City Council Might Be Wondering, But Ice Oval Society Isn't: One Man's Opinion

By Ben Meisner

What should be front and center with all Councilors who sit on Prince George City Council is the matter of who authorized the give away of the gravel from the west end of the CN center, that's the gravel which ended up being the property of the Ice Oval Society.

There is no room for any doubt about what the resolution says;

“Moved by Councilor Basserman, seconded by Councilor Munoz, that the concept of the Ice Oval as presented with the purpose of supporting the society promoting the project regionally, provincially and federally be endorsed, and the matter of the gravel request be referred to Administration for a response by June 26^th-2006.

The gravel request was to be referred to administration an then brought back to the council for a decision, it didn’t work that way.

But hold it a moment there is more. The e-mail sent to me says: "The direction at the council meeting of May 29 was to allow the sale of the gravel to be used by the Oval society to leverage other levels of government. Hence the resolution."  

Now for all of you Councilors, take note,  as the email goes on to say :" the response reference by June 26^th was to let Council know how the gravel extraction worked out as the society had some looming deadlines for grants and a buyer. The gravel sale eventually did not proceed and the society has worked on it over the winter. "

Looming deadlines for, “a buyer."?  Who had given the Ice Oval Society permission to go out and sell the gravel before requesting from Council the authority in which to do so? We are talking here somewhere in the neighborhood of $100,000 dollars of  "tax payer’s" money.

Do we now or did we have then a process where you simply approved a project and then ran it by City Council, of course knowing that in the event they don’t approve of the idea, you take their comments as a suggestion that they really hadn’t said that? 

Now we are told that the Society plans to come before Council and update them in September. Why bother updating the Council it is obvious that someone took the matter into their own hands to decide on the matter, and it wasn't City Council.

Here is another question that  needs to be answered :  Who is receiving the money, the City or the Oval Society ?   The City  by the way seems to have their plans straight , they have been saying since the last Winter Olympics that this city will have a refrigerated outdoor Ice Oval. Cost about $10 million dollars. Number of long track speed skaters?  Unknown.  It still offers this promise on the "traininpg.com" website:

"For the long track skaters, plans are in the works to upgrade the current natural ice outdoor oval to a refrigerated outdoor oval providing quality ice from October to March with a 4000 sq ft building housing training equipment, storage rooms, concession, meeting rooms and a viewing area. Construction would begin in 2006.

Before City Council (or whoever) makes a decision on a refrigerated Ice Oval in this city, we should know how many people are involved in long track speed skating. In Ft St John, they are heading down the same path a $35 million dollar facility and fewer than 20 long track speed skaters in that community.

This program needs a complete airing in this city and it should be Council  that  begins to ask some serious questions.        

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

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