"It is known that he is part of a group trying to establish a facility similar to Baldy Hughes on the west end of the city."

First I've heard of this.......Ben, we would like to know more!

It's interesting to see how the DBIA is using the taxpayer's money but I have to wonder if there were any stipulations placed on how they could spend the funds? Or did council just open the purse strings and say, "Here ya go!"

Faxman:
Council approves a budget (last year)based on the rules governing the DBIA for the spending of the dollars collected.

Where this expenditure will show up on the expense details is not clear.
How such an expenditure would qualify under the rules as something to "improve downtown", or "improve business", the two basic rules for expenditures remains to be seen. You can't blame City Council for this one.

Elaine Macdonald

If I'm reading correctly, it's possible that they are not using the city grant for the ad. In which case, they have no obligation to inform the taxpayer (through the city) of the origins of the ad money. The members of the DBIA would then be the only people having a right to know.

"If permitted by its constitution and bylaws, the DBIA may raise funds from sources other than a local service
tax administered by the City, and the City would have no duty or authority to oversee the expenditure of such
money. Pursuant to the Society Act, the directors of the DBIA would have a duty to comply with the Society
Act, the constitution and the bylaws of the DBIA, and the directors would be accountable to the members of the
DBIA with respect to the expenditure of such money."

The key words above are:

"If permitted by its constitution and bylaws"

Faxman, do you have the constitution and bylaw of the DBIA? I cannot find them on their web site.

In other words, the above quoted words are only part of the full story required to make a determination of whether they are required to disclose who paid for the ad.
--------------------------
BTW, the big gefuffle that is going around about the directors being from the lower mainland and how they are controlling a local facility for local people has me wondering why.

I thought the facility is a facility for the entire province. It happens to be located near Prince George. Some of the clients happen to be from Prince George. People working there are likely predominately from these parts. BUT, it provides a service to all people in the provinces and maybe some even from outside the province.

In fact, I expect that those who are there from other parts of the province may have additional special needs over those who might have family close at hand. In either case, those ought to be more of a concern to the staff of the organization rather than the Board.

If the Board members who live away from the facility are considered to be micromanaging, just think of the potential for micromanaging by Board members who live a 30 minute drive away from the facility.

You should be able to get their constitution and bylaws from the Government gus. They're required to be filed when forming a society.

The citizen enquirer has a front page and online article on Baldy Hughes, saying infighting is threatening the facility. They say their source has "day to day knowledge of the operations." It would be nice to know if that person is still employed there as someone who has recently left would have such knowledge and a possible ulterior motive(competing facility???) for the negative comments.


In the November election I will have a firm ABC policy. Anybody But Commonwealth(and those affiliated with them).

DBIA money should be used for the betterment of downtown, not as a slush fund.

Thanks faxman. I am aware of that. I really do not need to spend my time and money to get that information. It is not a big concern of mine that they took out a large ad and why they may have done it. I'll let those people who are being taxed by the City so that the City can hand that money over to the DBIA figure out if they are concerned about it.

All I was trying to say is that we really do not know whether they have to report it to the City. Nor do we know whether they will.

My bigger concern is what have they done with the money over the past year. The big picture. I have not seen anything much. I want the downtown to be improved. The DBIA is one of the tools to try to do that. I want to know whether it is helping or hurting. In other words, in 10 years from now, will I have to say, as with the last group after 10 years, "so what did you accomplish?"

The last group was zilch that I can tell. The current group does not seem to be off to a much better start.

Why are we spending so much money to fix downtown? Every city has a slum, ours seems to be downtown, there will always be the homeless, the drug users and the vagrants, if we "fix" downtown, where do they go? For the most part businesses have moved out, social services have moved in. Why have we been fighting an uphill battle for so long? If your a business owner you realize that if you go downtown your rent will be low but your costs will be high.

So I ask again, why are so many of my tax dollars going into downtown?

"So I ask again, why are so many of my tax dollars going into downtown?"

I think what you should be asking yourself is "why are so many of my tax dollars going to the network of roads that support detached single family housing with scattered shopping centres".

Those are at the periphery of the city which benefit those living around them but cause people at the other end of the city to have to travel further than if they were more centrally located. We have made the classic "boo boo" and it is costing us lots of money in infrastructure building, maintenance and renewal ..... oh, right, renewal is still on its way.

Try adding up the money we spend in this city for maintenance and building new "stuff" and a pittance goes to downtown.

Anything nicholson touches ends up stinking to high heaven.
check out who his few friends are and steer clear for sure

"a pittance goes to downtown" That's because downtown is dead. Why pump money into a corpse.
The window for a major redevelopment has long since passed. Blame previous councils or unwilling developers but until the city sees a significant growth in population it will not happen.

The city needs to face reality and aim for something that is a little more down to earth. The prospectus they rolled out a few months ago would take hundreds of millions in public and private money to complete.

BTW you would think that prospectus would be front and center on the city's website.I gave up and googled it.

Who is Marshall Smith??? Whats his claim to fame.?? Why would a person from Vancouver who has been in Prince George for approx 2 years think that he would be a good candidate for Mayor or Councillor?? Does he disagree with how the present Mayor or Council are doing thier jobs.?? If so I have never seen or heard a word about it.

Are there any local yokels interested in the Mayors position, or interested in being a Councillor????

"Why would a person from Vancouver who has been in Prince George for approx 2 years think that he would be a good candidate for Mayor or Councillor."

Because he is from Vancouver and he knows how to run a small town. Typical carpetbagger mentality.

You know, the same reason that two people from PG thought that they would be good candidates for a federal riding that is rooted in the Peace.