If anyone needed confirmation that things were seriously awry at the Think Tank on First Avenue otherwise known as Initiatives Prince George (IPG), last week's council decision to allow IPG to keep the "profits" from the sale of the ACS building to Terasen Gas should suffice. To his credit Councillor (Mayor?) Stolz was the only one to vote against the motion.
When the Downtown Partnership refused to cough up another $50,000 for IPG to complete a marketing prospectus for the downtown, it was forced to find another way of getting the taxpayer to pay.
While Mayor Rogers and Councillor Bassermann along with IPG would like to perpetuate the fiction that IPG is a separate "profit-making" entity from the City, the reality is otherwise.
IPG is funded by the City of Prince George and other government agencies, and generates little in the way of "earned" revenue. The ACS building was bought with money borrowed from the City, and any profits from the sale should have gone back to the City to lower taxes, improve roads, etc.
With an annual budget of nearly $2 million and more than a dozen staff, IPG has (at least in the last three years) yet to produce a single job for the citizens of Prince George, unless you count the numerous consultants which they are so fond of engaging.
Instead of spending $50,000 to hire consultants to do a marketing prospectus, IPG should have been able to produce the report in-house with existing staff and budget.
During its brief to council, IPG claimed that downtown revitalization "is an important facet of IPG's overall economic development program." Really?
Apart from participating in the numerous "visioning" exercises like Smart Growth on the Ground and My PG, IPG has watched from the sidelines as companies such as The Ramada, Commonwealth and The Keg have forged ahead to revitalize our downtown.
This is in stark contrast to Janine North and the Northern Development Initiatives Trust, an organization for which IPG has little time, which has aggressively assisted in downtown development and job creation in the region.
IPG has been content to focus on meetings, minutes and muffins and projects that may bear fruit in 10 or 20 years --but do nothing to help unemployed Prince Georgians today.
Serious questions need to be asked, and if suitable answers are not forthcoming, IPG needs to be shut down and an economic development department under City Manager Derek Bates should be established at city hall.
Why has IPG not fulfilled its mandate of driving economic development and, in the process, job creation in P.G.?
While happy to take the credit for the 100 jobs Terasen is bringing to the city, the reality is IPG did little more than sign an offer to purchase. Terasen, through its real estate agent C.B. Richard Ellis along with local realtors Ken Goss and George Weinand, made the deal a reality.
If downtown revitalization is so important to IPG, why was there nothing budgeted for this file in their latest budget?
Why did IPG publicly resign from the one organization mandated to promote the downtown (the DBIA) if this is such a critical part of its job?
In its numerous junkets to China, Vancouver, Santa Fe and Victoria, what tangible results has IPG delivered?
While it claims to have been "selling" our city, they now tell us they need a $50,000 marketing prospectus. This begs the question of how have they been marketing our downtown up to now without one?
The answer is obviously based on the results -- they haven't been.
One of the biggest economic windfalls for our City would be successfully winning the bid for the 2015 Canada Winter Games, yet our economic development authority IPG played a minor role when the delegations met with the bid committee last week. Why didn't IPG, whose responsibility is economic development, quarterback this initiative?
Why is IPG the only economic development agency in B.C. publicly supporting the HST? Since when does shilling for unpopular government policies equate to economic development?
Clearly, whatever rationale that existed for IPG to function as a separate economic development agency from city hall no longer exists. The experiment has been a failure, and in light of its lack of accountability to local taxpayers, and in the absence of bankable results, it is time to shut it down.
Finally, our concerns seem to be shared by the Finance and Audit Committee as evidenced by its recent decision to refuse a request by IPG to approve its budget, except on a month-to-month basis, with the intention of recommending to council that a full audit of value for service of IPG occur in the fall.
This is an audit that should take place before IPG heads off on yet another junket to China in September.
