Tight Lips Over Torino Trip $ Total: One Man'sOpinion

Wednesday, May 03, 2006 03:45 AM

I placed a call to Gerry Offet, head of Initiatives Prince George the other day, I did leave a message and a request, to no surprise, I did not receive a call back.

I would like to know and I’m sure that the rest of you may, just how much money we spent on that trip to Torino and the Winter Olympics? I also asked about whether the city would provide that information. It may not come as a further surprise that Mayor Colin Kinsley does not return my calls. I some how don’t think that he is a fan of mine or for that matter this paper, apparently we should not raise issues. They say it's negative reporting, I say they are trying to manage the news.

They say its "negative news" if one raises the question of just how much money the group spent in Torino, now I for one would like to know that figure. The simple way would be to produce the figure and call it a day, after all, it was public money that was spent on that junket.

Here’s the hitch, and it behooves me as to why any city much less ours, would ever allow this practice to take place.

The City pays Initiatives Prince George a fee for service, that means that we as taxpayers can’t get to look at the books even through a freedom of information request. For you folks who live outside of the city, the Regional District puts up 30 grand a year for the Tourist section of Initiatives Prince George. Want to know where that money is being spent?…. Sorry, that’s a fee for service as well.

So what was the final tab that you and I paid for? We do know that Initiatives Prince George did ask, and did receive, $32,000 of special city money that included the cost of the trip for Mayor Kinsley.

Now was that all the money that was spent on the trip or were there further funds that came from Initiatives Prince George?

I know I have my tongue in my cheek, but maybe there was some money left over and I-P-G will be sending it back to the city coffers so (heaven forbid) we could fix a few pot holes. Or on the other side of the ledger, did the trip cost the taxpayers a bunch of money above and beyond what the group received for the trip?

Sorry can’t tell you that figure, and requesting that information, well now that’s negative reporting, isn’t it.

I’m Meisner and that is one man’s opinion.

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Posted on Wednesday, May 03, 2006 03:45 AM in Views by Ben Meisner

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Comments

Posted by: Palopu on May 3 2006 7:42 PM

Ben. There is more than one way to skin a cat. The City of Richmond BC sent a delegation of 8 People to Turin for a cost of $117,000.00. They were probably there for the same period of time as our delegation of 7 people, so if we use simple mathematics and assumptions we could say that the Prince George delegation cost taxpayers somewhere in the area of $100,000.00 (more or less). You probably could get a break down of costs from the City of Richmond, or get their costs through Freedom of Information, as the cost was apparently paid by the City, not through a IPG scenario. Richmond is building a multi million dollar Ice Oval, and therefore had good reason to be in Turin. I am still at a loss as to why we were there, however Im sure that at some future date when we begin to get all the business that this trip generated it will become more clear to me.

Posted by: Chadermando on May 4 2006 12:38 AM

Testing Testing

Posted by: Chadermando on May 4 2006 12:49 AM

I agree that Ben can be considered a negative reporter when his web site only allows for responses to pre picked topics. I think it then taints the web site as a partisian web site.

I think the solution would be for Ben to bring back the free for all Friday, but make it the Free For All Discussion Board. It would be easy enough to limit each registered person to post only a single post a day to that on going thread. Each person could state what they see as important that day (potholes, Kinsley, air quality, breaking news, general complaints, or commuity announcements). It would be a great way to measure the real public opinion and allow the grassroots initiation of discussion on topics that Ben and opinion250 have not pre selected.

The more relevant a discussion thread is to the true measure of public opinion the more compelled people will be to take it seriously IMO.

PS I agree the Torino trip was a waste of taxpayer money.

Posted by: acrider54 on May 4 2006 6:10 AM

The money spent there would have gone a long way to fill some potholes on city streets.

Posted by: lunarguy on May 4 2006 6:17 AM

test test as well