Although the snowy conditions kept many from taking advantage of it, those in the running for city government were all in favour of a new style of voter engagement.
Council candidate Frank Everitt organized two meet-and-greet style events this weekend, open to all candidates to have some face time with Prince George voters in an informal setting.
"It's part of the platform I'm running on," explained Everitt, who has a goal of reconnecting the public to those elected.
The two sessions - Saturday at Columbus Community Centre and Sunday at the Hart Community Centre between 2 and 5 p.m. - brought out a sizeable number of candidates looking to be able to meet people and explain their positions in more detail than is allowed in a 30-second forum response. On Saturday, unsavoury road conditions likely kept a majority of people from attending, but Everitt had higher hopes for Sunday's three-hour session.
Everitt said he was pleased to see the candidates turn out for the event and how well they embraced the idea.
"The overall objective is that is what city council will do that, as opposed to me as an individual," he said.
Council candidate Brad Gagnon said it was a good opportunity for residents to ask general questions and get fully fleshed out answers.
"[In the forum setting] you don't really get a chance to respond," Gagnon said.
Lyn Hall said he fielded questions about how his council campaign was going and discussed his ideas about issues regarding downtown.
"There was a good cross section," he said of the people coming from the two locations in College Heights and the Hart.
Council candidate Myrt Turner said she appreciated the opportunity to have a two-way conversation with people directly.
"E-mail is not a two-way conversation. Often, I reply to a person and never heard back from them again."
The ability to have an open dialogue and hear concerns help to fill gaps in her own knowledge. "I learned a long time ago that I don't know everything and you don't know what you don't know," Turner said.
Incumbent councillors Brian Skakun and Debora Munoz were also in agreement over the advantages of such an open setting.
"It's a great idea," Skakun said. "We go to all these forums in the last three to four weeks and the candidates do all the talking." He added that the more down-to-earth approach is something that should catch on in future elections.
"We need to do more of this on an ongoing basis," Munoz said, noting municipal politicians are already more accessible than their provincial and federal counterparts.
"I think it's a wonderful opportunity," said Kathi Travers, who came to the session with her husband Joachim Graber. "It's pretty tough [to get answers] at the forums and this is wonderful."
Travers said the informal setting allowed her to see who was approachable and who wasn't. "Here, you might trip them up, but you get to see the real deal."
That accessibility and community engagement is something council has already been working on, said Garth Frizzell and Cameron Stolz.
This summer, council held several neighbourhood engagement sessions as a part of the myPG process - the city's community sustainability plan.
"The intention from the city's point of view when the election is over is to go back to community engagement," Stolz said. "I think this is building on that success and all credit goes to Frank."
While Stolz said people are more likely to sit and have a cup of coffee with someone that have their input through avenues such as social media, Frizzell, who is embracing technology within his own campaign sees it differently. He recently hosted an online townhall question-and-answer session.
"This isn't Star Trek stuff anymore, it's meat-and-potatoes technology. We just have to start using it," Frizzell said.
