Prince George city council has completed half of its budget deliberations.
A 4.2 per cent tax increase is being considered for 2010. Council is making major spending decisions about policing, road maintenance, snow clearing and other issues which effect city residents daily.
This is the time when the purse strings are untied and council has the discretion to make major changes in services. The decisions made during budget deliberations will set the direction for the city for the rest of the year.
The beginning of each budget session starts with a public input session. Council is mandated to open the floor and listen directly to its constituents on budget-related topics.
This is a rare, open-mike opportunity for residents to speak directly to city council. Council has a full dance card, and normally it can take weeks or months to get onto a meeting agenda.
Given the number of letters to the editor and quantity of online discussion about city services, people should be lined up to the lawn of City Hall at these meetings.
However, only one person - Gale Inkster - out of nearly 80,000 city residents has attended the public input sessions.
Inkster has spoken at three of the four budget sessions about her passion: recycling and the management of what has traditionally been called garbage. She has had the opportunity to speak three times because not one other resident took the time to attend.
Certainly Inkster cannot be the only person in Prince George with a passion or idea city council should hear.
Inkster is absolutely not the only person in Prince George with an opinion on how the city conducts its operations and spends tax dollars.
But if city council doesn't hear those opinions, then they don't get counted in decisions.
Do residents simply not care about city services enough to take 15 or 20 minutes of their lives to express an opinion?
Do they feel their opinion will not be taken seriously by council?
City council is not elected to run the city - professional staff run the city's day to day operations. Like a corporation's board of directors, council's job is to oversee the city's operations and guide them on behalf of their shareholders: the taxpayers of Prince George.
If council hears nothing from the public, they must assume what they are doing is fine and carry on.
On Feb. 23 at 4:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. at City Hall council will hold the next public input sessions on the budget. The final opportunity will be Feb. 28 at the same times.
Speak now, or forever hold your piece.
