Is city council truly looking after all its citizens?
I recently moved to Prince George. I was amazed at the tax rates placed on the homeowners by city council. I had to ask myself why taxes were so much higher and came to the conclusion that the impact of long winters with the necessary snow removal had to be the culprit.
I am a passionate golfer and found the city offered a good assortment of courses with two main ones in the size that provided challenges in keeping with my skill set. When you truly enjoy the game of golf, the loss of trees on your course, although disappointing, does little to deter you from continuing to play the game.
The P.G. course has had a buyer since 2005. For some unknown reason city council has elected to not let the sale proceed. The Prince George Golf and Curling Club is a recreation facility for the citizens of Prince George. The membership fees equate to approximately $125 a month, which is reasonable and not restricted to the wealthy.
City council is hurting the citizens of Prince George. These are my observations:
Many suspect that the city council is hoping the Prince George Golf and Curling Club will go bankrupt so they can purchase at a bargain price in receivership.
The amount of single dwelling homes and multi-unit homes a developer could place in the land occupied by the golf course would be substantial. This would provide a huge increase in tax funds available to the city to use for our city. City council is not doing us a service by increasing our taxes every year without taking into account this potential influx of funds? If the sale of the land is ever approved it will take three to five years to have a new golf course built and available for use. That equates to almost 10 years of tax revenue denied to us by the city council for not having the vision to move forward on the sale.
I looked through the council meetings minutes and the first time the P.G. course is mentioned is Dec. 2007. It truly makes you lean toward the "taking over ownership by bankruptcy" theory mentioned above.
Our city should offer its citizens or visitors a recreation facility that shows pride in our community and the desire to make Prince George a beautiful place to live.
Patrick Newton
Prince George
