Another Talktober has come to a close and City officials are quite pleased with the discussions made.
The City put on a total of four presentations during the two-day event this week held at the Prince George Conference and Civic Centre.
Hot topics this year were with regards to the city’s ageing infrastructure and the state of the downtown, along with its revitalization.
Prince George Mayor Lyn Hall told MyPGNow that he was pleased to have those topics raised by those who attended the sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday.
“It gave me an opportunity to talk about what we’re doing as a city to try to deal with some of the issues, some of the social issues that are happening downtown from the homelessness issue, opioid issue, mental illness that’s impacting a number of the people that we’re seeing on the streets downtown. There’s also the crime and petty theft, that kind of thing. That was a big discussion in all four of the question periods that I moderated, and I was pleased to have that opportunity to talk about that.”
The topic of the growing number of Airbnb’s (a short-term rental alternative to hotels and motels) in the city was also raised, something that Hall said he wasn’t expecting to have brought up.
When Talktober was initially introduced, the event essentially toured to the various communities within the city, allowing for a much larger engagement than what the City has seen since limiting itself to just a two-day event downtown.
The neighbourhood conversations emerged in response to a Council priority to reconnect with citizens. Back in 2015, five events were held through the month of October. These meetings took place in various venues throughout the city including the East Bowl, Blackburn, the Southwest, College Heights, and the West Bowl. Two engagement sessions were also held earlier that year in both the Hart and the VLA.
When 2020 rolls around, Hall is hoping to move the event back to the original format.
“I think we take it back out into the neighbourhood. I thought well let’s try a centralized location but it’s pretty evident that it has greater success out in the neighbourhood,” said Hall. “It may be easier for people to come to an event like that, that’s held from maybe 6:30 p.m. or seven-o-clock. That’s something we’ll talk about when we look to plan for 2020. I think Talktober is a great event, that’s one of the things I campaigned on reconnecting with the community in 2014.”
Hall believes the City needs to take a look at the neighbourhood plan when they first started Talktober in 2015.