Prince George, B.C.- Two requests for funding from the City of Prince George have been reviewed and the news from Council  isn’t all good.

 

The JDC West Business competition will take place in Prince George in January. It will bring to the City hundreds of participants. The organizers asked Council to support the project in two ways:

Staff advise JDC West has already applied for, and received an Events Tourism grant of $7740.00 and there is no funding program available to fund the UNBC Team.

 

The other request came from the David Douglas Botanical Garden Society. It asked for up to $30,000 to build a bridge at a demonstration garden on the UNBC grounds, and a further $10 thousand a year in operating costs starting in 2010. Staff advise there is no money left in 2009 for the bridge under the Capital budget and the request for annual operating costs would have to be considered a service enhancement that would need to be included in the 2010 budget requests. Staff advise the request for the funding for the bridge could also  be added to the 2010 budget process.

 

That is not someething Councilor Don Basserman wants to do, "Given the financial strains we are under,  I don't want to give people a false sense of hope."  Councilor Stolz  echoed that feeling saying the budget for next year is extremely challenged, and  with  staff  trying to come up  with  a million dollars wsorth of cuts from the budget, this is not appropriate.

 

The  request  has been defeated and will not be  forwarded as a possible enhancement item  when the budget discussions  start  for 2010.