Soooo… you really did go there, did you? :evil:
And on the side off-topic note, getting picked on I believe is sometimes part of the essential social childhood development to a complete adult life.
Nobody is immune to be picked and bullied on.
I think you need to be bullied in real life, since being barked collectively on this local discussion board for your sometimes amusingly unforgiving comments didn’t have any effect on you. >.>
Billy is still in the midst of taking his schooling “online”, this is as close to getting bullied he is gonna get.
the city would of been in great shape if it wasnt for dan miller promiseing
us he would look after us and instead of signing a legal document he shook
hands with the city td bank got there 100 million how about us i still think
there should be a public inguirey like enron
I would like to address the concerns people are having regarding the motion passed regarding grants at the council meeting on Nov. 23.
The motion was (not exact wording but it is the intent of what was passed) for staff to send letters to all those organizations who had received grants last year, to inform them that their grant MAY be reduced by up to 25% or more next year, and that they should not count on getting what they received last year. Staff were also directed to arrange meetings with those who have requested grants so that they could present their case to council.
There HAS NOT been a decision made to unilaterally cut grants by 25% across the board.
Here are my reasons for supporting this motion:
I stated at the council meeting that our city has three choices about giving out grants:
By informing these organizations about the city’s financial situation ahead of time, and the reductions that may need to be made in grants given, the hope is that they, in turn, will take a long hard look at how they can try to save money, possibly find new sources of revenue, and think of ways to cut costs. Then when we meet with them, the hope is that we can work together and find a way to help them survive in these tough economic times.
There is no doubt that some hard decisions may need to be made, and considerations about what organizations are most utilized by the community will obviously weigh heavily on those decisions.
However, as a council member I also realize the value and benefit of these organizations to the community and as a council we will be considering each grant request on its own merits, and based on its value/contribution to the community as a whole.
Another question that has been posed in this thread was related to whether or not the fact that Watson Island is now owned by the city, as a result of Sunwave defaulting on their taxes, has had any bearing on the need to look at grant reductions. The simple answer is yes.
There are many reasons why our city is in such a difficult financial position, and why are we having to look at reductions to grants.
While I don’t have all the answers here are a few of the reasons:
Costs are increasing for everything across the board, be it heating, electricity, gas, wages etc. When the HST comes into effect in July these could increase even more. We are looking for ways to cut costs, and create more efficiencies. If you have any ideas I’d love to hear them.
Provincial and federal government cuts and downloading of services, without providing resources, have increased the financial burden municipalities have to take on. One particular example of this can be seen with regards to the cuts to gaming grants. Organizations are now looking to the city for additional money because their gaming grant is no longer there. This continual downloading is impossible for municipalities to continue to cover. We simply do not have the money to do it.
Our industrial tax base is almost gone. Without this revenue the city is continually having to dip into reserves in order to cover costs. Obviously, we are hoping to attract new industries such as Canpotex to help this situations but nothing is certain.
4. When Sunwave defaulted on their taxes the city automatically became the owner of the property (this is how the tax laws work) and therefore became responsible for the maintenance etc. associated with the property. This is costing our city $100,000 a month which we simply cannot afford. This is why council made the decision to sell the property. If we sell it, not only will we not have the cost of the maintenance, but we will get the back taxes owed by Sunwave and perhaps even some additional money to help out with our city finances. In the meantime, we are stuck with the bill.
I hope that helps people understand some of the financial crunch our city is in and why we are having to look at reducing costs.
Have you guys discussed cutting city staff and managerial type positions to get more in line with what other, not so cash strapped cities are doing?
Or how about the selling of CityWest? The City might actually still be able to gain some profit from a sale there (before that window closes) without having to bear the costs of all that expansion in Kitimat, Terrace and points beyond for their cable adventures.
Might want to reduce the asking price for Watson Island so as to generate a buyer, otherwise you might be paying that 1.2 mil on maintenance for a few years to come.
By the way, thanks for taking the time to offer up a dialogue here, it may get you in trouble with other Knights of the roundtable at City Hall, but the peasants appreciate it. 
My only question is what has changed for Prince Rupert in the last 2 years. Did we all not see this situation with the mill coming? Did we not see no new industrial tax base coming? Did we not realize our city (with all its infrastructure) is going to turn 100?
But as the above post states we the people NEED to understand the situation the city is in. Because obviously we haven’t figured it out in the last almost 10 years. Shame on us for being stupid people. Shame shame.
The City might also think about selling the Alaska ferry dock. If I recall correctly, the Alaskans were willing to buy that for $7 million. That file seems to have fallen silent, although the Mayor talked at election time about selling surplus assets. Suggestions some time ago about selling fire equipment and a heritage house seem a bit nickel and dime by comparison to Citywest and the ferry dock.
The argument is made, I suppose, that those assets “make money”, but even leaving aside questions about whether the return on investment is really that attractive, there seem to be some false economics here.
Capital tied up in a telecom and a dock is capital that is not invested in replacing aged infrastructure, but the cost of maintaining and patching up the latter can only increase as it deteriorates. There is thus a hidden cost, I suggest, to not replacing/upgrading old infrastructure while potentially available capital is ‘invested’ elsewhere.
As for the Golf Club and its $85,000 in operating and capital grants and $71,400 in tax exemptions in 2009 - a total cost to the City of $156,400 - well, old ways of thinking die hard I guess, even during tough times.
we need to really hard and my feeling is we need to raise taxes on the wealthy
in prince rupert any property over 250.000 a 5 % tax hike and a 10 % surtax
on any commercial propert over 500.000 value i for one will be willing to
pay a 10 percent tax to keep my servises prince rupert we need to keep our
city going no one is going to come and hand us cash this would be just for one year
and then the mill will be sold and were back on our feet again its going to be
hard but we will get by if we act fast
well thats being tototally biased to people in this town who work hard and already pay some of the highest taxes in the country . my mother pays less taxes on her house in victoria which was asessed at 700k. do u own a house for u to even say this ?
You would have to base the tax on income, because the assessed value of your property doesn’t always correlate with how much money you make. An example of this would be the people over on the west side who’s property taxes have spiked dramatically in the last couple of years because the property is of interest to the port. Anyway who do you think makes the decisions to levy new taxes anyway? The pricks on the hill are not going to tax themselves!
Seems every year there is some gigantic fuck-up at City Hall, this year its Watson Island, a couple years ago it was that huge “misplaced” sum of money or accounting error that everyone had to pay for.
The mill will be sold in one year ? To whom?
i own my own home and its over 250.000 im proud of my town and i care
what happens to it and im willing to pay for the great sevices we have like the
great civic center the pool the pac the mill will be sold and prince rupert will
be like new york a power house for the shipping industry we need to be positive
and fight for our town just watch next year rupert will boommmmm!!!
Can I have some of those drugs you’re taking? 
Nothing like a good dose of idealism to make your day !
well at least your positive lol
[quote=“ajaye46”]
i own my own home and its over 250.000 im proud of my town and i care
what happens to it and im willing to pay for the great sevices we have like the
great civic center the pool the pac the mill will be sold and prince rupert will
be like new york a power house for the shipping industry we need to be positive
and fight for our town just watch next year rupert will boommmmm!!!
What are you from the Pond era? Next year Rupert will Boommmmmmmmm, with what we have seen this city council doing so far and it has been one year, shit no one gets out alive I believe because we may have to sell our souls to get an F/N tube steak. Yeah build another outdoor gym, how about more work on the port ’ right got that 3million covered, Pulp move was real smooth Jacko, not bad enough that we and our children and our grand children maybe great grand children are going to be stuck for Gordo’s disney world games debt. but now we have to be punished for some asshole move between the Chinese and previous Pond city council move. Yeah I can see the Boom now.[/quote]
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Easy now dude, easy now…
It’s probably those daily supplement capsules with compacted white wool in it.
Our taxes are way too high for the services offered and our taxes keep going up. Get rid of the mill, accept the fact that the taxes in arrears are never going to be paid and that Sunwave took advantage of the town. Now we have 25% reduction in budgets for the PAC and the Library on the plate, along with other services. We need the Library, PAC, Civic Centre and etc to keep us all sane and healthy - what is a the town without these?!
dont worry folks we are on the tip of a tide awave,prince rupert
in 2010 will see the mill sold the port grow and a wind farm come
togather hold on to your hats and injoy the ride.