This is another perfect example of the need for a functional Performing Arts Centre. Let's move on and get it done.

I would highly recommend that you catch Matthew Cluff now as this performer is definatly headed for stardom. He has an amazing stage presence.He sure has come along way since being a clown.

I am not related to him but do know talent when I see it.

Judy Russell has a habit of developing stars. Cluff might be the biggest one yet.

Just my opinion....

"This is another perfect example of the need for a functional Performing Arts Centre."

How do you figure that? Are there no venues in this town that could possibly host this?

Vanier Hall is a High School auditorium certainly NOT a performance hall.

There are tons of venues that could host this. The ballrooms in the two main hotels, the civic centre, the eagles hall, the CN centre, one of the hangers at the airport, the Coliseum, the College Gym, the UNBC field house....... and on and on and on ......

It would be like comparing an Imax production to a regular movie theatre

Or a regular movie theatre showing to a drive in showing.

An LCD 50 inch TV to a 19 inch colour tube tv and that to a 14" B&W TV.

We progress over the ages.

The thing is that good quality live performance spaces have been around for centuries, long before movies and long before TV.

Humans have progressed from apes to homo sapiens over the millions of years. There has been a continuous improvement over time. It is what drives humans for some reason or another.

At the same time there have always been ludites. We seem to be housing many of them in PG in the past few year.

Somebody clearly needs a hug.

MrPG If you want a PAC then you rich folk go and build it yourself, and let these want to be starlets go at it. Or move to a city where there is a PAC.No doubt these want to be's are good, but not worth MILLIONS for a building like that. Got to tell you that taking handouts from Sally Ann is very degrading to most, but you would not know because you are in the ELITE group. Maybe Gus needs a hug, but you better have enough for the rest of P.G. also.

Robin, you might want to read my posts again before spouting off. I do not believe that PG 'needs' a PAC and I do not believe in passing our tax burdens onto future generations and borrowing more than we can afford, but we seem to be doing that anyway.

To use Gus's analogy, if I'm sitting in my living room watching a 14" B&W TV, I definitely would prefer to have a 50" LCD, but I'm not going into debt to finance it. People like Gus seem to think that there is an endless supply of tax dollars to fund their pet projects with. A PAC will do nothing to attract anyone here. Look at PG's population growth over the past 20+ years...

"A PAC will do nothing to attract anyone here."

Neither will timely repaired potholes, 4 laned bridges, excess bridges over the river, hockey arenas, hockey rinks, baseball diamonds, excessively populated fat RCMP detachments, expensive fire dapartments, trails, overpaid civil servants, and on and on .......

When it comes to attracting people into this community, there is none better than the two post secondary education institutions. While a large number of the students are from within the City, a significant number are from outside the City, the region and even the province.

A good example is one of the City Councillor who came here to study at UNBC from Eastern Canada and ended up staying, opening a business, and getting elected.

The real answer to getting people to come and then to stay is that all of the things which make a well rounded functional and enjoyable city need to be here, otherwise people will always have their eyes ready to move elsewhere.

I know that when I came here in the early 70's many organizations were paying higher salaries to people who were highly qualified so that they would tend to stay. Prince George still has one of the highest per capita income in the province, but it is slowly eroding.

So, one of the ways to look at that is that while services may not be the best, and PG businesses have one of the lowest property tax rates in the province, they are paying higher salaries to their employees.

As I always say, in the end, one has to pay for what one gets.

I think ciites in general need to be accountable for the effectiveness of the service they provide. None of the figures shown on the Dawson Creek web site get anywhere close to measuring that. They measure input, not output. We have no system for measuring output in this country that I am aware of. There are other countries that are well on their way to doing that so that voters have better information on hand to make sure they can vote properly.

One group that is well on their way to doing so is the Frontier Centre for Public Policy whose home page is here:

http://www.fcpp.org/index.php

And whose page for the 2008 municipla reports for larger BC cities is here:

http://www.fcpp.org/publication.php/2484

This is far better quality material than the BC report put out by the FIBC recently. One improvement is that they use a per household ratio than a per person ratio for some very obvious reasons.

MrPG I am sorry for getting the name wrong. It was opinionated that I was trying to comment on. I just get annoyed when the rich want the less fortunate to keep on giving more than we have, Prince George should do as Dawson Creek and say enough is enough.

"People like Gus seem to think that there is an endless supply of tax dollars to fund their pet projects with"

Every single person in this community has a pet project. Some are more popular than others. Some are more costly than others.
We likely have some good figures of which are most popular. We have absolutely no good measure which allows us to compare one facility against another when it comes to cost such as per user.hour for instance.

I noticed that the new, so called, trail next to Tyner Blvd, is in service and is being plowed. How cost effective is that? How many people actually walk, especially in the winter from CH to UNBC? How can we measure the effectiveness of each project.

Let us take that as an example.

How about

1. total initial cost of building - in this case special fill and shaping after a trench was dug for a water pipe plus landscaping yet to come.
2. annual cost of clearing the snow (which was clear before my street was plowed, btw)
3. annual maintenace cost for repair
4. loss of opportunity to use money elesewhere, including possbility of not using it anywhere and simply reducing the total infrastructure cost to the city.

Factor that into a single number and identify the number of people.hours/month as well as the number of people.hours/km that the path will actually be used and identify whether it is for recreation or in lieu of driving a motorized vehicle.

The first figure can be used to compare to other city facilities broken down into people.hours/month and the second to find which trail is the most costly when rating it against usage.

Rich? Most civic facilites are for those who are not all that rich.

The rich can go to Mexico to swim. The rest of us stay in town and use the pool.

The rich go to Vancouver to see their favourite live performances. The rest of us go here, or watch them on TV and sometimes on a friend's TV because some don't have one.

The rich go to Calgary to watch the Grey Cup. The rest stay in town to watch it on TV.

The rich go to larger cities to shop for the selection we do not have here. The rest have to shop here.

The rich go to Peru for their mountain hikes. Thew rest stay here and go for walks along the river which the City still has not repaired at Cottonwood.

The rich fly. The rest drive.

The rich can live in relatively safe neighbourhoods. The rest next to crack houses.

Now, we can get even with the rich. The rich drive to work, so have to drive through all those potholes. The rest stay at home because they have no work.

The message to take with you .... think a liottle bit more carefully who is able to take the most advantage of the services provided by the City and who pays the least for those services.

BTW, how many on here know that the City provided the Canadian Curling Association a grant of $150,000 to hold their pre-olympic event here? Don't know if VANOC gave the City the money for that.

They brought accommodation, transportation and food money into the City. Thus, it is an indirect subsidy to those businesses and their employees from the City.

How much of that should the City be doing? Is this a benefit to the taxpayers, or a drain? How can that be measured objectively rather than just by biased, emotional reactions such as we tend to see from many of the posters on here?

Actually, that was the second of two payments. The record is in the 2009 budget. Do not know what the first one was.

Okay, final little tidbit from the "did you know" category as opposed to the "did you believe" category

The 2009 recommended budget for cultural grants was $223,630. $118,000 of that (over 50%) went to TNW. $60,000 to PGSO, and no $ to the Art Gallery.

So, if you post the most times, do you win?

Anyway, you're not going to get an argument from me in that governments at all levels waste tax money on all sorts of things. It doesn't make it right.

My point is... where does it stop? At what point do we say, "No, we can't afford it". I don't think we've hit that point yet... at our peril.

Yes ... did you not read the rules? :-)

That's one more post, just for the record.