The chair of Prince George’s Heritage Commission called on the city to provide the organization with more resources and allow it to meet more often during the Monday, March 11 city council meeting.
George Davison, a former history instructor at the College of New Caledonia, was on hand to present the commission’s annual report for 2024 and outline its work planned for 2025 at the council meeting.
He started off by wishing Prince George a belated 110th birthday and giving a brief history of local initiatives to preserve the city’s heritage before identifying some of the challenges that the commission is facing.
Last month, Davison said, was the 30th anniversary of the Heritage Commission itself.
Since the city’s heritage registry was created in 2007, Davison’s report said just 15 buildings and sites have been added to it despite nearly 500 sites and trees with heritage value having been identified.
The commission’s working group handling interpretive signs for heritage sites in the city has determined that of the 61 heritage-related signs in Prince George, about half need repair but there’s only the budget to replace three per year. That means that it would take 10 years to replace them all.
That budget also doesn’t account for the need to update some of the signs. Some lost signs haven’t been replaced.
“Most of all, in the spirit of reconciliation, the signs need to acknowledge that we live on the unceded territory of the Lheidli T’enneh, people who’ve been here and shepherded its resources for thousands of years,” Davison said.
“We’ve had two stakeholder meetings, pulling together representatives of the (Prince George Public Library), the Exploration Place, the Lheidli and commissioners. We want to have more meetings, but it makes sense to have the partners represented on the commission.”
The chair added that some heritage businesses noted by signs no longer exist, like Northern Hardware and Pastry Chef.
The estimated cost of replacing the signs is around $60,000, which Davison said could come from the city, from heritage grants applied for by the city or the commission’s partners or from donations from businesses.
“We want to revitalize heritage and broaden its definition from the narrow focus that’s led to just 15 things being placed on the register,” Davison said.
“If you were a stranger coming to Prince George, could you tell much about the heritage by looking at six old houses, an old post office and liquor store, two old schools, two tree-lined streets and a bridge crossing? Heritage needs to be dynamic. Heritage needs to resonate with the public about where we come from and what we enjoy. Heritage needs to be taken into account when council makes decisions.
“You can’t do that if you don’t know much about it.”
Davison said that before the COVID-19 pandemic, the commission met 10 times a year and three city staff assisted with the commission’s work. In 2021, staff support was reduced to two employees and meetings became quarterly.
“Over the last two years, the commission has had six meetings — two were lost for a lack of quorum in 2023,” Davison told council. Despite additional working group meetings, Davison said the commission hasn’t been able to accomplish much.
Davison’s report listed five recommendations for council:
- Increase the number of annual meetings of the commission from four to seven
- Endorse reconciliation with the Lheidli T’enneh through future commission projects
- Provide additional financial support for updating and replacing heritage signs
- Increase the number of commission members to 12
- Direct staff to investigate increasing staff support for the commission
Further, Davison said that requiring the commission to hand in an annual report in December but waiting until March to have it presented means that its work is put on hold in the meantime.
During council’s discussion of the report, city manager Walter Babicz said adopting Davison’s recommendations would have financial implications either through direct funding or in-kind staffing resources. For those reasons, he said it would be best for council to refer the recommendations to staff to examine to determine the cost.
Manager of development services Mandy Jones said her department doesn’t have “any further capacity to assist more with the Heritage Commission” beyond the single planner assigned to the file.
Coun. Garth Frizzell put forward a motion referring the five recommendations to staff for study.
Coun. Tim Bennett noted that Davison’s report said that the commission hasn’t spent any of its $7,000 per year budget in the past four years and wondered whether that money could be reinvested in heritage activities rather than a general surplus.
Director of finance and IT services Kris Dalio said it would be possible to set that up, but it would take time to track and measure it properly.
Coun. Cori Ramsay asked her colleagues to consider how updating the signs fits in with their strategic objective to grow the city, saying that the way to attract visitors is to show off how great the city is.
“If it’s $60,000 of on an almost $200 million operating budget, I feel like this is perhaps pennies that would be spent to invest in our strategic plan and … enhance the visitor experience, which I think is something that we all want,” Ramsay said.
Babicz said the item could be discussed at a Committee of the Whole meeting scheduled for June 25 to go over items on the city’s list of unfunded capital projects.
Coun. Trudy Klassen said the city needs to take responsibility for preserving its heritage not just for the local benefit, but as citizens of the world.
Coun. Kyle Sampson asked Davison whether there had been consideration of making the commission into an arms-length non-profit so that it would still get grant funding but have more freedom.
Davison said the idea has been raised, but the commission has not discussed it. He said that while volunteers have come and gone over the years, the city has been a constant partner.
Sampson moved for the idea of making the commission to be made more independent to be added to the list of recommendations forwarded to staff.
Coun. Susan Scott asked whether the commission had ever discussed a partnership with Tourism Prince George. Davison said there had been talks, but there hadn’t been much follow-up as they haven’t had much in terms of programming or actions to go off. Once progress is made, more discussions could be had.
The motion to forward the recommendations to staff was amended to include Ramsay and Sampson’s additions and then was passed.
Another motion to adopt the committee’s 2025 work plan was passed after being amended to remove reference to the $60,000 needed to repair the existing heritage signs.
