An interesting side note.

At a recent meeting in Victoria, a comment was made that Victoria is considering increasing the 10 year limit currently imposed by the provincial act that prevents that and under which both Victoria and Prince George are regulated.

Maybe this move is more popular than we thought and therefore might have a chance of seeing some change on the Province's part.

"The problem in all this boils down to one thing, which is, who is going to pay for these plans? Will it be the DBIA, the individuals themselves or (heaven forbid) the Taxpayer?"

That is most definitely the key question. In order to answer that, the best place to look is at cities, and there are enough of them in North America to fill an encyclopedia, that have been going downhill over the past 30 years or so in their downtown areas, have had a loss of people in their city limits that provides the tax base, and have managed to raise themselves by the bootstraps and become cities to which people have flocked once more and have exemplary downtowns.

I bet that there is not a single one that has not relied on a major investment by the City in their downtown by a variety of projects - public market (we've been there and done that and the City has chosen not to take on that challenge by the last DBIA board - how soon we forget!!!!), new waterfront development, removing old railyards and developing new more effective ones, removing old industrial areas and creating housing and inner city commercial districts, public transit, cultural districts, convention facilites, inner city parks ..... the list goes on and on.

This City has done squat!!! A new police station will add not value to increasing the popularity of donwtown!!! Absolutely zilch!!! It will not change the way the RCMP does business. It will not draw people to look at the building in awe. It will not provide park space for people to enjoy. it will not provide a glassed in area for markets to be held during the winter or city arts to be displayed or any of those normal social activities that make up the downtown of more livable cities.

We will NOT have an improved downtown without this City having a plan that they adhere to, was developed with the help of those in the city that have not given up on it yet, and is backed by considerable public financial incentives to draw private money with it once it has been shown that the City backs them up.

So far, I see very little committment by anyone at City Hall other than a few tokens here or there. SGOG was unveiled soem 8+ months ago. Time is obviously of no essence to anyone at the Hall. Counci,l endorsed it in principle, or some such meaningless wording, and we have no idea what is happening .... my PG .... OCP ..... plan .. plan .... plan ... ad infinitum until the next election when they will try ot once more pool the wool over our eyes as to what is wrong with this city and what they plan to do about it if only you elect those who are standing in front of us at that time.

It is time we got rid of the talkers and put some doers in place.

Another way of looking at the downtown when looking at community investment in the downtown ..... any money put into the rejuvenation of downtown is simply deferred maintenance.

We are seeing over and over again, not only in this city, but others as well, that if one does not maintain the assets one has created, they will be lost over time.

In another "20-30 years", downtown Prince George may serve as a set for a forthcoming movie, "Escape From Prince George".
It is time to take this corpse off life support. It was killed by previous councils allowing the business centre to move to College Heights.

"It is time to take this corpse off life support"

I would agree. But let us also take other areas off life support.

After spending many millions to provide improvements to the Domano/Tyner/HWY16W intersection to allow the College Heights box store heaven to function relatively well from a traffic point of view, some $9 million was spent to improve that improvement since it really was not a good enough improvement.

Was it money well spent? Did the shopping plaza land owners pay for that latest improvement? Who will pay for the final improvement of building an overpass when it is discovered that the intersection will remain the most accident prone in the City?

We really do not know who we are subsidizing, do we?

http://www.wichita.gov/NR/rdonlyres/E4C9E4F2-BE92-49C3-A773-BB5BF69B4A9D/0/downtownrevitalizationfinal.pdf

from the above report of Wichita: "for downtown revitalization efforts to be successful, cities must consider how to create critical mass – large mixed-use projects that put feet on the street where people live, work and play. These cities – like many others that are revitalizing their downtowns – provide “walkability” between home, work, shopping and entertainment.

But none of this is easy. To create this critical mass requires an unparalleled level of community engagement, support and planning. It requires intention, collaboration and commitment."

We are badly missing the latter in this community. This city does not know how to properly engage its citizens. It does no planning. It has no commitment to anything. As from day one, we continue to be opportunists, get the good stuff, plan and build for the short term, and get the hell out of town.

Yes, we have the nicest and warmest people in this community. BUT, they are not enough. They need to be nice not only to each other, but also to the community.

There is a difference between supporting individuals and supporting the community.