The agenda for the Monday, June 9 Prince George city council meeting is dominated by issues brought forward from previous council and committee meetings.
Transit agreement
At council’s last meeting on May 16, it heard a report on the city’s annual operating agreement with BC Transit and approved the first three readings of a bylaw approving a new agreement for the 2025-26 fiscal year.
On June 9, council will vote on final reading of that agreement.
As previously reported by The Citizen, the city’s budgeted net costs for operating conventional transit services is around $4.9 million and $626,621 for operating accessible transit services.
Council calendar
Two alterations to council’s meeting schedule in October are being proposed.
The first would see a committee of the whole meeting scheduled for 2 p.m. on Oct. 14 to facilitate an annual review of the community grants program.
The second would move the second meeting in October from Wednesday, Oct. 22 to Monday, Oct. 20. The meeting was scheduled for Oct. 22 to make sure there was no conflict with a federal election, but with the election having already taken place, city staff are recommending it be moved to its regular Monday slot.
Intergovernmental affairs
Three items are being brought forward from the last meeting of the Standing Committee on intergovernmental Affairs.
Back in March, the city received a letter from the Trans Canada Yellowhead Highway Association asking for resolutions for its annual general meeting, which was then forwarded to the committee.
The organization is made up of municipalities and organizations along Highway 16 in BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba and Highway 5 in BC.
The committee briefly discussed at its May 26 meeting whether the city should consider rejoining the association, which it left in 2012, but ultimately decided there wasn’t a business case to do so.
Also discussed at that meeting was a letter from the Quesnel-Hixon Road Restoration Association asking for the city to send a letter to Transportation Minister Mike Farnworth and Premier David Eby calling for the rebuilding of the alternate route between Quesnel and Hixon.
The road has been closed since it was washed out by a landslide in 2021 and the provincial government decided last year that it would close as 400-metre portion of the road and the Cottonwood River Canyon Bridge due to the cost of rebuilding it.
The committee decided to recommend the city send the letter, citing a need for an alternate route to exist should Highway 97 end up blocked or closed.
The final item from this committee is a recommendation for council to approve sending a resolution to this year’s Union of BC Municipalities convention in Victoria asking for members to “petition the province to declare gender-based violence, intimate partner violence, and human trafficking an epidemic in British Columbia and update BC’s Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking.”
This follows up on Prince George declaring intimate partner violence and human trafficking an epidemic last July and the city becoming the first local government to join the Human Trafficking Prevention Network of British Columbia on May 16.
There’s another agenda item that wasn’t forwarded from the committee but stems from discussions it had earlier this year.
At their May 6 meeting, committee members discussed the costs incurred by Prince George Fire Rescue responding to medical calls and how the provincial government doesn’t compensate the city for them despite health care being a provincial responsibility.
Though the committee discussed submitting a UBCM resolution on the matter, Mayor Simon Yu ultimately put the item on the June 9 agenda.
His proposed motion for council to consider reads: “Therefore be it resolved that UBCM petition the province to finalize agreements with BC municipalities as soon as possible and include a funding component to compensate local governments providing emergency medical services and pre-hospital care through their fire and rescue services for related costs including, but not limited to, medical supplies and training.”
On a related note, the intergovernmental affairs meeting scheduled for Tuesday, June 10 has been cancelled according to a notice sent out on May 30.
Another UBCM resolution
Councillors Brian Skakun and Trudy Klassen are proposing that another resolution be forwarded to the UBCM convention.
It would recommend that the UBCM call on the provincial government to amend the Community Charter’s section 152(2) to allow local government councils to terminate a municipal officer with a simple majority vote rather than require a two-thirds majority.
It would also call on the province to “to extend the suspension review period of a municipal officer to the third meeting after suspension, with notice and opportunity to be heard.”
Under BC law, municipal council and regional district boards must have two officer positions: one in charge of a local government’s corporate administration and one responsible for its financial administration.
Local governments can and usually do also appoint a chief administrative officer though it is not required.
The report by Skakun and Klassen on their motion argues that the existing route to terminate an officer has structural flaws.
“Council relies in part on municipal officers for information, and officers’ job security depends in part on council’s decisions,” the report said.
“Yet, section 152(2)’s two- thirds vote requirement for termination allows a minority of council members to maintain an officer, shifting governing power from the majority to a minority. This contradicts voter expectations of majority rule.”
They further argue that officers control the flow of information to a council and wield significant influence but might be incentivized to prioritize a minority of councillors who support them.
On the suspension review item, the councillors said that requiring it at the next meeting after a suspension is too short an assessment process, potentially necessitating a hasty or poorly informed decision.
Public safety
At the April meeting of the Standing Committee on Public Safety, members heard a staff report on ways the city could promote local Citizens on Patrol and Block Watch programs.
That report has been forwarded to council for consideration.
The council meeting starts at 6 p.m. on the second floor of Prince George city hall. For those who can't attend in person, the meeting will be livestreamed and the video archived online at princegeorge.ca.
