Question from a city taxpayer: Why do we vote for a mayor and council and what do we pay them to do?
Answer No. 1: To authorize and manage expenditure on services essential to residents, as follows: police, fire, sewer, water, snow and potholes.
As residents, when we find ourselves frustrated by inadequacies in the above-listed necessities we often vent our anger on the city's management and staff on the front line. It's not their fault.
Council allocates dollars to departmental budgets. City crews, management and staff must make do with the dollars they are given by council.
For instance, consider the Prince George "pothole peril."
It's estimated $7 million annually is now required to bring and retain city roads to standard. Yet council has allocated a puny $3.5 million for road rehabilitation in the current year: enough for a few asphalt band-aids, I guess.
Councillors, before you bask in the afterglow of those nice-to-have items like flower baskets, automated garbage trucks, and under-street municipal heating systems, please get back to the basics.
Prince George City Council: please consider adopting the following as your new, unofficial mantra as a daily reminder of what we as residents pay you to do (I've capitalized the list of basic services because the initials can also be designated in another way):
Please Find Some Way to Sense and Practicality - or - Police, Fire, Sewer, Water, Snow, and, of course, Potholes.
Liz Jones
Prince George
