The second leg of 2015 budget deliberations wrapped up at city hall last night with a large portion of the night dedicated to capital projects.
Notable projects that will be going ahead this year include a new park at the Wood Innovation and Design Centre, a new roof for the aging Coliseum and the replacement of the Masich Stadium Track. Additionally; the intersection of 9th avenue and Victoria will be getting a street light, the 2nd avenue parkade elevator is getting an upgrade and the foothills bridge will be reinforced.
Patrons of the Prince George Library will be happy to hear that councillor Wilber successfully got the ball rolling on their front entrance;
“So what we were doing today, was taking a look as to where to go now, because the 2.5 million we had funded from 2014 was not going to be adequate by any means. So I thought that the best process was to scope it and find out what the costs would be… And that’s what happened today; up to $200,000 is now available for the purpose of scoping this out”
The formal evaluation will consult the library’s needs as well as contractors to try to nail down a set cost for the project. City rough estimates say the whole project could cost upwards of 7.8 million dollars for a complete overhaul. That report is due before council June 30th 2015.
The full budget centered on a 2.5% tax jump, same as last year, which will go to pay for increases in snow plowing, transit and capital projects.
Councilor Kohler was vocal throughout the whole budget process that he wasn’t happy with an increase that high;
“We would like to finance everything, I would like to have all the streets lit and everything done. But we need to differentiate between the needs and the wants, maybe we can do some wants, but we can’t do everything…We have to look at the taxpayer, because the taxpayer is investing in city hall and we have to make the best of it and be as efficient as we can, and in my opinion we are not there yet.”
Kohler wanted to limit the tax increase to 1.8% and forgo any improvements of services, something many other councillors didn’t agree with.
Notably, this is the first time the annual meeting has taken place so close to an election. Despite everyone but herself in full campaign mode, Mayor Sharri Green believes the timing didn’t really affect things;
“I think at the end of the day we got to the same result as I would have expected to get to in any particular year. We have a couple people trying really hard to get the lowest tax rate possible, we’ve got other people who believe you’ve got to spend what you need to spend and if it means an increase in taxes so be it”
This year the city is making another large investment into road rehabilitation and will bump up the snow removal budget by 8.6% that will see the city acquire or rent a significant amount of new snow clearing gear. They will be launching a print and social media campaign to educate the public on the new snow removal procedures for this winter.
After discussion, council ended up signing off on everything city staff recommended with the only addition to the budget being councillor Wilber’s motion to begin evaluation work on the Library front entrance.
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