Six years later, where did they go?

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Herb Pond is making his final walk as the pageant contestants would say, taking that final lap as the Mayor of Prince Rupert, reflective of his time as the CEO of Prince Rupert Inc.

Having decided that two terms was enough, thankful that there are two strong candidates set to seek out the mayoralty and if Frank Visentin’s cat out of the bag commentary is correct, destined for a run at Gary Coon’s provincial seat on the North Coast…

(from  the blog a town called podunk, click on the link below to see the entire article atowncalledpodunk.blogspot.com/2 … 8259178266 )-

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6 years later, how much more expensive are my taxes?  Pond’s legacy will be the oversight of radically increasing taxes and crumbling infrastructure.  Strange that a supposedly pro-business mayor brought some of the highest business taxes to Rupert.

Stranger yet if the BC Liberals do choose him as a candidate, because his record is quite the opposite of traditional BC Liberal ideology.  At least he’ll have a record to defend.

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I guess this is your platform for change here eh mig?  NO wonder everytime you look on HTMF do you see Pond busting going on.  When the leader of the pack puts the bandwagon in motion all the cling ons jump on the wagon.
Where do you think we would be if This mayor wasnt leading the City?  Any better?  I thikn the ground work for a great place to live again has been paved.
I have lived here for 35 good dam years and have seen alot of turbulent times.  None more so than in the last 6years.  This place could of fell of the map.  But we kept on.
We are looking good thanks to the leadership of Herb

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I can never tell if you are joking… :astonished:

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just out of curiosity what has Herb done to improve this town besides going to china?
I’m finding it really hard to find anything positive?

the port …NOPE he didn’t have much to do with that… the cruise ships again he didn’t have anything to do with that, the pulp mill…lmao ya we all know how that ended!!

hmm can someone give us some positives of herbs 6 years as mayor …

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While I definitely don’t agree with Mig, the fact that he has somewhat of a following because of this website certainly doesn’t mean he’s not allowed to express his opinion.

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I don’t think Herb Pond embodies the ideology of the BC Liberals, that’s all.  If I was a BC Liberal, I wouldn’t agree with his policies:

  • higher taxes, including some of the highest business taxes in BC
  • government-owned corporation directly competing with private business, increasing taxes to pay for it.

Those are the complete opposite of the typical BC Liberal ideologies.

I’m not saying I disagree with him, I’m saying that BC Liberals should disagree with him.

But McSash, if you’re going to attack me personally, then you’re going to have to defend some of the outrageous things you’ve said in the past. 

Want me to dig them up?

Answer this, McSash:  do you think that BC Liberals would support raising taxes on business (and individuals) to record levels while the city basically subsidizes city-owned businesses to compete with private corporations?

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[quote=“MiG”]
I don’t think Herb Pond embodies the ideology of the BC Liberals, that’s all.  If I was a BC Liberal, I wouldn’t agree with his policies:

  • higher taxes, including some of the highest business taxes in BC
  • government-owned corporation directly competing with private business, increasing taxes to pay for it.

I’m with McSash on this one. You guys are full of it, shortly after I moved here 10 years ago, Don Scott was elected and didn’t do a damn thing. Sat on his hands. We already had the highest taxed businesses and property of the province and all the debt had already been accumulated. Trying to peg this on Herb is not only ridiculous but obscene as well. The pulp mill was already down and they hadn’t even announced the container port when Herb came in. He’s been a great ambassador for the city and a champion of all our causes. Boo-hoo he travelled, boo-hoo he hired someone the city needed, boo-hoo we couldn’t afford to fix infrastructure because previous administrations spent all the money they didn’t have. Get a grip people, lets see how “bright” our future becomes when Jack or Don take the helm. No really… :unamused:[/quote]

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So Rupert was broke, we needed higher taxes, yet they still managed to keep Citywest, competing with private businesses, and bought a cable company at the same time?

My point, again, because you all seem to have missed it:  It’s not that I disagree with Herb’s policies.  It’s that they are the opposite of what you would expect from a BC Liberal candidate.

To put it another way, do you think BC Liberals would be ok if the city was broke, taxes were raised, and the city decided it would be a good idea to go out and buy a Pizza joint? 

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I think people at HTMF try too hard to politicize municipal politics. There are certainly people elected at the municipal level that emanate certain political views, but no one is confined by party lines.

As such, I think it’s possible for Mayor Pond to be the Mayor and make decisions in order to keep the City going–even if it’s not what his ideal Prince Rupert looks like. I think there’s something seriously wrong with our town if the local Liberals dislike Herb Pond just because he didn’t act Liberal enough while he was the Mayor.

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If the city was broke, why did it have no problem buying a cable company (and raising taxes at the same time)?

If the city was broke, would it be ok to buy a Pizza restaurant (and raise taxes)?

I think that’s the issue, that if the City was broke (and needed to raise taxes), then it should act like it’s broke.

I think local BC Liberals might have an issue with Herb as their candidate on that point.  Government sticking its nose into private enterprise, especially when the government is broke, isn’t exactly the BC Liberal way of doing things.

I think local BC Liberals might also have an issue with Herb being the anointed one, with the provincial party people declaring that he will be the candidate, despite what the local association may think or want.

Me, I don’t have a problem with it.

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You seem to have discovered the main concern of the local Liberals from what I understand, not so much that the soon to be former Mayor has been put into nomination, but more to the point that it appears that he has been selected by the party appartus to be the selected one.

It does appear that the Premier is fond of the soon to be former Mayor, he has been quite eloquent and expressive in his public speeches about him when in our community.

However, that may be the one part of the process that Mr. Campbell can’t control, the opinions of the rank and file liberal party members, who are feeling just a little put off by the way that the Victoria/Vancouver axis has seemed to take charge of the party. Carbon tax anyone?

At any rate, we’re a few months away from the actual Spring campaign and the process will no doubt follow its course, it will be interesting to see who else offers up their name in nomination for the party prior to election time, that may give you an indication if there is the beginning of a split in the old Liberal/BC Reform/Social Credit amalgam that now rules under a rather right wing oriented Liberal banner.

Maybe what the province needs is a “Real” Liberal party to run against the current model of the name…   

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Well, assuming that this was a reply to what I said–I’ll point out that I most expressly did not say that the City was broke. I don’t know if the City was broke–I imagine it wasn’t, or we would have had no money–in which case I don’t see how the City did anything at all.

PERHAPS–and this is just my guess–Perhaps Mayor Pond decided to purchase the cable company because, though expensive, it seemed a sound business decision at the time. You can’t open a grocery store and not sell bread, it doesn’t make sense–likewise, it doesn’t make very much sense to own a telecomunications company and not have any form of television service.

I say this grudgingly, because as we all know VERY WELL now, the Mayor cannot and did not do this without the collaboration and consent of many other people. He wasn’t alone in these decisions, and a very notable attribute of a Liberal is his or her willingness to compromise.

However, I think you’re offbase in stating that CityWest competing with privately owned businesses goes against the Liberal Party’s line. Any learned capitalist will argue to you that a fundamental principal of capitalism is competition.

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So you’re saying that it’s government’s job to buy companies so that it can directly compete with private enterprise, and that’s a fundamental part of capitalism? 

And not only that, but that’s consistent with BC Liberal thinking?

Wow. 

I’ll have to keep that post for the scrapbook.

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First of all–again–municipal government is NOT the same as Provincial government. The spellings are noticably and significantly different. As such, I think the Liberals would look differently at Herb Pond: Mayor making that decision at the municipal level, than they would Herb Pond: MLA.

Also, I didn’t say that the Liberals think “it’s government’s job to buy companies so that it can directly compete with private enterprise, and that’s a fundamental part of capitalism”. Competition is the fundamental part of capitalism–and, again, municipal government owning a company is hardly the same as the provincial government owning a company.

I could use your argument to prove that the local BC Liberals won’t like Herb Pond as a candidate because he supports the City owning a fitness area, which directly competes with privately owned establishments.

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You want it both ways on everything, which is what makes it laughable.

Herb Pond’s decisions as Mayor shouldn’t be judged if he runs for MLA.  Sounds like Sarah Palin.  But Herb Pond’s successes as Mayor should definitely count!  Just not his bad decisions, they shouldn’t count!

The City was in financial trouble, which is why they needed to raise personal and business taxes to a record level.  But that shouldn’t count, because Herb is still pro-business!  So just ignore the raising of business taxes, ok?  Let’s leave that one out! 

But wait, the City wasn’t in financial trouble, because it was able to buy a cable company.  So we raised taxes, while the City dove into the private sector.  But let’s just ignore that bit if he runs for MLA.

You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

Herb Pond’s views toward Citywest contradict the BC Liberal ideology and practice (see Skeena Cellulose, BC Rail, etc).  I know if I was a small business owner and saw my taxes go up while the City was buying a cable company without any consultation, I’d be pissed off.

But you go ahead and insist that the bad parts of his record shouldn’t matter, because municipal government is different than provincial government.  Then go ahead and insist that the good parts of his record should matter, because his performance as mayor would be an indication of his performance as MLA.

It’s called denial, and it’s not just a river in Egypt.

I’m seriously keeping your posts on the role of government, though, because I think they are priceless, especially for someone who identifies as “right wing.” 

Government’s role is to buy companies to provide competition with the private sector!  Hilarious!

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You can throw around straw man all you want, but all I said was that his performance as Mayor should be judged by whether or not it was good for Prince Rupert, not by how Liberal it was.

As much as you want to say the city was short on cash, and therefore it wasn’t in the a comfortable place to purchase a business. Again, you have to spend money to make money. From what you’re telling me, I can only assume that you’re against the City spending money on anything that might have improved its infrastructure. By raising taxes, Herb Pond inadvertently promised you not to spend money? He should have treated the increased revenue from taxes as savings bonds–wait a few years for them to mature? That doesn’t make much sense to me.

Perhaps CityWest wasn’t the best purchase the City could have made at the time, but like it or not (and this is an irrefutable fact), you have to take risks to pull a corporation out of the hole that Rupert was in.

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Just to be clear, I don’t have a problem with the Citywest purchase.  I think BC Liberals in general have a problem with a government that’s nearing bankruptcy and raising taxes turning around and spending money on acquiring a private enterprise.

I definitely think BC Liberals would disagree with your opinion that governments should be buying corporations to provide competition.  And that governments buying corporations is a fundamental part of capitalism.  You wrote that you thought BC Liberals would be ok with it.

I know you regret writing it, since you seem to be trying to spin your way out of it.

You want to retract that, or you really think that’s true?  If so, then let’s just end this thread, and I’ll keep that little gem for future reference.  I still can’t believe you wrote it. Perhaps you can’t believe you wrote it either, which is why you keep trying to spin away from it!

Hilarious!