Recently I read in The Citizen that Prince George city council is going to be contacting 460 people locally to determine whether they are in favour of building a performing arts centre here. That does not seem to be enough people to obtain an unbiased report. Also it will be affected by the wording of the question.
I think that it is irresponsible, and frivolous, for city council to want to build a fancy, and expensive, building for this purpose when there is no shortage of venues in Prince George for drama and music, etc. when the roads are in very poor shape. It isn't just myself that thinks they are deplorable. Mr. Bob McCauley, who has been driving a transit bus here for 40 years says the roads have been getting worse the last eight years. He says the pot holes are deep, and they do not get filled right away.
I think there should be a referendum about the performing arts centre here. Let the people decide whether they want, or need one. We have an art gallery that seems to be seldom used by artists, whose work is displayed at other venues such as Studio 2880, or the Public Library. I expect that if we have a performing arts centre it will be too expensive to be used, plus the price of tickets to events will be too expensive for taxpayers to afford to attend.
City hall should take a look at the cost of maintaining the Prince George Art Gallery, and how many people display their art there, and how many people ever go there.
We could fix a lot of local roads with $40 million, which is the amount of money an arts centre would approximately cost, according to what I have heard.
Julia Serup
Prince George
