The election is not far away now and again the voters of PG go to the polls to elect those that we deem appropriate to decide how to best run and manage the city in our stead. However in the past decade neither city council nor the city staff have done a very good job of representing or managing the city's best interest.
Millions of dollars spent downtown to what effect and for whose benefit I certainly know its not for my benefit nor most other citizens of PG because most of us avoid the downtown core like the flu. I understand revitalizing the downtown but the city has done everything it could to not do it right and in the process flushed several million down the toilet that could of been used on our sewer and water system, which is now itself at the breaking point and ignored for too long.
Snow removal is another hot button topic in PG in the past decade but only one councillor asked questions while every other councillor and mayor stayed quiet and the the question asked is why? It seems there was no accountability held to senior management and the excuses piled up but no action taken until this spring and then the city hired a consulting company to tell the city that they haven't been doing a good job.
I love the garbage system we have except that it's broken. We were told by then Mayor Colin Kinsley when it was first introduced that it would save the taxpayers money however that still has not materialized and every year our garbage fees rise because again the garbage system has not been looked after. Do you see a recurring trend with past history of the council and city staff yet?
Lastly the bylaws. I love how council makes these bylaws yet has nothing to back them up with. There is no real bylaw enforcement to enforce the bylaws so why create more bylaws if the city doesn't enforce said bylaws which virtually everyone treats as a joke anyway?
So here is a question to the new mayor and councilors. How do you propose to fix any of the above issues? Heck I think it would be nice to even see two of these issues fixed but it remains to be seen if council will have any teeth or as usual talk big then whimper.
Dean Soiland
Prince George
