Prince George

An archive of my posts about my home in the traditional lands of the Lheidli T’enneh, aka the City of Prince George.

I saw this downtown last week and was reminded of this Ted X Talk by Dave Meslin. He proposed that “apathy as we think we know it doesn’t actually exist, but rather that people do care but we live in a world that actively discourages engagement.” He used city notices like these as an example. […]

Posted on 25 June 2012 and filed under articles, Best Of, cities, politics, Prince George

When do localized emergencies penetrate the national consciousness? Or even the people living right next to them?

Posted on 22 June 2012 and filed under articles, journalism, media, Prince George

Pictures from the launch of the Skylab at the Prince George Public Library.

Posted on 16 June 2012 and filed under Prince George

If you missed it, I’ve started a new blog. It’s a mixture of longer writing and short statements and links about the city of Prince George. If you live or care about the city, you may find it interesting. Find it at https://andrewkurjata.ca/confluence.

Posted on 4 June 2012 and filed under Prince George

Prince George council just signed a contract to pay a consulting company $313,720 to conduct a core services review. With a population of 80,000 (somewhere between the “actual” population and the “population served”), this amounts to roughly $3.90 per person. How does that compare to other cities that have done a core review. Here’s a […]

Posted on 30 April 2012 and filed under Prince George

In light of the 30th anniversary of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Frank Peebles has a nice article in the Prince George Citizen today outlining a couple of key charter cases with links to northern B.C. There’s links to the allowance of Sikh turbans as part of the RCMP uniform, and then there’s same-sex […]

Posted on 18 April 2012 and filed under Prince George

Under the headline “P.G. to Hire Puppy Police”, Opinion250 writes: “The City of Prince George, which recently dismantled its environmental services division, let go 9 employees and announced 19 other vacant positions would not be filled, has posted a call for applications for one of two part time positions as a “ Dog License Canvasser”” The comments section is full of people scratching their heads over why […]

Posted on 18 April 2012 and filed under Prince George

Whether it succeeds or fails, an ambitious real estate project will change the future of northern B.C.

Posted on 12 April 2012 and filed under articles, Best Of, comments, main, Prince George

A correction to an earlier post, clarifying how costs and revenues of free downtown parking in Prince George is calculated.

Posted on 6 April 2012 and filed under comments, Prince George

Is downtown parking actually making money?

Posted on 3 April 2012 and filed under comments, Prince George

The Prince George Free Press has an interesting take on city council’s decision to bring back pay parking downtown: “Council’s decision to possibly bring back parking meters is purely a business decision. The bottom line has been negatively impacted by the removal of parking meters, so “bring ‘em back.” It flies in the face of […]

Posted on 30 March 2012 and filed under articles, Prince George

In the wake of it being disclosed that Prince George Mayor Shari Green had the most expensive campaign in city history (in which she spent more than all five Kamloops mayoral candidates combined [source]), there’s a small debate surrounding municipal elections and financing. Speaking to CBC, Councillor Brian Skakun made the following comments: “It makes […]

Posted on 16 March 2012 and filed under articles, British Columbia, comments, politics, Prince George

November 2011: Prince George mayoral candidate Shari Green outlines her leadership style: “Public confidence will be restored when council leads by example.” “We need to live within our means, with financial discipline and by finding efficiencies.” “I will challenge our staff to find cost savings in every department, and efficiencies in every operation.” March 2012: “City […]

Posted on 15 March 2012 and filed under articles, comments, Prince George

Hey, new census results! Statistics Canada released its latest population numbers this morning. I looked up Prince George and found three different things: census subdivision, census agglomeration, and population centre. I had no ideas what these are, so I looked them up. Here’s what I’ve found. Census subdivision: “Area that is a municipality or an […]

Posted on 8 February 2012 and filed under Prince George

Following up on this post, I did email mayor and council my questions about the positions eliminated at city hall. Here is the reply received from Mayor Shari Green: “Andrew, on behalf of Council, here are responses to your questions below… 1.    Why the elimination of the environment division not proactively disclosed to citizens? On […]

Posted on 7 February 2012 and filed under articles, comments, Prince George