I might be one of the biggest proponents of public investment and ownership to bring us together in common purpose whether that is creating a fair economy or celebrating our teams or our arts.
But that doesn’t mean this Civic Core Plan is the way to go about doing that.
Yes, I know we have been spending a lot of money to get it off the ground. This included a large unspecified sum to come up with the two uninspiring options presented to council last Dec. 16.
There is some confusion as to who actually came up with the report or what we spent. In September of 2022 Stantec was first hired but disengaged from the process and it appears whoever they replaced them with may have also disengaged, as there is no mention of who wrote the report presented to council that night.
In any case, why bother? Our mayor drew up his own version while his opponents on council tried to one-up him with their own back-of-envelope concept plans.
And naturally, chaos ensued.
Combined with the fact big civic redevelopment projects like this have a history of failure, as well as the fact user groups like the Spruce Kings were not consulted, we should be alarmed.
First of all, let’s touch ground. We need a realistic discussion about what we can afford first.
We already spend almost $13.5 million a year in our budget to service our debt, both principal and interest payments, the breakdown of which I can’t readily locate. In any case it’s around 10 per cent of our annual budget.
This will increase when we borrow another $22 million to fix the aquatic centre and probably half that to fix our new pool, along with over $100 million in unfunded capital costs and various other infrastructure maintenance costs in the pipeline.
Our taxes, already high, have gone up 20 per cent in the past four years and will go up at least another 6 per cent next year. And don’t forget the $365 million in hospital district taxes for that new surgical tower, most of which will fall on city taxpayers, or the fact one or two of the big pulp mills will likely close down, a tax hit residents will be expected to shoulder.
People are struggling to pay their bills as it is. Is it the right time to be locking us into more debt and more taxes for things that are ultimately civic wants, not needs?
At the Dec. 16 meeting I heard the expression “growth pays for growth,” a mantra Coun. Cori Ramsay repeated that everyone seemed to nod their heads in unison to.
But most of the growth we are seeing in this city is expensive sprawl outside of the existing urban area that costs cities money. We are mowing down forests that mitigate stormwater and having the rest of the taxpayers on the hook to expand infrastructure to service those areas and maintain it when it gets silted up. And who will have to pay for the new highways to service all the new traffic coming out of University Heights and College Heights?
Certain types of growth pays for growth, I would argue, but the irresponsible growth we are seeing in our city will not be the tax windfall to support new facilities we think it is. It’s another liability.
In any case, what’s all of this for?
As recently as 20 years ago Prince George had a bustling, lively downtown and that had nothing to do with government-funded monuments to civic ego.
In my view, a lot of the publicly funded bulldozing we’ve done these past 15 years has made things worse.
This is not to say we don’t invest in arts, small business, and sports.
But this whole thing needs to be put on ice for a while and realistic alternatives need to be considered, the details of which I’m willing to get pilloried for in a future piece.
