"The Airport Authority has been hoping to get final word on the other levels of funding soon, so that construction can be completed in time for next fall's opening of the Prince Rupert Port."

Is there any type of cargo which would be removed from or assembled into containers going from or to Rupert which would be flown in or out of here in huge cargo planes, rather than flying directly from or to the country of origin to closer to the final destination, or being shipped by rail or truck?

Can someone here help me understand what the relationship is between the Rupert Port Container Facility and the longer runway at YXS.

The Airport Authority wants the funding ($33 Million in place) so that the construction can be complete for next falls opening of the Prince Rupert Port.

Do they really want us to beleive that the Airport Expansion will have any bearing on the Port Expansion in Prince Rupert, or vice versa? and if so how much?

I for one am totally convinced that there will be very little or no benefits to Prince George derived from this Aiport Runway Expansion, however I am probably in the minority.

In October 2007 and well into the fall of 2008, and probably the fall of 2009 I will personally be at the Airport with my camera taking pictures of the Cargo Planes coming and going and all the other activity taking place, and I will be more than happy to share them with everyone.

Better be carefull of Canada's version of Homeland Security.

*smile*

I heard Jimmy Paterson bought a bunch of land by the airport for some kind of air frieght terminal?

Maybe Jim Pattison is going to build a warehouse on the Airport land to service all his stores in North Central BC. On the other hand maybe its just a rumour, dont forget Jim Pattison turned 78 this year so he may be looking at retiring.

Some business people from Dubai recently bought a huge tract of land behind the North Scale. Wonder what thats all about.

Dubai .... sort of like Vancouver/Hong Kong Chinese buying real estate here. People from overseas have a different outlook on life and associated investments than we do.

Saudi interests bought the Fairmont Chain, so it stands to reason that interests from Dubai would purchase land in PG.

;-)

Maybe we can hire the Airport Authority people to conduct (for the Mayor and the council) an attitude adjustment seminar.

Had the Airport Authority been in charge of the Cameron Street Bridge and decided that a repair
was not an option, it would have started dismantling the old superstructure during 2006.

Right after the engineering report came in that declared the piers to be in good shape it would have a)immediately gotten the deck designed and b)started work on the new superstructure as soon as weather permits in the spring of 2007!

Two lane bridge open for traffic in the Autumn of 2007!

Too much inertia can make a mountain out of any mole hill.

diplomat .... it is called linear thinking ... first we do this, then we do that, then we do the next thing .....

instead of non-linear or system thinking where many things can happen concurrently ...

At the moment they are stuck in the "let's see if we are going to get federal funding for part of the construction" mode .... this is the second time they are there.

I expect that any day now they will be announcing that they are going after federal dollars to dismantle the bridge as a heritage project and rebuild parts of it someplace else.

They get consultants for almost everything else. I think in this case they could use some good project management advice.

BTW, I think that one of the main problems is that Council is micro-managing. One cannot run projects from a Board or a Council. That is why you have qualified staff to do that. I also think that they realize they are micro-managing but do not know how to let go.

Maybe Derek Bates will agree with that opinion and be able to steer Council to provide the assistance he will need to ensure that his staff can do the tasks they ought to be doing and that he is diplomatic enough to steer Council and the Mayor to concentrate on the work they should be doing.

If they had allowed the staff to do their job, the bridge would have been repaired 6 months ago and we would be on to bigger and better things.

The main problem here is that our Mayor is always trying to get Fed//Prov money for projects, and it means little to him whether they are viable or make any sense. The primary concern is to spend the money and create Construction jobs, and jobs for City Hall. Thats it in a nutshell.

(1) Sports Centre. We could survive without it.

(2) Cameron St. Bridge. Repairs would have been sufficient.

(3) New Police Station $18.5 Million. You can make an argument for this, however you also have to keep in mind that the present building is only 35 years old, and with a little ingenuity we could have upgraded it for a lot less that $18.5 Million. The question is what happens to the old building. Do we sell it, or will they try to pawn it off as a performing arts centre., at which time they will of course up grade it.

(4) Co-Generation station on East End of 3rd or 4th Avenue to produce hot water to heat Government and Private buildings in the Downtown area. These buildings already have either electric heat, or gas heat, or both. In addition to building this Co-Generation plant, what will be the cost of tearing up the streets, and tearing up the buildings to install this system.
How much money will this system save. Has the construction costs (Millions of Dollars) been extrapolated over the years and guaged against the cost or projected costs of continuing to heat with gas or electricity. I doubt it.

What about the pollution factor. How much pollution will this Co-Generation plant add to the bowl area. The only reason this project is on the board is because the Federal Government has **Green Money** available and the Mayor and Council wants to get it and spend it.

The City will have to compete with the Pulp Mills, Sawmills, Pellet Plants, etc for Hog Fuel to fire this Co-Generation unit. Has anyone done any detailed studies to see how much Hog Fuel will be available 10 Years from now, and at what cost. I doubt it.

Owl and Pal, yours are good posts. Somebody should alert the Feds not to give any "Green Money" to a project that will aggravate an already intolerable bowl air pollution problem in Prince George, B.C.

This idea about a wood burning C-Gen plant to heat office buildings downtown (and perhaps even sidewalks) is a stupid one.

It's something that the Rhino Party would have been proud to add to its agenda.

Hopefully the City will NOT get any money for it.

Will this proposed city co-gen plant produce electricity, or is my meaning of a co-gen plant not correct?

I agree with Diplomat that I hope we do not get funding for a steam plant that burns hog fuel in the downtown.

Palopu. As far as I recall the police station is designed to take another three floors - footings and columns are in place for that. The canopies over the entries on Brunswick are ready to take enclosed bridge links to a building on the east side of Brunswick.

The building looks like a fortress and was designed to be a fortress. Transforming buildings like that to look more "modern" and less like a fortress (something like the regional HQ on 5th) would not be too difficult.

The building would be useless as a center for the performing arts. It would have to be torn down and rebuilt.

The co-gen plant in that location is ridiculous from many points of view. The least may actually be due to the emissions which may be relatively low if the right type of plant is located there. However, as you say, feedstock is required and it has to be transported there. There are much better locations for such a plant. Plus some other facilties would have to improve their use of technology to reduce emissions so that the new plant, even though it may have low emissions, does not result in a net gain but a net loss instead. We have to reduce emissions, not increase them.

There are some new processes available which may just fit in for this purpose if it is located fruther from the Millar subdivision residences. Which, of course, means further from downtown as well since there will be quite a few residences there soon. ;-)

Besides, we should also be concerned about workers as well as the patients in the hospital who may be the most vulnerable.

By "that location" I meant the location Palopu described. ....

Is the new RCMP building going to be built on the corner of 4th and Victoria? Across from TD Canada Trust at the site of the previous liquor store and bingo hall.

Prime piece of commercial or retail real estate for a cop shop. Chester

Thats the place Chester.Dont forget that policemen are also customers. This will boost the down town area.

Where are we going in our City? Does anyone know. I guess there is a lot of hope for Mr Bates to turn Council around. The question has been possed before, who hired him? If Colin was involved it will be the some old, same old'

Chbneers

Good heavens.......is this thread of comment based on the rumour principle? Pass it on and it gets so twisted that what started disappears totally and thus we get from the airport to city planning by Colin! :-)

Back to the airport and the relationship, or lack thereto with the Prince Rupert port. Realistically, the relationship is more political than anything else, but why not take advantage of that and get the uper governments tied into contributing money to the economy of the north in general and Prince George in specific. After all, they have sure taken enough money out over the last few decades!!

I dont have any problem with the different levels of Government spending money on projects that make some sense, and have some long term benefits for Tayxpayers, and the North in particular, however I disagree that we should be spending money just for the sake of spending it.

There is nothing at this point in time that can connect the Port of Prince Rupert with the PG Airport expansion. Nor is there any bona fide business plan that will show that there will be any business generated for the Prince George Airport by expanding this runway.

The Airport Manager indicated that if we could get 1500 wide body cargo jets per year to land and take off at the Prince George Airport we could create some full time jobs and make some money. 1500 per year means 4 per day. At a cost of $33,000,000, it would take over 10 years just to get your money back, not counting the loss of interest that you would get on this money if you invested it somewhere else.

We would have been much better off loaning this money to Private business's to set up portable sawmills to harvest pine beetle timber through out the area. At least then we would have created jobs, and had an opportunity to generate some profits, and at the end of the day we would still have the $33,000,000.00 once the loans were paid back. I doubt if the major lumber companies in this area would be in favour of this type of idea, as they want all the timber for themselves.

All we will get from this Airport Runway Expansion is a big chunk of cement at the south end of the Airport being utilized by crows, much like the expansion to be parking lot. Which I might add was half empty yesterday, which would be one of the busiest days of the year.

On a more positive note, the first direct flight to Puerto Vallarto Mexico was full. Approx 136 people. I dont know if this can be maintained into March, however at least the first one is a success.