The taxpayers of PG don't want a PAC. Why won't you listen. To go ahead with this project without a referendum is criminal.

Please tell me why you feel you can speak for the taxpayers of PG.

Do you sit on Council by any chance?

If not, then I suggest you take some responsibility and type in that YOU don't want a PAC.

If you want to speak on behalf of others in the City then state the reason why you have that authority. I will then listen.

If you want to quote a legitimate objective poll that was taken, then I will listen. Until then You are no different than me or most others in this community.

BTW, if people have not figured it out yet, I want a PAC not for me but for the betterment of the community. There are some conditions that apply to that wish that I would be willing to share with any reasonable, objective person that is for the betterment of this community.

Onto another matter. Does anyone know how the downtown marketing study that cost some $140,000 a few years ago relates to the $50,000 prospectus proposed now?

In addition, the DBIA is able to develop a marketing prospectus under the Act. Is this money in addition to the money that the DBIA may be proposing to spend on a similar effort?

In other words, are we seeing two groups working separately or are they going to be working in concert?

How is IPG funded and how much property does it currently own or previously own? Who did they buy these properties from and was the price paid reasonable? Was a profit made by IPG from the sale of the Livebridge/ACS building? Are mortgages being held on any of these properties and by whom? What is IPG's role and who makes the decisions? I am just starting to follow these types of stories and am somewhat confused about who is running the city at times.

The only reason they wouldn't put the PAC to a referendum is if they are afraid it won't pass.

There was a referendum. It provided us with the facilities which were to be built and in what order of preference. The other facilities have now been built and the PAC is the last one on the list. So, its time has come. :-)

If they would put it to a vote again, there is a new tool called a reverse petition which is being used.

1. IPG is funded by the City of Prince George. They get approx $2.5 Million per year.

2. IPG bought the building on second avenue, and when they sold it to Terasen they made a profit of $478,000.00. What they are not talking about here, neither the City or IPG is that the City paid a further $400,000.00 to wire this building for a call centre. So the question is, why wouldnt the $478,000.00 just be returned to the taxpayers of Prince George. The answer of course is because they want to spend the money. Why would they reurn it to the rightful owners???

This money could go toward paying the $400,000.00 that the Winter Games bid will cost us.

3. The City has no right (specifically) to kite money through IPG to the Performing Arts Centre Society. In fact if my memory serves me right it was IPG who held the original meeting to set up the PAC Society. What is happening here is that taxpayers money is being used to promote a building that a majority of taxpayers could be against. This doesnt surprise me in the least because this sort of BS takes place at City Hall all the time. Moving money around to and from varous projects, etc; so that no one knows what the hell is going on.

4. When the time comes the City will have to have a reverse onus petition in order to borrow the money to build the Performing Arts Centre. If 10% of the elegible voters sign the petition it will have to go to a referendum.

5. Unless those opposed to the PAC get off their collective asses and start to look at this proposal, you will end up with a $50 Million dollar building that will house approx 800 people, most of who will be members of the Society. That is a hell of a lot of money from the many to be spent on the wants of a few.

6. IPG, the PAC Society, the City, and other vested interests have been working diligently behind the scenes to get this project off the ground. Meanwhile I suspect that the majority of people are opposed to it, however by the time they wake up it will be a done deal.

Its much like the Community Energy System. All the work, planning, etc was done, and the deal worked out with Lakeland Mills, and then it was published in the local papers along with 30 days to get a reverse onus petition going. So we have the City and vested interests working on a project for five or six years, and then you the taxpayer get 30 days to try and stop it if you dont like it. Fat chance.

Have a nice day.

You have been following the details of the now Terasen building Palopu, I have not.

The questions I have is do we have an accounting somewhere that is public of the calculation that arrives at a profit.

I would be looking for such things as

- rent income
- management costs (IPG internal costs)
- finance costs
- tenant improvement incentive (you already identified one)
- tax or lost opportunity for tax
- maintenance costs
and likely some other incidental costs that a building owner would incur - insurance?? or self insured??

That net profit figure should have included the net profit/loss of the above.

Good post Palopu... the intent seems almost criminal on the part of the city.

Okay, let me address number 2 in Palopu's post a bit more directly than the post I have already made which implies that neither he nor I have the complete picture upon which he jumps to some unsubstantiated conclusion, in my honest opinion.

The statement is:
"2. IPG bought the building on second avenue, and when they sold it to Terasen they made a profit of $478,000.00. What they are not talking about here, neither the City or IPG is that the City paid a further $400,000.00 to wire this building for a call centre."

As already stated, they are not talking about a lot of things since that is a matter that the financial statements of that project would be quite detailed about. Those statements would be seen by the IPG Board, the City Manager and manager dealing with finance as well as the Mayor and some or all Councillors.

Here is a portion of the actual letter which was presented at Council in an open meeting which can be downloaded from the agenda document on the City's site.

From IPG to the City Manager:

"The ACS Call Centre Building sold for $2,350,000. After REPAYMENT OF ALL OUTSTANDING LOANS to the City of Prince George FOR THE SECOND AVENUE BUILDING (former ACS Call Centre Building) AND THE FIRST AVENUE BUILDING (Via Rail Building), there are residual proceeds in the amount of $477,757."

Most of the residual is to go to a maintenance reserve for the first avenue building. VERY PRUDENT!!!!!! It tells me there was not one there!! I have to ask WHY NOT.

Then they want to send the smaller portion of funds to some projects that the MARKETING arm of the City feels are important in the development of this city. Others may disagree, but most of those are not involved with marketing of this city to survive. Most are happy with it just sort of bumbling along as it has been.

Sorry folks, time to call it the way I see it.

"The City has no right (specifically) to kite money through IPG to the Performing Arts Centre Society."

Do you even know what "kiting" is? A famous business in town was convicted of kiting money. This is not kiting money. The money exists.

This is making a recommendation to the City of how IPG would like City money, that flowed through their hands and is flowing back to the City after loans have been paid off, to be allocated. Simple!!!!

The City has the authority to refuse. They did not. In fact, the dissenter was concerned about the maintenance fund for the First Avenue building.

"you will end up with a $50 Million dollar building that will house approx 800 people, most of who will be members of the Society."

The notion that the users of such a building will be mostly members of some Society is like saying that most of those who see popular entertainment at the CN Centre are Cougars fans.

The CN Centre was built for all those in the city interested in attending or participating in the type of activities that can be housed in that facility. I think it has had some solid successes in getting popular acts into that Centre over the last 3 or so years. In fact, phenomenal success compared to what was there in the early years.

A PAC will be just the same. PACs are multi use and multi user centres that are part of the entire community. The building is just the same as the CN Centre, just another building. Just another tool. The key is in the operation, just as with the CN Centre and any other such building.

And there is the key problem with Vanier Hall. There is no management team in place whose purpose it is to fill the place 150 to 200 nights a year. In fact, the SD is quite opposed to that as far as I know.

Don't be afraid people. Learn a little more about the things you post about and speak against. Knowledge is nothing to be scared of ... it can be quite enlightening ... :-)

1. Gus has a point if in fact the $400,000.00 to upgrade the building was in fact a loan to IPG and was now paid back. On the other hand if it was an upgrade paid for by the City then it was not paid back, and therefore we are short this money. Maybe Gus can answer that question.

2. The term **kiting** may not be the right word for this situation but the fact remains that this money is moving in a circle.

a. City loans money to IPG to buy building.

b. IPG sells building for profit.

c. IPG keeps profit for its own purposes, rather that having the surplus funds returned to general revenue, and to be spent as determined by Council

d. We now have a case where IPG is making decisions on how to spend tax payers money, with the support of some council members. The problem is, who the hell voted for anyone at IPG, and where do they get the authority to spend tax dollars. The simple answer is they dont. The money should go back to the City, and then be dispersed on projects, decided by Council.

This would allow debate etc; which we had very little of on this issue. Personally I think that the surplus funds should have gone to road rehab, or given back to taxpayers in the form of a tax decrease, however taxpayers never had a chance.

3. We can call the PAC a multi use building if we chose. However the fact of the matter is, it will be used by those people who now use other facilites, ie; Vanier Hall, Playhouse, (maybe Theatre Northwest) which means these facilities will be empty (Vanier Hall) (Theatre Norhwest) with the attendent drop in revenue for them, and the Playhouse Theatre will be destroyed even though the City has sunk millions into it.

The PAC itself will probably only be able to seat 800 people for a performance, which means that most of the performances that go to CN Centre will continue to do so, because the PAC is useless for these performances. Not to many people are going to come to town to perform for less than 800 people so we can assume from the get go, that this facility will cost us approx $500,000.00 per year to operate, just like the CN Centre.

If in fact you did get a big name performer to come to the PAC then there would be a sell out crowd, and a lot of people wouldnt be able to attend because of the limited seating.

I have been to a few performances put on by pianists, etc in Prince George, and the turn-out was embarrassing. We need a $50 Million performing centre like we need another hole in the head. What we have is more than sufficient.

Like I said before. If the dudes from City Hall want me to ride a bus, then they better get off their arses and ride the bus themselves. This BS that I should ride the bus but they shuld drive is crap.

The same thing applies to the Charles Jago Sports Centre, Couger Games, etc; the people who push for these facilities are conspicuous by their absence.

The only Politician I have ever seen at the Sport Centre was the ex Premier of Alberta taking a tour.

If politicians, business groups, etc, want all these facilities to be built using tax dollars then they better get off their butts and support them. Then at least we might break even, rather that pay out Millons every year.

Words without action mean nothing.

"The only Politician I have ever seen at the Sport Centre was the ex Premier of Alberta taking a tour."

What!!!!! YOU were in the sports centre??

Okay, I was there once. You've probably been there many times, right? Holding out on us again, eh??

Actually Gus I have been a member since it was built. I use it mostly for walking during the winter. So when I say that it is under used I know what I am talking about.

A partial membership for seniors which allows you to use the track, and equipment upstairs only, costs you $265.00 per year which includes parking. You can double that amount if you want a years membership. You shuld try it out.

The Premier was old Ralph Klein, other than that I havent seen hide nor hair of anyone in the political spectrum up there.

Originally this bulding was going to generate $900,000.00 per year in revenue (according to a study done by ex Counciller Cliff Dezell) and the costs to run it would be $900,000.00. Guess what.

Revenue generated comes in at approx $400,000.00 and the facility receives $300,000.00 from UNBC and $300,000.00 from the City of Prince George annually. This means an operating deficit of $600,000.00 per year.

You have the same people working on the PAC, and I will gaurangee you that at the end of the day you will get the same result. Ie; $500,000.00 per year operataing deficit.

Have a nice day.