Our city's downtown core is in need of a few fixes to make it a more livable place and on Monday night city council is giving business owners and members of the public a chance to voice their growing concerns and perhaps offer some solutions.
Mayor Lyn Hall says there's not a day goes by when he's not thinking about what can be done to alleviate the problems of homelessness, drug and alcohol addictions, mental health disorders and poverty that are becoming more prevalent on downtown streets and he's optimistic the gathering of ideas in the long-awaited public meeting will produce positive outcomes.
"I've talked to a number of business people downtown and they all have ideas of what we can do and I'm hoping they bring forward ideas we can add to the list that we've implemented over the last couple years," said Hall.
"Some of the people downtown have become more aggressive. If you take a look at our downtown you see some great development with the pubs and restaurants, Parkhouse condo development, the student housing, the new hotel and new pool, but we also on the flipside of that have the social issues we deal with. So I'm hoping on Monday at the end of the evening we have a long list of things that we can try."
Following presentations from the City, Prince George RCMP, and Northern Health, members of the public will be invited to present to council. Hall says there's a willingness among all the stakeholders to work together in co-ordinated efforts to alleviate downtown problems.
Hundreds of homeless camps sites have been taken down since the city's bylaw's services joined forces with an RCMP unit to deal with those camps. Hall said that's one example of a partnership producing effective results and a desired outcome and he plans to reveal more success stories of city initiatives at Monday's meeting.
During its Nov. 18 meeting, council voted unanimously in favour of hosting the meeting in answer to ongoing complaints about the state of the downtown. To ensure that everyone has a fair and equal opportunity to provide input to council, there will be a five to 10-minute time limit. Following initial comments, council will hear from persons wishing to speak for a second time to provide new information.
Written submissions are also being accepted. They can be emailed in advance to the city clerk at cityclerk@princegeorge.ca or brought to the fifth floor of City Hall. Submissions will be accepted until noon on Monday but any provided after that deadline will also be collected and sent onto council the following day.
The meeting, which starts at 6 p.m., will be live-streamed on the City website, www.princegeorge.ca/council.
A large crowd is anticipated. Council chambers seats about 80 and another 50 seats will be available in an adjacent room which will have a video screen which will show the meeting in progress.
