Another increase in taxes to pay for the "Games" that we "won". Aren't these things supposed to pay for themselves? Or is this like the HST which is "revenue neutral"? Out of our pockets and into the pockets of businesses to profit from building infrastructure and providing services. It's all "neutral", don't you see?

Half the businesses in PG will be broke by the time the winter games come along,4 more years of tax increases.My god, how can the city council keep raising taxes when money is tight for everyone?

This is what happens with no leadership and you have the city staff run the show, brainless and clueless to the real world is the only way to describe this mayor and council.

Lets not do the 4th avenue,leave 2nd and 4th traffic the way it is and no new ligts. Let the arsons burn down the old fifth Avenue, and save ourselves ten million dollars, and expect a tax refund instead.

To the council of Prince George, Do you recognize how much you tax us, and what your offering. Sitting in your office, their is a lot of self justification of what you want to do and not getting both your oars in the water.

At your rate, the taxes on the average 1040 sf bungalow is going to be over $3500. before the turn of the next decade.

1. $6.8 million to upgrade 4th avenue

2. $1.98 million to make 4th and 2nd avenues two way streets

In my view these are the 3 most frivolous projects. They are absolutely not needed!!!!

opps, here is the third

3. $309 thousand to upgrade the ball diamonds at Carrie Jane Grey Park

This is the one I wosner about. Why was thsi not done 10+ years agoa when all the holding cells in the province were done???

½ a million dollars to upgrade the holding cells in the existing RCMP detachment.

Wow.Good thing i own a small home looks like we are headed for massive tax bills to pay for Rogers pipe dreams. Why doesn't the city ask the government for some money to cover increasing policing costs and there related capital costs as we have a great opportunity being the crime capital of Canada. I can't believe I'm saying this but I'm starting to miss the mayor Quimby or Kinsley I mean at least he was just in bed with big business and didn't raise taxes on a weekly basis.

My keyboard has a hard time getting started on Monday mornings. :-)

pgmatt .... how soon we forget. As far as I can tell.

1. the holding cells were not upgraded by the previous Council/Mayor when others in the province were.

2. the distrcit energy system was a project held over from the provious Council/Mayor

3.the 4th avenue upgrade has been on the books since the previous Council/Mayor

4. the prior 3rd avenue upgrade which did nothing for downtown was the work of the previous Council/Mayor

5. the ball diamonds were not properly maintained by the previous Council/Mayor

And then there are the pot holes and that whole fiasco ......

How soon we forget .......

Ask how much of the increase is due to the implementation of the HST .....

If you have not seen it yet, look at this:
http://city2.princegeorge.ca/forms/_layouts/FormServer.aspx?XsnLocation=/forms/Infopath Forms/2011BudgetConsultation.xsn&OpenIn=browser

It's what they are planning on doing with our snow removal. You know, the one that Green proposes to leave all the snow on the ground till it melts or something like that.

I think we had better prepare for Scenario #1- 6.12% increase. This mayor & council do not have the balls to make the hard choices and hold the line on taxes.

Mayor Dan(one term) should be looking at the mayoral election in Toronto, candidate Ford has a 20 point lead running on a promise of fiscal restraint and responsibility.

Why do we have to spend 1/2 a million dollars to upgrade the holding cells when the new RCMP station has virtually been approved and any day now the digging for the foundations will start?!

Improve the cells and then bring in the jackhammers to demolish them?

The medieval tale of Till Eulenspiegel is about a town council who built a new town hall without any windows to save money and when they discovered later that it was totally dark inside they tried to bring the sunlight in with leather sacks...

As for all the other spending plans, what can one say? The city has a captive audience (the homeowners) and one either pays up or loses one's home at auction!

Frivolous projects, totally not required.

Just when one thinks that some new blood will bring some much needed changes in attitude and approach it gets even worse.

$250 thousand for new lighting for downtown

Has anyone noticed that we already have ornamental lighting on 3rd Ave.

And we are going to upgrade the holding cells when there is a new building on the drawing board? These guys should have their heads examined.
Cheers

Might be time to get Worksafe BC to check the Oxygen level in city hall. A low O2 level could explain why no rational decisions has come out of that building for the last year or two.

The cells were not upgraded 10 years ago when the rest in the province were done because they were supposed to be building a new detachment.

At this rate it will take another ten years to build it and no one in the system believes it is going to happen any time soon - hence wasting 1/2 a mil to upgrade the cells.

for some interesting background reading, have a look at the following link and see how our residential tax rates compare across BC. City council and the mayor should pay attention, they are making PG unaffordable to be a resident in.

http://www.cd.gov.bc.ca/lgd/infra/tax_rates/tax_rates2010.htm

Budget concerns?

Responsible spending - how about some reductions in staffing?

That $2.5 Million spent on the PG Hotel could have went a long way in the upcoming budget.

From a September 2008 post - pre-election:
---
The second candidate for Mayor, Dan Rogers, outlined his four key issues:
1. better roads,
2. better air
3. better downtown
4. better business

There has been criticism that City Hall is too difficult to get projects approved. Rogers says whether that is real or perception, there needs to be innovation to reduce red tape.

He says there needs to be more investment to take care of infrastructure and he hopes to increase the budget for roads and infrastructure by 10% per year.

That doesn’t mean he wants to boost taxes, Rogers says taxes have increased 16-17% over the past few years, and seniors are telling him they are struggling with that. “That doesn’t mean we don’t do anything, but we can do it if we learn to live within our means.” He says he would press to have taxes held to the rate of inflation.

He also says businesses are feeling the property taxes pinch, and that makes Prince George less attractive for investment.

As for travel, Rogers says there may be times the Mayor will need to be an Ambassador to support the community and companies, he hopes to focus on the issues at home.

----

Almost 2 years in office... how would you grade his performance?

If only Rodgers would quite buying property downtown. What a waste purchasing the PG Hotel or was it just a mater of lining Commonwealth's pockets with an extra 1/2 million.
Community energy system. What a joke. Purchase units of heat from a private firm. Spend 14 million dollars when natural gas is at historic lows and will be there for a long time given the discoveries of shale gas.
Smoke and mirrors on the winter games. Now we get the great news, get ready to cover the cost with yet another tax increase.

The only good thing city hall did in the last 15 years is have driveways cleared. Now they want to remove that perk and save $135,000.00/year. Not exactly a major sum when it comes to the perpetual waste daily at city.

I certainly hope people remember the 2 year fiasco at city hall with Rodgers at the helm. A rock has more intelligence than Rodgers and would get my vote before some of these sheep at city hall.
With Rodgers in Charge it has certainly been 1 term to many.

Is looking forward to see who gets voted in and who doesn't in the next civic election.

Get your signs ready Fetterly... This may just be the election you win!

"Who?" wrote ... "City council and the mayor should pay attention, they are making PG unaffordable to be a resident in"

I will say it for the thousandths time, DO NOT LOOK AT THE MILL RATES WHEN COMPARING CITY TAXES TO OTHER CITIES. not look at the mill.

As a Pensioner I could never live in your City and I even get a bit of a Company Pension, so I live out in the Sticks on the Lake, heat with Wood as much as I can and wonder if the Tax increases ever end, if it's not Taxes it's Fire Insurence , but your City has a Special Problem you want to do Thing you can't really effort , City Hall is on some sort of a Drug and they really neat Help to get off it. That's my take about PG !

Sorry, computer glitch. You have to look at the "representative house" rate which is close to the median rate paid in the city. In other words, half pay more and half pay less.

Here is a short version of the list for comparable cities and a couple of others.

The only city larger than PG that has a lesser rate is Chilliwack. All other larger cities pay more.

The numbers refer to the following information

- ranking of 160 total
- City
- Representative House value
- variable tax rate
- residential user fees
- total taxes - property tax plus user fee

1 West Van 1,443,075 6,003 1,108 7,111

6 Vancouver 958,444 4,043 847 4,890

15 North Van 739,726 3,428 716 4,144

16 Victoria 546,131 3,444 632 4,109

22 Abbotsford 377,482 2,868 875 3,743

40 Kelowna 454,442 2,801 473 3,500

41 Kamloops 327,769 2,592 889 3,481

49 Nanaimo 319,994 2,739 510 3,249

62 PG 200,288 2,444 593 3,037

70 Chilliwack 319,726 2,383 568 2,951

Ah yes, here's another chance for so called councillor BASSERMAN to vote in favor of another tax increase as he normally does.

Well Gus there you go. I am completely confused. Using the mill rate is far more simple then what you are telling us. I don’t see why you are so insistent that using the mill rate is wrong. It is the amount that every one pays on the assessed value of our property . You did once tell us that our taxes are paid with hard cash. So which is it

When you look at the hard cash dollars should my taxes be less then Tim buck too’s but the fact still remains, that our city is managed by morons. Visiting different cities one gets a real shock compared with PG . Kamloops has nice green boulevards in the commercial section. Sidewalks are concrete, curbs painted and the list goes on.

Take a drive to Ospika and Massey the boulevard has last winters gravel on it. There is a hand rail that is rusted and has never seen a coat of paint. Now that’s getting a little picky but our entire city needs maintenance of every type. All that City hall thinks about is new buildings. They are like a bunch of kids looking for new toys.
Cheers

For years and years the natural gas lines in Kin 2 were painted red. Each year I made a point of looking at the lines to see if anyone at city hall had tweaked to the fact the colour for gas lines is yellow and water lines red.
Just another example of city hall incompetence.

(Gas lines now finally the right colour but the colour red is evident as the paint job is a bit sloppy)

okay .... a different approach ...

Imagine two condo apartment buildings with 10 units in each building.

1. One building is located in a very sought after location near a golf course, lake front and excellent access to the main street to shopping and entertainment.

2. The other is older, in the middle of a low cost housing part of town and a longer drive to work, shopping, etc.

Both apartment buildings have similar sized driveways, walkways and parking lots that need to be kept clear of snow. The cost to do so is the same for both as quoted from a service company, $5,000 for the season.

Building number one has condos with an average value of $250,000.

Building number two has condos averaging $150,000 per unit.

In each case, the average priced unit becomes the representative unit.

Thus, the average priced or representative unit has to pay $500 towards the $5,000 cost of snow clearance.

So, the rate of payment based on the building #1 condo value is $500/$250,000 or a mill rate of 2.000

The building #2 condo is $500/$150,000 or a mill rate of 3.333

So, to get the same service it appears that the people in the lower cost building are paying 67% more when comparing the mill rates. In fact, they are both paying the same $500/average condo unit.

Result? I hope that those who still think that one can use mill rates to compare the amounts of taxes people pay in communities with totally different residential values can see that is not a proper way of comparing.

http://www.millagerate.com/blog/explained

This whole business of taxing people on the value of their homes is BS. Firstly the value of your home it totally useless unless you sell it. So in effect if you paid $50,000.00 for your home 30 years ago, and it is now assessed at $170,000.00 then the $170,000.00 figure is what they use. Problem is if you dont sell your house it aint worth $170,000.00.

Furthermore, there is no consideration for people who retire. They have their incomes reduced by over 50% but their taxes keep on rising based on the inflated and BS value of the house they live in. How the hell can you tax people, without having any idea about their ability to pay????

It seems that seniors can have their taxes deferred until they bite the dust, and then the money is taken out of the estate, or they can sell their homes and move into senior housing if any is available. Fact of the matter is, these people have been paying taxes for 30 or 40 years, and they shouldnt have to go through this BS.

If they City and some of the gougers who live in this berg would stop taxing us to the hilt, and pissing our money away on useless projects, there would be sufficient money available for the necessities, and little left for the frills.

Every bloody City capital project is nothing more than a way of getting money from the taxpayers into the hands of local business, contractors, etc; They always make millions of dollars off those who can least afford it.

As mentioned above, the Community Energy System is a prime example. We dont need it, we dont want it, and it will only cost us money, however those idiots will build it, and Lakeland Mills and other business, and contractors will benefit, and we will pay for the bloody thing for the next 20 years, before it breaks even. If it ever does. This project is only being built so that the City can spend some Federal Money.

Same thing for the STUPID Boundry road connector. This road will front the property that was put together by a number of business people, and at the end of the day they are the ones who will benefit with business from downtown relocating in this light industrial park. The problem is we will have pay $14 Million dollars to make it work for them. They will pay something in the area of $6 Million. We can think about our largesse as we shovel out our driveways, and look to the sky to see if any Wide Body Cargo Jets are flying by.

We also pissed away $3 Million for upgrading River Road. What a bloody waste of money. Again, if the Feds had not made $3 Million available this upgrade would have never taken place. In addition the pavement has hardly dried on this venture and the road is already starting to fall apart.

The list goes on. The bottom line is, we need to make a concerted effort to stop all Capital projects for the next 10 years. Reduce all budgets by at least 5% for the same period, and concentrate on the basics. Only then will we start to get a handle on this foolish spending.

This straw that will break our back is the 2015 games. What a bloody fiasco. Who the hell will make money on this sham. Certainly not the average taxpayer. We will have the honour of paying for the bloody thing through tax increases.

I can hardly wait for the so-called atheletes to arrive so that I can watch.
1. Indoor Archery
2. Artistic Gymnastics
3. Badminton
4. Biathlon
5. Cross Country Sking
6. Hockey
7. Ringette
8. Snowboarding
9. Speed Skating
10. Squash
11. Synchronized Swimming (Female)
12. Table Tennis
13. Target Shooting (Air Pistol and Air Rifle
14. Wheellchair Basketball (mixed)
15. Curling
16. Alpine Skiing
17. Boxing.

Thats what you are going to get for you Millions of dollars.

Szzzzzzzzz, Szzzzzzzzz, Szzzzzzzz.

In my opinion... the city is going bankrupt for high priced talent that doesn't deliver.

What I'd like to see the city do....

Cut all management and union wages that exceed $80,000 by 25%, or to the $80,000 threshold, which ever comes first... this would also reduce pension costs as a result and bring the unreal pay they make more in keeping with those paying the bills and closer to a true value for their services. ($10 million savings?)

I'd like to see IPG and the DTBIA cut entirely from the budget ($4 million?)

I'd like to see three policies in place...

#1 No new capital expenses over $5 million without a referendum on the expense.
#2 Priority for expenses in the area of infrastructure like roads, parks, sidewalks, and water sewer.
#3 All savings made used to pay down debt and reduce interest payments on the outstanding debt.

The goal should be to reduce municipal spending by $20 million and therefor reduce property taxes on the captive home owner by 10% with the rest going towards debt reduction.

I'm living in a dream world thinking this though....

Eagleone. I would vote for you. You have hit the nail on the head. This is exactly what we need.

Thanks.