45 people showed up.

It is amazing how a few connected people have enough sway to force the city taxpayers in debt for their own good.

Why not gut the Baron of Beef building and put that place to better use? Cheaper?

"Why not gut the Baron of Beef building and put that place to better use?"

You know better than many others on here why that would be an idiotic thing to do.

Well look at the outdoor ice oval. A even smaller group managed to get work done, without permits, approvals or following proper purchasing procedures and the taxpayers of PG paid for it, or lost the benefit of the gravel being sold at the proper value.

Some people indicated that there were 30 people present not 45 so there could be even less people involved.

This is nothing new. The vested interest groups know how to work the system and get want they want.

The standard run of the mill taxpayer just goes to work every day, and pays for the whole shee-bang. Does anyone care. I doubt it.

Pal, you know Dezell is a politician so he will inflate the numbers to make it look better. Even 45 people out of 70,000 is not a very good turn out so I don't think we are ready to waste all this money yet. It's probably a done deal though, otherwise the $150,000.00 wouldn't have been given to them for the study.

"Pal, you know Dezell is a politician so he will inflate the numbers to make it look better."

?????? ... Did he write this piece? This community rarely comes out to such evetns unless they are well orchestrated and a large population is directly affected. The medical rally was one such orchestrated event.

I would think if there were 500 who showed up you would say it was an orchestrated event ... and you would be quite right.

This obviously was not an orchestrated event. I assume those who wanted and were able to come out came out and those who did not want to come out, didn't.

Sort of like the Ontario election. Considerable lower turnout than the last time. They did not want any change, so fewer people felt compelled to come out to vote. That is typically the reaction to uneventful events - disinterest.

The thing I can't figure is that with a group of 30 to 45, I would have expected the 10 or so on here who are naysayers to be there and ask some tough questions. Nothing like that was reported above. So where were you all?

Owl, the only thing I am wondering is: Where is all the money going to come from to support all these projects? We have the Multiplex, the Northern Sports Centre, the Art Gallery, and the Symphony we seem to keep giving money to. These things take an enormous amount of money to run. None of them are self sufficient. Somewhere along the line something has to suffer. It has been our infrastructure (streets and roads mostly) that have suffered for the past 20 years. When is it going to stop? With the downturn in the forestry there will be fewer higher income taxpayers to foot the bill. We cannot afford anything else right now.

To suggest that there will be plenty of community involvment is all well and good in itself,but I cannot see how a project of this scope can proceed without going to a referendum.
Just how much influence that so called "community/public involvment will actually have,remains to be seen.
IMO,that would be the ONLY way it can and should go ahead.
If the community approves it by a majority,then fine,get on with it.
If it is NOT approved by a majority of voters,then it is dead.
Sorry,but to me,that is how democracy works and all the high priced consultants in the world won't change that.

I am sure if this was a sports field of some kind most of you would be all over it. It is time to move forward and look outside of the box.

We have a system of government in Canada which is based on representation. We elect people to represent us to make decision for us. If we do not like the decisions they make, we do not vote for them the next time.

A referendum makes a lot of sense when we wish to answer questions about any changes we may wish with respect to government – an elected senate, an STV or other variation of a voting system, even the way ridings are created. Those are things which make eminent sense to go to a referendum.

Whether to raise taxes, how to divide up the spending of tax dollars, whether to toughen up WCB regulations (that is on a ballot in one of the US States, for instance) those decisions, in my opinion, are best left to those people we have elected or hired to look into such matters in much greater detail than the general population ever will. Not only that, but the decisions will not be based on which is one’s favourite past time but on some much more informed basis.

I am unsure how the previous referendum on this topic was worded. Please correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that it basically resulted in a list of priorities. It was not one facility, and then out to another referendum for the next. So, if I am correct on that, why would we consider going to a referendum on the last facility on the list? Better still, why did we not go to a referendum on the police station? Or which one of three locations for a new Nechako river crossing? Or whether we should even have a new crossing. Or a provincial referendum on the court house? Or a provincial referendum on the University? These are all buildings paid for primarily if not entirely by the taxpayer. Why do we need fancy courthouses with grandiose entrances and fancy domes and energy losing and hard to clean windows high up? They are “nice”, just as University buildings are “nice”. The excess that I see in them is a reminder that we like “nice” things for part of our environment.

Oddly enough we are willing to allow weeds to grow on the side of roads and in the boulevards in between those nice pavers, have potholes in the roads, allow people to not maintain fences on major thoroughfares so that it looks like we live in the boonies (oops… we do! LOL).

So, why single out a performing arts centre for a referendum?

And by the way...kuddos to those folks that are on the PAC and working so very hard to get this going. Sharon Cochran who is one very sharp and very bright cookie and her team believes in this project as the other 44 that were there do. Rumor has it even Mr Meisner was there and made a sugnificant contribution to the cause.

"With the downturn in the forestry there will be fewer higher income taxpayers to foot the bill. We cannot afford anything else right now."

Affordability is a relative term. To every project, there are several scenarios. In this case, let us take the two most simplest - build or not build

Building something is an investment. One gets some type of service out of the increase in infrastructure.

If one does not build, there is no investment and, typically results in some sort of loss of opportunity to put it into business terms.

So, what one needs to do is look at the cost benefit analysis of one action versus another action or inaction. Large companies do it, small companies ought to do it but often don't. They fly by the seat of their pants a bit more frequently.

It looks to me as if this group is doing that very thing. Just as the airport has done that same thing. They are putting together a case which may or may not support a performing arts centre.

Can anyone be more prudent than that? Then again, maybe the city should simply have said we will be building a performing arts centre as originally planned for some time to begin construction as soon as the RCMP building is done. That was on the capital projects list for the longest time to do exactly that.

So, maybe the real question should be, why did the City not do that? Why did they simply not do what was done in some other communities, such a Prince Rupert, strike a building committee and get on with it? Three years and the building is up.

What a shallow argument to say "only 45 people showed up therefore there is not enough support". How many people showed up at the UNBC planning meetings?? Cancer clinic planning?? Soccer field planning?? Auquatic center planning?? etc. etc. etc. Come to think of it, there are only a dozen or so people on this web site who are dead against the PAC, so therefore, the majority of people must support it by this type of "logic".

Everyone is screaming about diversification in the north, here is a project that is doing just that and its getting nothing but constructive critisisim. Im amazed how projects like these get raked over the coals and corporate megastores that pipe money out of the reigon and choke out local business are welcomed with open arms.

"Why not gut the Baron of Beef building and put that place to better use?"

OWL says - "You know better than many others on here why that would be an idiotic thing to do."

Well thanks Owl. It does seem a waste but it does make sense. The study that justified that building location and the revenue generation study still apply. The fact that those studies turn out to be garbage and nonsense shouldn't matter. We are going to get the same nonsense from the new Arts Center study anyway. I remember Ben Meisner stating on his radio show that the economic study for thr B o B was nonsense.

The Baron of Beef building would make a heck of great place to hold an intimate opera given the height of the building.

The staff must be getting desperate to do something with the B o B as the cost to run it climbs every year. Pretty bad when the staff resort to hanging up a rack with a string of dead chickens hanging off it, and expecting people to come downtown for that. Yuck!

"The study that justified that building location and the revenue generation study still apply. The fact that those studies turn out to be garbage and nonsense shouldn't matter."

If I have history right, that building was built as a result of a referendum. It was the choice of the people of this community to build a facility which would generate income from visitors rather than a theatre which was felt would drain the community of income.

Referenda are worse than the old adage about design by committee.

"Referenda are worse than the old adage about design by committee."

The Swiss seem to have done very well with their referendum requirements and the good results.

I do agree with you that once elected officials are elected by us we have to let them make decisions, big or small. We have to allow them to manage and/or mismanage until election time comes around again.

It is up to us to keep a tally of their blunders and achievements and vote them out or keep them.

Once the PAC is built I may even attend the odd performance, if it suits my taste...

It seems to me that we have a lot of people who are in support of these facilities, but they have little to say, or are totally unaware of the costs associated with them, and whether or not they actually provide the functions for with they were originally intended.

The Sportplex revenue forcast by Cliff Dezell and his team in 2004 was revenue of $900,000.00 per year. In 2007 this number was dropped to $400,000.00 per year and the shorfall is to be made up of $300,000.00 per year by the City and a like sum by UNBC. No one on these posts seem to care about these types of short falls.

The Civic Centre when it was built was supposed to attract Conventions from all over the World to Prince George. This never happenend and in fact they have less Conventions now than they did before they built the centre. They are stuffing the nummbers by holding as many meetings in this building as possible to make it look like it is busy, however it loses big money every year. This building should be converted into the PAC.

The MultiPlex (CN Centre) was designed for 6000 hockey fans and at present is averaging 3000 paid fans per game, with actual **live** attendence ranging from 1500 to 3000. There is a good possibility that this number could drop. The City pays out in excess of $600,000.00 per year to keep this facility running, and now that they have installed a $1 Million replay board will have to have additional staff in attendence for 36 games to run this machinery so I suspect that the $600,000.00 will jump up to $800,000.00

The City bought the CN Building on first Avenue and installed IPG and their cohorts. I suspect that if you were to look at the square footage per person in this building it would rank with the highest paid real estate per foot per person than anywhere in Canada.

IPG rented office space in Vancouver for 2 years at a cost of $44,000.00 which resulted in diddlysquat for Prince George and they finally closed it.

The Prince George Police Station is approx 38 Years old (Approx same age as the building the City bought from CN Rail) and they are going to build a new one at 4th and Victoria for a cost of approx $25 Million. Plus the $ 2.75 Million they paid for the property. Why cant we renovate the present building and if necessary put in underground parking across the street. Why do we need to build a new one??

We presently have the Playhouse Theatre, Vaneir Hall, Theatre Northwest, Civic Centre, Multiplex, Sportsplex, Artspace, etc; and we want to build a new PAC, for $25 or more millions. Why?? This latest initiative is being promoted by non other than Initiatives Pr George, and Gerry Offet.

I could give you more but why bother. All these projects are pushed by the City and by vested interest groups with little or no concern about costs, or long term debt.

Not once in the last 10 years have any of these civic politicians suggested that rather than spend this money like drunken sailors, maybe they should reduce taxes, and concentrate on the essentials.

You reap what you sow, and we are now paying for failing to keep an eye on the public purse. It has been taken over by those who have no concern about fiscal responsibility.

Owl. There was one good outcome from the election in Ontario. They rejected the STV initiative, and will continue with first past the post.

I'd be curious to look at the operating budgets for similar facilities in other cities. Do they make money? I suspect many of them don't, then again, that's not necessarily the point for such projects . . .

Obviously it would be great if they all brought in more money than they cost to operate, but what in the City does that? Do the soccer fields? Does the library? Does the cemetary? Does City Hall? The landfills and garbage dumps? What about the roads? They bring in NO money, yet everyone seems to want to dump millions of dollars into them every year.

If the priority for governments was ensuring that everything turned a profit, you'd have tolls on the roads you take into work and your heath care would probably cost you $100,000 per year. Yes, operations should be conducted in a fiscally responsible manner, but there are also qualitative benefits in regards to investing into projects like these in the City, benefits that do not show up on the financial statements.

There are times when private sector models will not be readily applicable to public services.

"...and concentrate on the essentials."

The arts people deem the PAC as absolutely essential, the Ice Oval people must have an oval, etc.

What is one man's essential is another man's frivolity.

"It has been taken over by those who have no concern about fiscal responsibility."

It is tempting to spend other peoples money and defer the onus of paying unto the next generations - and obviously temptation hasn't been successfully resisted.

And the beat goes on.

"Once the PAC is built I may even attend the odd performance"

Those are the very ones I will be attending as well .... I do not enjoy repetitive, run of the mill stuff. Been there, done that.

;-)

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/commentary/2007/aug/09/566626405.html

People might get a bit of a chuckle and a bit of an eye opener when reading the above linked article about the new PAC for Las Vagas, you know, the place people not only go to gamble, but also to see a multitude of performances in some very costly facilities, most charging in the $100 range per seat.

“The Smith Center will attract extraordinary music, theater and dance productions to Las Vegas from around the world, including many that do not or cannot come to Las Vegas now.” Cannot come there now due to lack of facilities in a City rich with venues for performances. Those who think we have performing arts centre(s) here should really try to digest that so that they may begin to understand that, like Vagas, we may have such opportunities, but they are simply not for the same purpose.

“Programming will reach all segments of our community, while partnerships with our schools and with local arts groups will create the foundation for a new cultural infrastructure.” A new cultural infrastructure in Vagas!!!! Wow!!!! The City built on entertainment for the masses.

“We are the largest community in North America without a world-class performing arts center, and we will never be able to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse and sophisticated workforce without this type of facility.” It seems that the workforce is not interested in seeing Wayne Newton over and over again … or Celine Dione. When one really looks at it, how many new productions are there per year? One, maybe two.

$400 million ….. $50 million private donation from Reynolds Foundation to provide an operating endowment …. Tax on car rentals with an income of $7million/year.

Finally these words:

“In a city where so much is built for visitors (and often torn down within 40 years), this center is for those of us who live here, and for our children's children.”

Vagas is a city whose industry is tourism. It seems reasonable to build for that industry.

We are a city whose industry is Forestry and we have, likewise, built considerable infrastructure for that industry. In a similar fashion, facilities such as a PAC, are built for those who live here not for the Jimmy Pattisons who can attend performances anyplace in the world with the money made from investments in communities such as ours.

NMG says - "If the priority for governments was ensuring that everything turned a profit, you'd have tolls on the roads you take into work and your heath care would probably cost you $100,000 per year. Yes, operations should be conducted in a fiscally responsible manner, but there are also qualitative benefits in regards to investing into projects like these in the City, benefits that do not show up on the financial statements.

There are times when private sector models will not be readily applicable to public services."

He forgot mention that it all comes back to the businesses in PG to handle the costs of qualitative irresponsibilty.

"There was one good outcome from the election in Ontario. They rejected the STV initiative, and will continue with first past the post.


Palopu ... I am getting too cynical in my old age .... a politician is a politician ... who cares what stripe they are or how many of each stripe is in the legislature. From my point of view it is a neutral outcome.

Of course, if they had gone with it, based on the popular vote, there would be more conservatives in the legislature there.

;-)

“He forgot mention that it all comes back to the businesses in PG to handle the costs of qualitative irresponsibilty.”

LOL …. And who do you think pays for the qualitative irresponsibility of business? There is nothing that gives the public sector a greater access to such “irresponsibilities”.

Who pays for product recalls? Who pays for products with lead paint from China? Who pays for production overruns? Who pays for wrong product selections? Who pays for a Korean trying to set up a chop stick factory and fails? Who pays for a failed Woodland Windows? Who pays for restaurants that go under? Who pays for buildings left boarded up downtown and left to rot?

Who pays for lousy paving jobs by private paving contractors who do not do a quality job in the first place and a public sector inspector who decides to accept a lousy job? Who do you blame? Neither did their job!! …

Ah, those wonderful businesses who know much better than the public service. Product and business failures are paid in product costs by every purchaser of the products. They are paid by other businesses who have done business with the failed business and cannot recover their money. Once it all shakes out, they are paid once more by the taxpayers, who also buy the products, through tax writeoffs or even government bailouts in some instances.

Qualitative irresponsibility is a product of people and the systems they put in place. The people is “us”. It matters not where one works.

"He forgot mention that it all comes back to the businesses in PG to handle the costs of qualitative irresponsibilty"

Yeah because only businesses pay taxes . . . LOL.

NMG. My point.

When these ventures were first proposed to the Citizens of Prince George (Taxpayers) they were presented with a business plan, or some other sort of **VooDoo** that indicated to the Citizens that the venture would be a good thing and that in would be revenue neutral.

The SportsPlex is a good example. When first brought forward it was to generate $900,000.00 in revenue and the cost to run it would be $920,000.00 annually. That was in 2004. They now say that revenue will be $400,000.00 with $600,000.00 to be paid by the City and UNBC. This is a serious miscalculation, however it is being completly ignored by everyone in Prince George. The same thing applies to the Civic Centre, and you can rest assured that they will come up with some pretty bogus numbers for the PAC and after it is built they will revise the numbers and taxpayers will be on the hook once again.

Dont, I repeat DONT confuse what is happening with the CN Centre with other hockey facilities, soccer fields, ice ovals, graveyards or like projects. These are facilities that are built to be utilized by the taxpayers and their children and are a legitimate cost. (Within reason)

The CN Centre was built with taxpayers money to provide a facility for a privately owned Hockey Franchise ie: The Prince George Cougers. The Cougers pay the City 12% of the gross proceeds up to $1,500,000.00 and 15% thereafter. Problem is they have rarely if ever got to the $1,500,000.00 number and in fact have been hovering around 3000 paid seats per game which generates for the City a paltry sum of $5000.00 per game which means that they probably dont make enough money on game night to cover their costs. The Cougers owners on the other hand would gross approx $37,000.00 for the same game.

Other people who use these facilities such as the Rodeo, and many and varied groups, like Bud the Spud from PEI. Willie Nelson etc; Charge big bucks for their tickets and pay big bucks for the use of the facility and Im sure that the City makes out OK on those types of shows, however they continually lose money from the privately owned Couger Franchise.

It may be the responsibility of the Citizens of Prince George to pay taxes to support public facilities such as skating rinks, libraries, Art Centre, etc; but it sure as hell is not their responsibility to pay out huge dollars Ie: $600,000.00 plus to prop up the Cougers and subsidize some hockey fans so that they can get cheap $14.00 (average) tickets to these games. Fans should pay a price that would at least cover the cost of running the facility, however if you upped the price you would have less people going to the games.

Roughly the gross revenue for the Cougers and the City based on an average ticket Price of $14.00 for 36 games would be:

City of Prince George revenue for year $180,000.00

Cougers revenue for year $1,332,000.00

Difference $1,152,000.00 for the Cougers.

Citys loss per year after costs. $600,000.00.

You can rest assured that before this facility was built no one told the taxpayers that it would cost them $600,000.00 per year to operate.

Now that the fat is in the fire and we are losing money hand over fist. Guess who's fault it is???

Not the City and those who floated the idea, and built the facility.

Not the Cougers owners.

No, the fault lies with the fans because they dont go to the games. What a sad, sick, state of affairs. Anyone with half a brain and a pencil stuck in their ear would know that there are not, and have never been 5000, to 6000 hard core hockey fans in Prince George. Never, Never, Never. The proof is in the pudding.

If you actually look at the attendance numbers, you'll see that for the 7 seasons from 96-97 to 02-03, the Cougars averaged 5,342 fans per game. This includes a low of 4,386 in 02-03 and a high of 5,824 in 98-99. Not too shabby for a building with only 5,500 seats (remember that there are 500 standing room spots to bring the capacity to 6,000).

The reasons for the recent low attendance could be debated for days on end, however, the evidence would suggest that there certainly is potential to fill that building on a consistent basis. If that building were full, the economics would certainly change and combined with other events in the City, it is entirely possible that the building could be a break even proposition.

I know full well that many of these facilities are cost centers and that they will not "make money", however, can we really afford to be the only City of our size in Western Canada that does not invest in facilities like these? What message does it send when we are trying to attract people to live here, yet we aren't willing to be competitive with other cities trying to attract those same people? Should we change our slogan to "BC's Northern Capital - we have GREAT roads and that's about it". We have enough strikes against us in trying to attract people here (air quality, climate, distance from major centers, etc.), the last thing we should do is ignore those things that could help offset those and possibly even trump them.

In short, I honestly believe that without this type of investment in PG, this town WILL dry up. Hell, I would have seriously considered moving myself if it were not for the diversification that we've seen over the last 10 years and I'm as big of a PG supporter as many of us. This City HAS to change and if there are some short to medium term costs associated with that change, I think it's something that has to be done. I think the long-term payoff will prove to be beneficial.

Good debate BTW.

NMG. I agree that when the Cougers first came to town there were a lot of people who attended the games, however over time at least half of these people lost interest and went on to other things. One of the main reasons was they were never real Hockey fans in the first place.

We have since then built the New Casino and we are in the process of opening up the new Gaming Centre downtown. In addition we have built the SportPLex. At some point we will probably build the PAC.

With a population of some 75,000 people and large majority of which are on limited income pensions, or minimum wage jobs, plus all the other things that are now taking place in Prince George, there are not enough people, with enough money to support all these venues, and therin lies the problem.

Some people who went to Hockey games will now go to the Casino and Gamble. Some will go to the Wolverines Basketball Games, Some to Soccer, some to the other venues etc; Not enough people to go around.

We have overbuilt all these facilities based on an incorrect forcast of a population increase in Prince George. It turns out the population went down instead of up, however we continue to build.

The suggestion that we need these facilities to attract people is somewhat flawed when you consider that we didnt have them 10 to 15 years ago and we had a bigger population. What attracted the people at that time???

The attraction to Prince George has always been good paying jobs, however there has been a significant change in available jobs and people are now leaving.

I would suggest to you that a large number of people who were in favour of building the CN Centre, and bringing the Cougers to Prince George do not even attend these games themselves, as they now have biggar fish to fry.

I suggest all this building is more about construction jobs, real estate, developers, etc; that it ever was about honest need.

All the projects are promoted by vested interest groups, not taxpayers, and therin lies the problem.