oh right, you want governments to make investments that work 100% of the time. That is simply not realistic. So if you have to choose between the realistic options above, what one would it be?

Posted by: He speaks on September 10 2008 10:37 PM
Sure it was 200k lost, but at least we tried to make it happen.

We gave it our best shot. Thanks Tim

PGAA, better be nice to Westjet. Give them what they need.
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Now this is a statement that tells what is wrong with our system and one of the reasons our tax dollars are completely wasted so often.
An attitude of who gives a S--T and we better give the next guy's in line more of our money than we gave to Horizon.

Who cares if we lost 200K we tried, we gave it our best shot. Thanks Tim???

I don't know who the we is you are refering to but I know it's not the taxpayers that are the we in your statement. It's not the taxpayer that gave the thumbs up for this deal.

Are you a local politician who was involved in this fiasco and thats the reason you are saying "WE" ???

In the future please don't include other pissed off taxpayers or myself under the "WE" umbrella.
It's not the taxpayer thats wasting our money.

Born in BC, do you really think it would be wise to let a corporation control anything financial when it's dealing with tax dollars?
Corporations are in business to make themselves rich at the expense of those that do all the work.

No one has any business using tax dollars to make individuals rich.

Horizon Air made a deal with City hall and IPG. Maybe council should make a deal with all the hookers around town. Make the deal that the hookers would have to turn so many tricks per week or month in order to stay here in town. If they can't, give them some money and they will leave town. Just like Horizon did.

"uh, tinyapplecork, the market research was flawed in many ways. Particularly the lack of independence by the authors; they wanted to sell the deal to city hall. Reminds me of the market surveys and projections in a prospectus for another financial nightmare, Buffalo Brewing."
-----------------------------------------
rodangus, I would like to see the market research that was done if you claim it was flawed. Where may I peruse it?

Business failure occurs for many reasons.

I can agree with you on one point rodangus...skewing market research does a disservice to all parties.

Part of the problem is that the City set up Initatives Prince George a number of years ago with a budget. I beleive it is somewhere near 2.5 million per year.

Once this was in place IPG has been trying every year to prove that it has a reason to exist.

Projects like Horizen Air are a result of these people trying to maintain job security.

Another example was setting up an office in Vancouver for 2 years to showcase Prince George. After having received very few if any visitors they finally shut the office down. We of course had to pay the rent for the two years it was open. The City Councillors told IPG how much they appreciated their efforts and praised them for having the courage to shut the office down when they determined it was not working. Get my drift???

Does anyone know of anything that IPG has done in the last 5 or more years that was a benefit to Prince George. How much did the City pay for the CN Building on 1st Avenue to house the tourist bureau, and IPG. Pretty expensive digs for an outfit that;produces very little. I suspect that they have more office space per square foot per person, that any other office in Canada, and we are paying for it all.

The same thing is going to happen to the Airport Runway Expansion that happened to Horizen. The only difference is the Airport fiasco will take much longer to implode,and of course it has already cost us $33 Million. Air Cargo is a highly competitive business, and there is more capacity on airplanes for cargo than their is cargo. The big Airlines basically control the business and it will be a hard sell to have them shift part of their operation to Prince George and essentially duplicate their services. As far as refueling goes this will create very few jobs, especially if we are only going to get one or two planes per day by 2015.

The contractors who built the extension, now have the $33 Million in their bank accounts and are looking around for another cushy contract.

lostfaith you said that "We vote them in and then we get to see the real person."

Please remember the following:
1. There is only one person on Council who is new. All others were there before for at least one term.
2. At the last election, the cry was to get rid of most of those who sat on Council prior to the election.
3. The voters were very familiar with what they had and that they wanted "change" before Obama popularized the word.
4. The majority of the voters, when they went in to vote, decided they did not want change. It was done with full knowledge of the service they received in the past. There was no guesswork involved.