Just Couldn't Wait to Spend that $42,000 At City Hall

By Ben Meisner

The actions by some City Councillors earlier this week remind one of a young boy who goes to the theatre. He has 50 cents left and rather than trying to save it, buys some innocuous item that he will never use.

City hall was told on Monday that it was about to save $ 30,000 dollars as a result of the PG Air Society not needing a special monitor and $12 thousand from the ECO Canada fund for an internship.

What did the hall do?  Well we hired a “Clean Air Ambassador” for seven months at six grand a month to respond to complaints about  burning practises. To also provide education to residents through pamphlets, displays and presentations on the bylaw and proper burning practise.

So he or she arrives at your door and says they would like to show you how to burn properly or you should not be having a fire pit burn in the back yard. They have absolutely no teeth to go beyond handing you the pamphlet, (which any good resident of Prince George should tell them where they can put it) and then leave. If they report you to by laws and heaven forbid it is not a weekend when help is at a premium, bylaws heads out and says they have had a complaint, you tell him to go get a warrant for entry into your house which any good Prince George resident should do, and if they proceed the judge working on the weekend says, Haven’t you got better things to do with your time?

Does this new office have the ability to go to the major polluters, such as big industry, to ask them to clean up their act? Don’t be silly, they don’t have the authority. So other than Grandma and a few people who are going to give them  the time of day at the door , spending six grand a month is stupid, stupid, stupid.

What is hidden behind all of this however, the real reason for the employment?   Just watch as the new revised clean air by law attempts to smother the back yard burning. Wood stoves will come under further attack. And instead, as was suggested by Councillor Stolz, that we use the 42 thousand to give people a 500 incentive to convert to better wood appliances, we will head out with a club in hand instead.

Before anyone accepts that back yard burning is the curse of the city, the fire department had better come clean about just how many complaints they have had, how many of these are repeats, and at what time of the year do they occur.

Our inversions take place in the winter. Anyone with half a brain would know that people are not sitting outside cooking wieners in -30 degree weather; unless of course you are the people at city hall who would support the ban.

If the City of Prince George  wanted to do something positive, why didn’t they hand the money over to PACHA to find out just who is polluting the air shed in the city and what contributions are being made by Grandma and back yard burning? That however would finally tell the truth about what really is happening with our air quality and we don’t want that now do we?

I’m Meisner and that’s one man’s opinion.  

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