Thank you for that. So now I have three questions:

1. Why does it take this much effort to get this information from the City in an easy to understand format?

2. Why are Councillors not given this information each time they have to vote on a money issue which clearly spells out the costs and the benefits of additional borrowing?

3. What plans are in place to turn this around and dig ourselves out in a similar fashion as cities such as Lethbridge are doing?

http://www.lethbridge.ca/home/City+Hall/City+Council/Council+Information/Achievements/ACCOMPLISHMENTS.htm

This certainly explains why the City was finding creative ways to increase our taxes when, because of property values etc, we should have had a tax decrease. I dont know about others, but I certainly am not impressed with this situation, and will be waiting to hear from our Mayor as to why we are in this situation.

I would speculate that he will blame it on us taxpayers, saying that the City only borrowed to finance the projects that citizens wanted. This of course is only partially true. Most major projects were pushed by the City and vested interest groups. A good example of this is the Arts Centre, most citizens of Prince George were against this project, however it went ahead.

To give you an example on how this works. The vested interest groups and the City advocated building the Multiplex and to establish the Cougers in Prince George. The money was borrowed and the project went ahead. I assume that they did some kind of a study to see if it was a financially viable project??. In any event, once the hype died down the project started to lose money big time. It costs the City approx $300,000.00 per year to operate the Multiplex (CN Centre) If fan attendence is any indication, then there is a good possibility that this venture will continue to lose money. At this point in time the general consensus is that the CN Centre is losing money because the fans are not supporting the Cougers. Therefore it is the fans fault. A responsible business plan for this venture would have dictated that you do not build a facility like this, and depend on maximum fan support to keep it going. In other words it was a major bad decision, and will be exacerbated, when and if the Cougers leave town.

We will be facing the same type of poor planning and decision making on the co-generation project if it should be allowed to go ahead. We are presently in the process of seeing poor judgment and planning in regards to the Cameron St. Bridge, which should be repaired and continue to function as in the past rather than having us spend another 7.5 Million for a **No Benefit** bridge.

Its time to make some changes.

Hopefully after the election we will not have the same people around who have a total disregard for taxpayers money.

Billions for the bankers, debts for the people. Hello!!! Doesn't anyone understand financial management anymore?

The Magic of Compound Interest is exactly the same way the Magic of Compound Debt works.

We are slidding down a slippery slope. It becomes more and more difficult to get out of debt the longer we allow ourselves to remain in debt.

I have some real concerns about the direction this current administration is taking us.

I can't and will not support more debt, more taxes or more financial burden placed on the property owners, business owners and income generators of this province. Chester

Now they want to waste 2.5 million dollars to fix up that old school. This is getting scary.

What was the debt before this group of wing nuts got into city hall I wounder and are we any better off? As for the Cameron st bridge we don't need it or even a replacement and if they do relace it I hope we can drive on it unlike the foothills bridge thats been found needs repairs so it can handle loaded truck trafic more wasted money wasn't thier heavy loads when the bridge was biult?I work hard for my money and can't spare anymore so something has to change thanks for letting me vent have a nice day