Council Starts New Year With Focus on Forestry and Air Quality

Monday, January 05, 2009 03:58 AM

Prince George, B.C.- The downturn in the forest industry will be up for discussion at tonight’s meeting of Prince George City Council.

First, Rick Berry, a resident of Mackenzie will make a presentation on the impacts being felt in his community.

Later, Council will be asked to receive for information a letter from the president of Lakeland mills. In the letter, Keith Andersen calls on the City to sharpen it’s pencil heading into the next budget discussions and “see where you can reduce the City’s budget in ways that have the least impact on services to residents and business alike and that would provide us with temporary relief from property taxes in the order of 20%”. While the resulting reductions would mean tax cuts for everyone, for Lakeland Mills, that would mean a savings of about $100 thousand dollars.

Other matters on Council’s plate this evening include:

Revisiting the request to give Dominion Fairmile a contract not to exceed $90 thousand dollars to work with the final design and construction cost plan for the new RCMP building.
Public hearing on a rezoning appliction to split a lot on Charella Place.
Consideration of $100 thousand dollars in funding for a trout pond in the city
Preparing staff members of the PG Air Society meeting for dealing with a recommendation that calls for reductions in emissions. There are concerns the current recommendation is not enforceable and should be changed.
Installation of cameras on City buses to deter vandalism, record accidents, reduce threat of violence to drivers

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Posted on Monday, January 05, 2009 03:58 AM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: wavoes on January 5 2009 8:32 AM

1st on the egenda should be figuring out the snow removal budget...WE ARE A WINTER CITY and ran out of our snow removal budget before winter officially hit.

Posted by: MrPG on January 5 2009 8:44 AM

Round and round we go on air quality. Let's see how much paper we can put out without actually having to do anything.

Posted by: diplomat on January 5 2009 9:26 AM

A trout pond??? Who are these people who forever dream up new schemes to put their hands into the pockets of the defenseless taxpayers?

There are plenty of lakes, creeks and streams all around where people can fish for trout and where they can teach their children how to.

Fish farming in the city? Perhaps this is a private business opportunity but leave us taxpayers out of it.

I expect the new mayor and councillors to deep six any and all attempts from now on to spend our money in any frivolous and downright disrespectful manner.

These are tough times. Get it?

Posted by: giterdun on January 5 2009 9:38 AM

Right on the mark diplomat...Advise for the city admin... Lets concentrate on generating ways to increase the tax base before we come up with new ways to spend money. Once the airport logistics park is on its way, new secondary manufacturing is in place and our economy is vibrant, then and only then should we be looking at any NEW expenditures. Right now is the time to create income, not find new ways to spend it.

Posted by: Bridge on January 5 2009 10:12 AM

Lets concentrate on generating ways to increase the tax base.

thats a great idea but I think we have already gone there when you look at the mess up on Highway 16 west at the cost of the downtown area. A function of the City is to plan and manage the taxes that we now pay. We need to enhance our city to get away from the dirty mill town look. Aplace where people want to live and the rest will look after its self.

The City should not be involved in growing the economy. If the business community can not do that then get out of town and go elswhere. Dont feed off my tax dollars.

Cheers

Posted by: Bridge on January 5 2009 12:57 PM

The air port development is a great example of the poor planning that the City has. Tax dollars are used to build a 38 million access road for some hair brained idea for a bigger tax base.

The infrastructure is not there so why do we accomadate this project with tax dollars. This is exatly what has happened to the development on Highway 16 west. The infrastructure was not there but we went ahead and did the development. The city is spread in all directions far greater then is requiered for 70,000 people.

Cheers

Posted by: Chester on January 5 2009 6:39 PM

$100,000 for a fish pond? Who on earth actually thinks that this is something the city should be waste their time even discussing at this point in our economic situation?