"It ain't over til it's over "is a famous quote by New York Yankee back catcher Yogi Berra who played with the Yankee's from 1946 until 1963. There was no quit in Yogi.
I thought I would liken our present situation with the AAP that the city started to allow it to borrow $32 million over 20 years, with a baseball game.
We in effect are now in the bottom of the ninth inning with bases loaded, and we need people to step up to the plate and hit a home run. Its time to clean our cleats, tighten our belts, adjust our hats, and make our move.
To ensure that we are doing everything possible to get the number of signatures to force this situation to a referendum and give us a vote on the borrowing of this money we need to stay the course, and if necessary go to extra innings. We have a game plan in place as we head for the finish line.
We will be available at the Farmers' Market located at 1310 Third Ave. on Saturday and have petitions available to sign, and to receive petitions that people may have at home. We will ensure that these petitions get to city hall by the deadline of May 30.
In addition we will have people available to hand out AAP forms, and assist with signing etc, at the CN Centre parking lot from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sunday and then we will be available to receive petitions, and help with signing petitions behind city hall on May 28 and May 29 from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Having these sites available will make it easier for those people who cannot reasonably access city hall during regular office hours to sign the petition.
So with the May 30 at 5 p.m. deadline looming its time to ensure that if you have forms at home that you have not completed, or have not returned to city hall its time to do so. For those people who have the best of intentions, but have not yet been able to get the forms, these alternate locations to city hall will help.
After the May 30 deadline the city clerk has a set number of days to count the petitions and then make a report to council. It is at that council meeting that we will get the results of this alternate approval process. Keep you eyes and ears on the news, as you may want to be in attendance at the council meeting to hear the results.
I would like to take this moment to thank all the people who signed the petitions, and who volunteered to get this job done, this will be I believe a watershed moment in how money is borrowed and taxes assessed in the City of Prince George.
Eric Allen,
Prince George
