I think the Hart needs to separate from Prince George like Westbank did from Kelowna, and form a municipality of its own that pays its own way.

In the Hart homes pay higher taxes than in the bowl on average because the higher value of the homes, yet in the Hart the roads are bad (#97 is provincial), no curbs just a ditch, no city sewer in large parts of the Hart, sub par bus services, and no major parks that are maintained by the city.

In the bowl multi millions are spent to revitalize dead zones of the downtown, luxury mega projects are proposed in the tens of millions of home tax dollars, inept flood planning is done in the tens of millions of home tax dollars, all the nice maintained parks are in the bowl, as well as all the full services from curbs to sewer to bus services and public buildings.

IMO the Hart subsidizes the city of PG's inept budget planning to the tune of millions that far out weighs any inefficiencies a separate city admin would cost to have the Hart deliver its own services. We could draw the new municipal boundary at the Hart scales on 97 North and everything North of North Nechako on Foothills (still larger than Williams Lake or Prince Rupert in population). PG is going bankrupt faster than people can leave town, and this over the top budget spending is only going to speed up the process IMO.

It might be time PG is broken up in to smaller more manageable parts? Time will tell I guess....

I live on the Hart and your idea has a lot of merit. Highland Drive was last paved in 1981 when the installation of storm sewers required removal of the old pavement.

Highland Drive has taken a real beating in the years since which now add up to 28 years of heavy and fast (65 to 85 km/hr -when the speed limit is 50km/h!) traffic. The half dozen 50km/h speed limit signs along Highland Drive on both sides were removed some years ago, as were the No Truck Traffic signs.

Consequently it has been turned into a race track by every kind of traffic including city buses and city trucks. No amount of effort on my part with City Hall to restore the signs has made any difference so perhaps a separate adminstration which looks after the northern part as described by you would be more familiar with the issues and care a lot more.

Highland Drive is now completely worn out.

Some older side streets in this area are resembling cratered moonscapes. Croft Road, Cook Crescent, Glenngarry, Killarney, West Austin Road, the list could go on and on.

No meaningful remedial work has been done in the last few years and it appears as if none is planned or budgeted for in the immediate future. Gluing and patching are just a waste of time and money.

Curbstones are busted by snow clearing every winter, yet I have never seen any concrete repair work being done in all the years I have lived here.

The taxes we pay up here certainly don't come back up here to pay for the much needed infrastructure repair.

So you may indeed have a very good point when it comes to posssibly better results with smaller portions.

Eagleone, I think you are forgetting the nearly $20 million spent on the Fish Trap island water plant and the new water main run up the Hart that was just built a few years ago.

Yes, we need to look at how and where the City is spending its money, but the Hart is far from being ignored.

We did look at how & where the City spends the money
That was with the civic election last fall
What's changed?
New mayor from the old gang & 4 new faces on council
The change is?

Good responses all! I live on North Nechako Road and it sickens me that the city is planning on borrowing 11 million dollars to pave a 11 klm x 5m trail. We have no sidewalk and in some places barely and edge of road. There are many bike riders along that road as well as children. They put in the fancy bike trail on the other side of Foothills by their fancy ball park. How many people live along there? It is just a matter of time before someone is killed. But we need a fancy new trail and people to look after it to the tune of 300,000.00 a year. What a freaking joke this council is in reality. Big City dreams on Small City dollars.

Ah, no Action 24/7 , the police's guns are never for teasing .

"Eagleone, I think you are forgetting the nearly $20 million spent on the Fish Trap island water plant..."

Federal grant money, if my memory serves me right.

The Hart needs attention now and not more discussions about how much it has been ignored or not, by percentage points.

And it's not only the Hart. Have a look at Strathcona - which is closer to the downtown!

That is the kind of condition that some of the streets on the Hart are in, only worse!

BTW, where are the federal infrastructure stimulus billions that Harper and Flaherty are always flapping their lips about?

Is any of it going to trickle down to us at the bottom of the barrel?

I, too live in the Hart Highlands, just off of Highland Drive. I have been here since 1977, before Foothills Blvd existed, and before the four-laning of the Hart Highway. I used to call the old two-lane Hart Highway the "Hart Goat Trail". There has been virtually nothing done in this subdivision in decades. As the neglect continues, we are getting more goat trails instead of paved roads. Fifteen years ago I used to go roller-blading all over the subdivision. I would certainly not try that now.

Clearly the City needs to put all capital expenditures on hold (with the exception of road work perhaps) so that they can sit down and re-prioritize what we can afford and which projects should be the priority given what we are now faced with, as opposed to what we were faced with 12 months ago. The situation has changed quite a bit in that time so I think such a review is not only warranted, but it should be expected.

Too many of these spending decisions are being looked at in isolation, without any consideration of the big picture.

I agree that the Hart, CH, and SFG should cede from the City.

We could then stay in the police station we have and not expand the Library. The pressure to provide more space in City Hall would also be reduced for some time.

After a few decades of working under those conditions, with 3 new City Halls, police stations, police stations, etc. We could see create a new Metro Prince George government which would see a chamber made up of select members of the 4 City Councils and their Mayors. The Metro area will then be run much better, with public transportation, utilities, garbage, snow clearing, road maintencance, etc. etc. all being run more efficiently under the metro government.

By the year 2050 or 2060, the Provincial Government of the day could force the amalgamation of the various cities into the single city of GPGA ... Greater Prince George Area. Dan's granddaughter, or Colin's, or even one of the young Moffats of the day could be the first mayor of the GPGA.

Getting back to the issue of $$$$$$ for flood mitigation:

I certainly hope that the City is now no longer going to provide services to any flood plain that will proposed in the future. No services (sewer and water), no permit to develop, end of proposal. I know this sounds like an obvious statement, but I have not heard it mentioned. Did I miss it? I might have, since I cancelled my subscription to the Citizen a while ago because I could no longer find the news amongst the advertising.

The fact of the matter is South Fort George, the Hart Hiway, The Pulp Mills, and some other areas. VLA (Pine Street) were all brought into the City of Prince George in the sixties.

I have to agree with most of the posts, that the outlying areas have been pretty well ignored ever since.

If you look at the brochure that you received with your tax notice this week, you will see where our tax dollars go.

The Citys Portion of our taxes is 63% of taxes collected; $69,876,947. (90%) is spent as listed below. So there is not any money left to do anything else.

Debt charges 13.9%
Recreation & Cultural 16.73%
Protective Services 28.73%
General Government Svces 13.76%
Road Transport 18.76%
Even with debt charges of almost $10 Million a year, the City is hell bent to continue to borrow and go further in debt.

Its no wonder we are not making any progress.

I agree with NMG's post, especially since announcements like this one are still happening.

http://cxa.marketwatch.com/TSX/en/Market/article.aspx?guid=http%3a%2f%2fsystem.marketwatch.com%2fnewscloud%2fdocguid%2f%7bA1BA04EA-8CBC-4A39-94C4-90698465D3B6%7d&symb=CFP

Very troubling news concerning the shutdown and loss of almost 600 jobs.

Let's hope that this is a wake-up call to the mayor, council and city manager that it is now time to batten down the hatches, run a steady course, stick to the basics, postpone some of the wish list *must-haves* and thereby NOT add any more to the ever rising tax burden on home owners.

" Yes they will receive money for the mitigation work, new dikes, dredging, and even taking gravel out of the mouth of the river."

Do the mitigation work, build the new dikes, do the dredging and take gravel out of the mouth of the river.

Why move any houses? Aren't the above measures designed to prevent any further flooding?

If they won't why bother doing them?

Dikes "or" move structures rather than "and" ... exactly, diplomat.