Panel data provided by Madison's Canadian Lumber Reporter.

Meisner Sees Election Platform Being Painted

By Ben Meisner

I usually don’t respond to letters that are written about my opinions, I have always thought it was unfair given my advantage in being able to write every day. Well that was until Opinion250 came on the scene because it enables people to respond to several articles every day in the same manner as I might.

I have watched with interest the efforts of Shawn Petriw, who lost (and lost badly) in the last Civic election as he tries to use our site as his forum for his obvious attempt at office once again come this fall. He has his own paper of some sort or fashion and it behooves me as to why he finds it necessary to use Opinion 250 to better his interests (I do hope his advertisers are reading).

His efforts, to his credit have been tireless, to the point where at one posting, he decided that his election platform was in order and proceeded to link it to his campaign site. I cut the post and informed him that if he wanted to advertise his political prowess, he should, like any other good candidate…. Pay.

By the way for all of you that do not remember Petriw, he ran 16th out of 20 in the last civic election and no he wasn’t close.

But now to the real meat of the issue: Petriw seems to think CN Centre, Coliseum and the ball diamonds are all being subsidized to the same level as the Art Gallery. Come election time I will remind him that in order to comment, make sure you have the facts, and here they are.

This year, the Art Gallery will receive $330,000 dollars in grants from the Regional District. For your information Shawn, the “Regional District” is you and I along with the people from the surrounding area. The Gallery is also seeking a Capital grant for $20,000 dollars from the Regional District for new computers. Other grant funding is being requested for an additional $10,000 dollars.

Now let’s add on the $250,000 dollars given by City hall earlier this week.

The Art Gallery, according to its own calculations, has 363 members; attendance has slipped from 26,195 for the year 2000 to 19,737 in the year 2003. In spite of the attendance, the budget has raised from $681,414.00 dollars in 2000 to $828,366 .00 dollars in 2005. That is an increase of just over 21% in the past five years and further that amounts to a cost of $41.97 cents per visit or a cost of $1,658.00 dollars in grants and write offs this year for each of the 363 members.

The Art Gallery’s budget projection for the Gift Shop is as follows. It is projected to take in $92,989.00 through sales. The Gift Shop’s projected expenses will be $92,984.00 so the net profit will be…$5 bucks. A little slip here or there, and guess who pays?

Suggesting that somehow you can compare the Art Gallery with the CN Center (at around 300,000 visits last year), the Coliseum (at around another 120,000 thousand) and the ball diamonds, which by the way may only have 400 people playing out there of course forgetting to mention that those 500 to 800 people in the stands are also receiving enjoyment, is like suggesting Tom Cruise and Ben Meisner are look alikes.
In the coming months, Mr. Petriw will again have his opportunity to make his case to the Prince George voters. In the meantime Opinion 250 is not, I repeat, not, Shawn Petriw’s election forum to try and vault him into office.

Want the space? You’ve been in the paper business long enough to know Shawn, just sign on the bottom line. 

That, is one man's opinion.

Previous Story - Next Story



Return to Home