This is getting ridiculous. Two stories, one about budget cuts in Quesnel and the next one about the torch run in Quesnel. How about cutting the torch run and save some programs?

Who is paying for the celebrations?

•Communities are not being asked to contribute financially to the Olympic Torch Relay. However, Olympic Torch Relay organizers will work with local law enforcement for rolling street closures and assistance with public and crowd control while the Olympic Flame passes through each community.
•VANOC provides the main infrastructure (stage, lights, sounds, technicians, sponsor activations) for the operations of the celebration. Content and any additional support to enhance the celebration is the responsibility of the community.
•VANOC books and pays for all travel, meals, hotels and expenses for the torch relay crew.
•The Government of Canada and Provincial/Territorial Governments have made funding available to help enhance community celebrations.

Wow, what a party...

The real question is, what will people blame everything on once the Olympics are over?

11% increase for the Olympic torch ... wow ...

Who is paying for the celebrations?

•Communities are not being asked to contribute financially to the Olympic Torch Relay. However, Olympic Torch Relay organizers will work with local law enforcement for rolling street closures and assistance with public and crowd control while the Olympic Flame passes through each community.
•VANOC provides the main infrastructure (stage, lights, sounds, technicians, sponsor activations) for the operations of the celebration. Content and any additional support to enhance the celebration is the responsibility of the community.
•VANOC books and pays for all travel, meals, hotels and expenses for the torch relay crew.
•The Government of Canada and Provincial/Territorial Governments have made funding available to help enhance community celebrations.

Wasn't the City of Quesnel bragging just a while back about how they were able to hold the line on taxes and still make things work?

At least Quesnel is making an effort to get rid of some of the excess employee's, some programs, etc;

Pr George could take a lesson from Quesnel. We have a seriously bloated City Hall, close to 775 employees. I doubt if our illustrious IPG's 8 people are included in the Cities numbers.

Our City is riding high on the bouyancy of our tax dollars. Laughing all the way to the bank. They obviously feel that they have the Tiger by the tail, and can do what the hell they please.

At the present time, in this area we have over 5000 people who have lost their jobs. We have business's who have either closed, or who are having seriously finiancial difficulties. We have the School Board shutting down schools, and they will likely have to reduce staffing. (And so they should). The Provincial Government is issuing lay off notices, and the Federal Government states that it will get into some serious reductions in costs, and jobs later this year.

We on the other hand continue to raise taxes, plan on borrowing millions of dollars for what can only be discribed as **Goofy** projects, and continue to hire people.

This kind of crap only happens in this backwoods City. This type of behaviour would be frowned on in most Cities. Our elected officials have a complete lack of moral fibre, or they would stop this insane need to spend, borrow, spend, borrow.

We need an across the board decrease of 10% in every departments budget. How they deal with the problem is entirely up to them, but they have to be decreased 10%. Then next year we can look to repeatng the process.

There should be no more increases in British Columbia for any Government departments, Provincial, Regional, or Municipal, that includes Police, and Fireman for at least 3 years, and maybe longer. If anyone doesnt like it, they could of course quit their jobs and go to work for the private sector at approx $15000.00 per year less.

The Citys portion of taxes collected after paying the Regional District, Provincial School Taxes, BC Assesment, and 911, is 63% or $69,876,947.00. of which,

a. Recreation and Cultural Services gets 16.73%

b. Fiscal Services & Debt Charges 13.29%

c. General Government Services 13.76%

d. Protective Services 28.73%

e. Road Transport 18.76%

f. Balance, Enviroment, Transit, Planning,.

Its obvious that Recreation and Cultural Services, and Debt Charges eats up the majority of the dollars, followed by the Protective Services, and then the General Government.
A 10% across the board decrease in budgets for the 1st year would give you a savings of approx $7 Million dollars.

Anyone who thinks that we couldnt function just fine on 10% less is just kidding themselves.

Whats the chance of this (or any Pr Geo Council) making the tough decisions, and running this City the way it should be run. My guess is no chance at all.

You reap what you sow. We sowed a bunch of nincompoops and now we have a field full.

I recollect the Quesnel city hall big shots said they wouldn't raise their automated garbage pick up fees. I'm patiently waiting to see if they lied.

I vote that all of the cuts in services be applied to Palopu. No garbage pickup for him, no potholes fixed on his road and no police or fire protection for his neighborhood. Oh, and cut off the water to his house as well, don't let him use any of our civic facilities and god forbid someone he knows dies, because he's going to get his cemetery privileges revoked as well :)

Agreed, NMG. I agree with the spirit of Palopu's post, but it seems that we want it all but don't want to pay much for it. Something doesn't add up.

We need to determine what our municipal government should be doing and what they should avoid. Clearly, the direction they are going is not working.

The City should defintely trim their staff, that's what private industry has done. I'm willing to do with less services, or at least go to a more user-pay system. Just a thought.

Quesnel is trying to stop a mountain from moving. Wasting millions of dollars in the process.

Quesnel is paying for a large building to play soccer in that is empty most of the time. Wasting millions of dollars in the process.

Quesnel is waiving development charges for some developers in the all mighty quest for increased tax revenue. Costing taxpayers millions.

These clowns are just having reality catch up to them.

NMG. You miss the point. We can have all the services you mention, with a 10% decrease in all budgets.

Are you trying to imply that all the City Staff, Maintenance, etc; along with the Police, and Fire Department are working at the maximum without any room for some decreases. What a bloody laugh. Obviously you dont keep your eye on the ball.

A couple of winters ago we had four foreman working night shift to keep an eye on the snow clearing contractors, and then we had a General Foreman keeping an eye on the foreman.

We had three police officers working in the Community Policing a few years ago, and they were transferred to General Duties, and we hired three civilians for the Community Policing. We have 50 staff on the City payroll who work for the Police Department. That is 50 staff for approx 123 policemen.

We reduced the number of Garbagmen with the new garbage system, but did not get rid of any staff.

We got rid of the parking meters, and instituted a computer based marking system, to generate tickets, but did not get rid of any staff.

We put in the replay board at the CN Centre, and then had to have staff available to run the bloody thing. It was supposed to increase attendence at Hockey Games. In fact the attendence has actually dropped. This bloody board cost $800,000.00 of which the City picked up the tab for $400,000.00.

The Airport Authority got rid of their Communication Officer, and coincidently the City was hiring one at that particular time. What does this actually mean.

A. The Airport Authority were able to reduce their staff by one for a savings of approx $70,000.00 per year. There has been no advertisement for filling this position.

B. The City picked up the body from the Airport Authority at a cost to taxpayers of approx $80,000.00 per year. Did we actually need this position to be filled? Probably not.

IPG has 8 people on the payroll, and a budget of $2.5 million per year, and they could be let go to-morrow without anyone knowing they were gone.

So you get my drift. There is all types of ways to reduce staff, and maintain services.

If the City didnt supply the services you mention, dont ever think that I or others could not provide these services for ourselves.

Anyone can dig a hole and bury a body, or burn it.

Anyone can dig a hole for a cesspool, or a well for water.

I could fix the potholes on my street a hell of a lot faster and do a better job than the City boys.

We are surrounded by areas that have volunteer fire departments, and if necessary we could have our own community police force.

In any event we pay for all these services for a reason. We expect to get the maximum bang for our buck, and it is not happening. Time to close the purse strings.