Have a great weekend everyone.

I would like to thank Ben and Elaine for bringing us Opinion 250, and allowing us to post comments on the news they provide. I think its like being back in school again with them having to repeatedly tell the posters that if the few who are abusing it don't tone it down that all of us will lose our priveliges. It's unfortunate that a few posters have to ruin it for the rest of the users. I really hope that a solution can be made and we don't lose the ability to comment.. Lets show some respect for Ben and Elaine and use the site wisely..

Please note the guests to be on the phone -in show on the home page.

solution is simple if you abuse this site the editors can [but not necssarly should] block the offenders. I think that some of those with radical ideas stimulate and encourage replies which is what Ben was hoping for when he started this site. I think Opinion 250 is an excellant site and a very worthwhile idea.

don't tell me what kind of weekend to have.

I hope that the comments that we make are read by the people who we comment about. There are some people on this web page, makes very good comments.

I wounder if this blog is used as a rudder by decision makers to use it as a feed back to making choices.

Thanks Ben and Elaine for the opportunity to voice in near anonymous terms.

What's with the new Sandman being built. That hotel should have been done and receiving guest a year ago. it still looks onlt 2/3 done.....

Vocer. The Sandman is owned by the Garibaldi's. thus they have a horrible reputations of building there own buildings instead of hiring local trades. Thus when they come into town, they really do not add to the contracting business. They employ people at the lowest wages and it takes them forever to build a hotel.

This is their third winter that they are building thru and their fourth spring coming up. Thus if a company like WIC or IDL was doing it, It would have been built in 18 months. A perfect example is the Health care home on Victoria and 20th. With the level of shopisication being probably twice as much and building being larger, was built in two years.

So, in most communities, contractors really do not think Sandman is a good corporate citizen, they exploit the workers by taking advantage of desperate trades people.

Their projects are so long, Yes you can complete your apprenticeship on one job.

I wonder what this warm weather is doing to all the Olympic teams that have come here to train just prior to the games?

Perhaps Ben could get somebody from IPG on the talk show and ask them how those teams are coping???????????

(The economic stimulus for PG has been great)

Ooops - I broke my New Years resolution to not be sarcastic.

And the Sandman, as a member of the BC Construction Association, expects contractors to stay at their facilities when working away from home.
Survey says: NOT!

It is as He spoke spoke. Getting their buildings up cheap seems to be more important to the aforementioned family than getting their buildings into service quickly, so as to begin recouping construction costs. This tells me that they have "too much money"
another opinion by metalman.

Why does the city of Prince George allow new neighborhoods to be built when the ones we built 5-10 years ago are still vacant (tyner ridge)??

It appears pot hole season has appeared early this year. Anyone working for the city in the pot hole repair department does not have to worry about their job being eliminated. Sure would be nice if the $500,000.00 being wasted on a bid for the Canada winter games went into road repairs.

Has anyone seem winter olympic athletes training in the city? With the games only a month away and all the hype involved after the City contingent attended the games in Turin Italy it was expected our hotels, and restaurants would be over flowing with future gold medal winners. Even the lone African cross country skier has not been heard from.

He Spoke... A quick scan of the internet show the Sandman owner as Tom Gaglardi (wouldn't want to ofend any garibaldi's... :). Just a "married" normal guy loves the ladies and fried foods and is ranked a #45 on the richest people in Canada list. Either way he apparently has nothing but time and money.

I beleive that he is related to the Gaglardi's from the Okanogan. Phil Gaglardi used to be the Minister of Highways in the old Social Credit Government.

He was famous for speeding, and on one occasion told police he was speeding to test the Highways and corners, to ensure that they were build right, and were safe for drivers. Quite a character actually.

The Sandman Inn on Georgia Street in Vancouver took more than three years to build . Back in the 70s or early 80s. I know. I worked across the street. Anyway it was built by non-union labour. All of it. They used to bring the concrete for it from Abbottsford. It was a friend of Willy Wooden Shoes who owned that large cement company. Interestring, eh? When it was completed the hotel decided it was not going to have unionized bartenders working there. Well, that is when real life finally hit the Gaglardis. The hotel got union bartenders. Like the guy in "Eraser" with Arny said, before they shot up the bad guys, "You don't mess with the union".

Tom Gaglardi is a son of Phil Gaglardi, the highway minister under W.A.C. Bennett. He was a preacher, anda lot of the highway work went to Ben Ginter Construction, out of PG, whose wife was supposedly a relative.

They used to say the highways were built by God, Ginter, and Gaglardi.

It was rumoured at that time that Gaglardi's sons and Bill Bennett purchased cheap real estate where the highways were to built, and became millionaires because of it.

What realy bothers me this am is the half million bucks that our caring BC government has GIVEN to the Red Cross for Haiti relief. Remember the millions given to the Red Cross for tornado relief in Asia.

On one count less then a million had been provided for relief by the Red Cross and we never did hear what the total amounts finaly were for Asian relief.
Cheers

I saw a good one today near Red Rock. A snow strom with almost white out conditions, a long line of vehicles. When all of a sudden vehicles towards the back of the line ahead of me are on the brakes and all over the road. Reason? Some idiot parked on the fog line, no four way flashers or signal light on yapping on his cell phone. At least he wasn't breaking the cell phone law but sure as hell came close to causing a few vehicles to wipe out. IDIOT

Get your facts straight gentlemen.
Tom Gaglardi is the son of Bob Gaglardi and grandson of Flying Phil Gaglardi.
Bob's company builds the projects, and son Tom's company manages them.
Bob's company is currently building a 400 unit plus barw and restaurants in Revelstock.
Tom Gaglardi was originally involved with Aquilini to buy the Vancouver Canucks from John MGraw of Seattle.
Aquilini made a behind the back deal and bought the Canucks on his own, this causing a big law suit by Tom. But the courts ruled in favor of Aquilini.
While the Gaglardi's do not have a good reputation for paying decent wages, they do keep many, many on their Various pay roles.
I guess 75% of something is worth more thaan 100% of nothing is one way to look at it.

just curious if any body else out there has been getting service done at pg motors . I was taking my truck there up untill the third service was due they told me the cost would be $300.00 just for basic service i found this a bit high untill they told me the cost of the forth service 1000.00 plus it would need brakes at this time as well those would be 300.00 i drive an 08 f150 any feed back would be appreciated .

The fact that a contractor would rather wait a couple extra years to start generating revenue from a property rather than pay union wages says just as much about the value of union labor as it does about the contractor.

I'm just testing to see if my commenting privileges have been revoked.

Guess not.

I stopped going to PG Motors as soon as I bought my car.

They are veryyyyyy expensive. I'm not saying that they don't do good work. I'm just saying that I can't afford them.

I now go to Esslinger Motors down in the light industrial site on the other side of Queensway.

Very good hard working honest people.

"Why does the city of Prince George allow new neighborhoods to be built when the ones we built 5-10 years ago are still vacant (tyner ridge)??"

For the same reason that they allow buildings such as Parkwood to overbuild their space. Since they opened, they never had all their spaces rented.

That reason is? Free enterprise. Well .... free to some, not so free to others. :-)

Ditto fer me about Esslinger motors. After dealing with a place on 20th and never getting them to fix it properly I finally took my truck to them. That was a few years ago. No problem since.

Phil Gaglardi built some great roads, and enjoyed great popularity with the BC public as Highways Minister.

Despite his many speeding tickets, and continuing attempts by the Opposition to "dig up dirt" on him, some of which undoubtedly existed, there's is no denying he was one of the hardest working members of WAC Bennett's cabinet. And had a former bulldozer operator's sixth sense in knowing where a road could be built. And how it should be built. His roads stood up. They were narrow two-lane jobs by the standards of today, but they had a proper crown on them to shed the water. Unlike some of what was built after others held the Highways Ministry in later administrations.

Some may recall he lost the Highways portfolio when he didn't tell Premier Bennett quite "the whole truth" about the diversion of a BC government MoH Lear-jet from its original flight path on "official business" to another destination with a member of the Minister's family on board.

As competent as he was in Highways, he was just as big a flop as Human Resources Minister, a portfolio he got later when he was re-habilitated to the Cabinet.

Under his watch there it cost us more to try and weed out the able-bodied "welfare bums", those few hapless spongers who wouldn't have been the slightest use to any employer anyways, than it would've done to have kept paying them welfare. It was as useless an attempt as Bill Vander Zalm's later "pick up your shovel" dictum to the same types. Totally counter-efficient 'economically' no matter how popular such moves might have been 'politically' with some people.

I would like to see the City do a better job of sanding our streets and sidewalks and this from someone that just fell and broke a bone, walking on our citys sidewalk. I would like to say that our local Hospital was GREAT.

Just watching the disaster in Haiti and one can see how a useless an organization the UN has turned into. Just a bunch of overpaid bureacrats living a pompous 1st class lifestyle.

Seamutt,

What's your problem with the UN? Not that it doesn't have plenty wrong with it, but how has it failed to do its job in Haiti? You do know that the UN is not the primary disaster relief organization, don't you? That role is played by the Red Cross and organizations like Medecins Sans Frontieres. The UN does things like planning and coordination and keeps stocks of emergency supplies.

I'd like to thank the highways crew for making my drive so interesting today. Once again, bare roads on the Vanderhoof end this morning, major slush and no signs of plows from Bednesti in. Heading back out tonight; a sheet of ice all the way to Bednesti and then bare and dry to Vanderhoof.

As for that Ford dealer... I went there twice, then went elsewhere. Too expensive and didn't like the work they did.

Have a great weekend!!

Ditto on the comments about the Ford dealer.Too expensive.
Several years ago I went for basic service and I guess business was slow cause after they did the basic service they handed me a sheet of "problems" and "potential problems" that they wanted me to book an appointment for...to the tune of $2,800 no less. I changed a couple of filters and a set of plugs and drove that baby trouble free for 5 more years before I sold it. The people that bought it are still driving it and with the exception of replacing the exhaust they have done zero to it other than change the oil. That was my experience. Times change and things may roll differently now. Not bashing...just sayin.