Has everyone signed the petition to bring the CityTel incorporation to referendum?
You’ve got until Aug. 9th 4pm to get them to City Hall.
Here’s the petition:
Take it around and fill up several …
Because you said so?
Mike
Only if you want to numbnuts. CityTel WILL be incorporated without citizen input if 1000 signatures aren’t presented.
And?
You see usually people provide some sort of opinion and/or argument why they encourage people to do something. Unless of course you’re just providing the link for information purposes, in which case I apologise. It just seemed to me you were hoping that people would just blindly sign.
Mike
Sign to bring it to a referendum.
He’s not expressing his opinion about whether it’s a good thing or not, but rather whether the people should be asked if it should happen.
If it were to be done by referendum, then we would have a chance to debate the pros and cons, and the result would be democratic. Right now, it doesn’t seem to be a very democratic process.
[quote=“MiG”]Sign to bring it to a referendum.
He’s not expressing his opinion about whether it’s a good thing or not, but rather whether the people should be asked if it should happen.
If it were to be done by referendum, then we would have a chance to debate the pros and cons, and the result would be democratic. Right now, it doesn’t seem to be a very democratic process.[/quote]
Kinda like every otherp process in prince rupert hey 
so what does this mean for citytel? who gets the shares? can they be sold? are they selling them… i think more information needs to be disclosed!
Read the paper today.
Apparently there’a deal in the works to massively expand citytel. If we sign the petition, the window of opportunity will be gone, and the expansion won’t happen (it will almost triple subscribers and make our internet not suck). Something to consider BEFORE you sign.
City owns 100% of the shares. No plans to sell.
The argument is that if Citytel were a corporation instead of a City department, they could make their own decisions quickly, without having to have council approve every little thing.
Also, if Citytel wants to start a new service or business venture, it basically has to tell city council and everybody about it well before it actually happens – so Citytel competitors would know every Citytel move 6 months or a year before it happens.
That’s the argument, anyway.
Except that we voted these people in as part of a democratic process. I see your point Miguel, I’m just not sure I agree with you.
Mike
Nobody ran for Council (or mayor) on the platform of spinning off Citytel.
It’s a huge issue now, but wasn’t really part of the debate during the municipal elections. When you voted, did you know which candidates were in favour or against making Citytel a corporation?
That’s the whole point of a referendum – it’s when you have a big issue that didn’t come up during an election.
Remember the referendum on the pulp mill? Why have that if we already elected a council democratically? For the same reason we should have one on the Citytel issue.
I’m not really strongly in favour or against the Citytel move, but I’d like to hear a debate – and it didn’t happen during the election.
Our internet doesn’t suck. Just the opposite, I’d say.
This site (and many other local sites) wouldn’t exist without Citytel. There’s no way I could run these sites on a Telus or Shaw or Monarch line. Not without paying lots of money, anyway.
I remember what it was like before Citytel got into the internet. I’d say we’re doing pretty damn well and improving all the time. Don’t get me wrong… I’m not a citytel fanboy. I have my internet related issues with them. One of them an ongoing one. I just know that we’re doing very well when compared to other service providers.
Mike
I am in favour of CityTel incorporation. I have not really heard any arguments that would cause me to change my mind. The way it is now City Tel must present itself before Council everytime it does anything. If it is incorporated at least it will be able to be run more efficiently like a business. I know for a fact that Rogers Wireless is looking at purchasing a piece of land close to town to put up a repeater. CityTel has to position itself to be able to compete in a very competitive market. Rogers is a huge outfit and they now own Fido as well.
CityTel may also end up in a better position to compete in other BC markets as well. I know that the Kitimat-Stikine Reginal District has been divided in bringing in 911 service to its towns and villages. Perhaps this may position CityTel to be able to be a 911 call center for Kitimat and Terrace.
If anyone has any ideas which would change my mind I’m open to listening.
So im guessing i should go apply for a job at citytel? 
Also Citytels internet service is great I have experience with both shaw and telus and well shaw is a decent provider but I wouldnt touch a telus connection with a 10 foot pole. Their customer service sucks and so do their adsl modems I love my citytel internet connection I run several websites here and have a small cluster operating in my basement 
It’s the cell services that suck incredibly. If there is going to be a petition for anything it should be to force CityTel to get with the times and upgrade their equipment. It’s the year 2005 and we don’t even have text msg’ing. It’s disgusting.
yes writing out words and internet shorthand is technological advancement at its best and its pathetic they havnt implemented it yet 
I dont know what equipment they are using right now but my bet is its capable of text messaging. Either way upgrading the equipment isnt like upgrading your computer theres alot of $$ involved and citytel is a small telco.
omghi2u
No see, that wouldn’t be possible. Citytel doesnt have the business base to be able to support more modern cell phone service. We already have Digital cell phone service, but to upgrade the cell service to get email, and web browsing on your cell phone, it would cost far too much, and they’d have to hike the pricing by huge margins. As far as the internet service goes, I don’t think most people have a leg to stand on when they say that the internet service sucks. If you’ve ever used another service provider for internet, you’d know that citytel is pretty top knotch.
[quote=“jesus”]
yes writing out words and internet shorthand is technological advancement at its best and its pathetic they havnt implemented it yet
I dont know what equipment they are using right now but my bet is its capable of text messaging. Either way upgrading the equipment isnt like upgrading your computer theres alot of $$ involved and citytel is a small telco.
omghi2u[/quote]
Text paging has taken over years ago pretty much everywhere. We’re stuck carrying around pagers like monkeys here. With text msging can get all your pages on the phone with way more information then a pager could carry. And if your set up with two way text msgning you can do all kinds of usefull stuff. It’s a work thing for me.
I’d be happy if telus came in cause they have everything I need. Although their internet services are worse, it’s worth it as a trade off for me. I also think all the tourists would be pumped if they could use all the features on their cells.
Nobody is saying that it wouldnt be nice to have those services, but its just not marketable here. Terrace has Telus and they dont have text messaging. I don’t even think Prince George has it… Its only like Lower mainland and Lower Van Island that have it in BC I think.
Yea and this is bad why? Citytel cant go after private money to upgrade their infrustructure, the city cant afford it. And as it stands now, citytel is forbidden by law, by the municipal act, not to be able to go after private financing. By incorporating they can.
Also, if the city were to go bankrupt, council is dissolved and a person appointed by the province is brought in to run to the city. This would hurt citytel in a big way. As an incorporated company, the city going bankrupt, or in recievership in effect, it would not affect citytel.