My issue was the way in which a newspaper article about a racist incident didn’t stop at reporting on the occurrence of a racist incident. Instead, it widened the scope and settled upon quoting someone saying that Prince George is the most racist and bigoted place he’d ever been in Canada, based on purely subjective experience and without any form of qualification or challenge.

I’m trying to imagine this happening in other circumstances. You can have an article about a car accident without going to a pullquote about someone who thinks drivers here are just the worst- far worse than anywhere else they’ve visited. You can have an article about a murder without portraying the entire city as violent. So why does an article about a racial slur need to have someone call the entire city one of the most racist and bigoted, without qualification?

It would be nice if we could easily conclude Prince George is the most racist city in Canada because someone yelled at protesters and there were racial slurs in a workplace. If we could, it would mean the rest of the country would be havens of tolerance, completely free of even verbal racism. Unfortunately, that is not the case. For example:

• This person thinks St. John’s is pretty racist.

• This guy had a cross burned on his lawn in Nova Scotia and racial slurs thrown his way.

• This mosque in Port Coquitlum had bacon thrown over it.

• Check out how racist people in Vancouver are.

• Also the Okanagan.

My point isn’t to imply that any of these locations have particularly bad race relations compared to the rest of Canada, either. It’s to demonstrate that racism of the sort in the Citizen article (and worse) occurs across the country. Using the methodology of the Citizen/person quoted I could come to the conclusion that each and every one of these places is an outlier, the most racist and bigoted in Canada. More reasonably, I could conclude that it’s a problem not limited by geography, and what’s occurred in Prince George is, sadly, not unique.

Does that make racism OK or diminish the experience of those subjected to it? No.  But drawing the conclusion that Prince George is uniquely bigoted and racist- and publishing a newspaper article that forwards that viewpoint without qualification- not only unfairly tarnishes the city in comparison to others, it fails to acknowledge the extent to which racism exists throughout the country.

Don’t be passive and don’t accept it. But don’t imagine it’s limited to here, either.

From the Prince George Citizen:

Rally met with ‘open rascism’

“About 30 minutes into the three-hour rally a middle-aged woman strolled past and suggested the 21 people at the gathering ‘get a job’ or ‘have a drink.’”

And… that’s it.

I get why this would be interpreteted as racist, given that the Idle No More movement is Aboriginal-based, and the stereotypes Aboriginal people in this country face.

But I’m not convinced this is open racism.

Telling protesters to get a job is hardly original and is tied more to ideology than race. More problematic is the comment to get a drink, which doesn’t really make sense unless you’re pulling out the stereotype. But that’s not not open racism, it’s veiled (semantics, I know, racism is racism).

Anyways, we’ve established that a single person in a city of 80,000 told protesters to get a job or have a drink. Surely we wouldn’t use this to publish a newspaper article implying the city as a whole is one of the most racist and bigoted in the country?

“[name] grew up in Prince George and has travelled across Canada from St. John’s, Nfld., to Haida Gwaii and agreed about the attitudes in his hometown.

‘Prince George is one of the most racist and bigoted places that I’ve ever been in,’ said the 24-year-old construction worker of European descent. ‘My girlfriend, and mother of my child, is half South African and I’ve been called a n*** lover in a workplace in Prince George and that was OK. This has happened quite a number of times.’”

Oh. Well then.

Look, these comments suck. But they are hardly proof that Prince George is one of the most racist and bigoted places the person quoted or anyone has ever been in. I’ve been here longer than him and have been called nothing of the sort (members of my own family are visible minorities, so there has been plenty of opportunity for all these racists to let the slurs rain down upon me. They have not.)

But you know what? My experience proves nothing either. We’re pitting anecdotal evidence against anecdotal evidence. His experience is as real as mine and both are only parts of the truth. You encounter one bigot on a bus somewhere. That doesn’t make the whole city racist. I don’t encounter racism of the sort quoted. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, either.

I’m not trying to brush racism aside, or suggest it doesn’t happen. It exists, and it’s terrible.

My overall issue is with the way this report is put together. It fails to  seek out the other side of the story (the people who don’t think the city is more racist than others) or find some actual proof- an expert or demographics. It’s just anecdotes. I could create basically any narrative I want using this method. And I do take issue with reporting that paints a portrait of an entire city as racist based on anecdote.

Follow-up: Racism is not limited to Prince George.

There’s been a smattering of interest in Prince George in Vancouver media lately, with both the Vancouver Sun and Global Television doing features on the city that are decidedly positive. They might be a little late to the party, though.

The first big thing to spread around was an article in the Vancouver Sun this February. Titled “Affordable Prince George offers family balance,” it goes through a laundry list of reasons Prince George is a great place to live. It starts with a story about people helping out a recently-transplanted Vancouver family when their car broke down. Then it informs people that the city has a university, malls, sports (even judo!), and is pretty easy to drive around.

I’ll admit, around the paragraph it starts listing out the musicians who have come to the city (Elton John! Avril Lavigne!) I always have to double-check this isn’t a paid advertisement. It reads like an official pamphlet (Costco! Canadian Tire! Lakes!) with a couple of anecdotes to round things out. Literally the most critical thing in this article is the fact that it’s somewhat cold in winter. I love Prince George and all, but it surprised me that a newspaper article has so little interest in pointing out the challenges- the whole “most dangerous city” thing springs to mind. I mean, I’m not saying you have to dwell on it, but maybe acknowledge it? It’s that sort of balance that separates newspapers from brochures.¹

Prince George Citizen editor Neil Godbout had a similar reaction. Around the time that first article appeared, Vancouver Sun associate Fazil Milhar came to town and talked about how it was time for the story of the north to be communicated to people in the Lower Mainland. Godbout’s take:

“While the positive press in recent days is appreciated, it’s going to take more than a couple of patronizing stories to change the Lower Mainland’s view of us yokels up here in the frozen hinterland and it’s going to take more than a sales pitch and a pat on the head to convince northerners that Vancouver residents are suddenly educated about the merits of Northern. B.C.”

It’s an interesting question: are these stories positive or patronizing? Well, I was able to interview Fazil Mihlar about why the Sun is publishing the articles and his take on Godbout’s criticism. You can listen to it on the Daybreak North website. Briefly, he does want to educate people about the north because he thinks it’s an important part of British Columbia’s economic future and is not well-understood by many in the southern part of the province. He doesn’t think the stories are patronizing or even necessarily positive, but that they are providing a more nuanced view than is normally presented, and there are plans for more critical stories about the challenges of northern life in the future. Have a listen.

So there’s the Sun. But now there’s a video put together by Global TV called “Prince George revival.” The description: “Prince George also suffered from forestry’s shrinking fortunes, but its University is leading a recovery.” The video plays as follows:

• there is a restaurant downtown that is doing well. It is called Nancy-O’s
• there is a university. Lots of people work there, and many of the students stay in the city after they graduate
• holy cow, it’s a lot cheaper to live in Prince George than it is Vancouver!

Like the Sun articles, it is technically accurate. The news hook is that Global is painting these developments as part of a recovery (it also profiles Kamloops and the Northwest). But all this would have been more timely if Global had copped onto these changes anywhere within the last two decades.

Seriously, aside from Nancy-O’s (which has only been around three years) this could have been made at any point in the past ten-fifteen years. Downtown has continuously shown signs of recovery. I wrote it about it in the university newspaper almost decade ago.  On that note, I went to this recovery-leading university almost a decade ago, and it had already been open most of my life. And the real-estate prices? Not exactly groundbreaking.

Neither the Sun series nor the Global video are harmful. They seem like a well-meaning attempt to show Prince George in a positive light (and maybe sell ads to northern businesses happy with the coverage, another interesting Godbout suggestion²).  It may be a much-needed antidote to some of the more negative attention the city has received.

But the whole thing bothers me a little bit, and here’s why I think that is: there’s nothing new here, and it doesn’t really capture the local flavour.

First, there’s the nothing new angle. Awesome that you discovered this stuff now, but where have you been? The fact that the existence of UNBC is presented as new/surprising information is troubling. UNBC is consistently ranked highly in a number of categories, regularly does groundbreaking research, and has been a central part of the north (and by extension, the province) for over a decade. But the angle for the Sun and Global is basically “There’s a university in Prince George- who knew?”

Then the complete lack of local flavour. There’s room to list off the fact that KISS, Elton John, and Willie Nelson have breezed through town, but not a single mention of any of the local artist and entertainers that regularly perform here- or that there is, indeed, a vibrant local arts scene at all. Global starting at Nancy-O’s is a nice touch, but Nancy-O’s is one of the biggest supporters of local arts acts around, and you don’t see that. Being able to say that Nickelback has come to town does not exactly set you apart. The fact that on any given night there are a variety of competing arts events to choose from does. It would be nice to have that reflected.

Is it condescending, as Godbout says? I don’t know.  I hope these pieces are just the beginning of these outlets deciding they want to pay more attention to the province outside of the Lower Mainland, and these stories are just the launch points to more in-depth coverage. In other words, I hope that five years from now the existence of UNBC is presented as something regular readers of the Sun and watchers of Global should know about, rather than a surprise. Links:

• Vancouver Sun editor wants to educate readers about northern B.C. (CBC interview)
• Affordable Prince George offers family balance (Vancouver Sun article)
• Metro, Prince George increasingly interdependent (Vancouver Sun article)
• Prince George revival (Global TV video)
• Blinded by the Sun (Prince George Citizen editorial)

“Fort George Park is half graveyard, half love letter.”

It is from this poem by Prince George poet/musician Jeremy Stewart. It pops into my head at least once a week. It probably doesn’t mean anything to anyone outside of Prince George and even then you have to have a very particular relationship with the city for it to resonate. But it resonates for me, and the fact that it’s for such a specific audience is what makes it special. Universal art is wonderful, but so is the stuff that’s hyper-local.

Seek out your local artists- they’re telling your story the way no one else can.

This morning, I sat in studio and manned the boards (and hung out in the Facebook group) while the regular host of Daybreak in Prince George guest-hosted North by Northwest.

It was a lot of fun. Doing a weekend arts and culture show with long-form interviews has a much different feel than doing a weekday current affairs show where things max out at seven minutes. There’s a rush to doing the current affairs, but it was nice to sort of chill out and listen to people share interesting ideas.

There was a northern medical student and professor who are bridging the gap between health care and storytelling. There was the owner of Prince George’s first Persian restaurant. And there was a Tsimshian musical duo who shared their story of transitioning from playing heavy metal to country- and had some fascinating stories.

It was great to help showcase some of the interesting people in the north on a show that is broadcast province-wide. North by Northwest regularly talks to people from this region, but having a whole three hours dedicated to it I would think would really drive home the fact that there’s a lot more going on up here than many people probably think. It’s what keeps me so busy during the week.

You can listen to highlights at cbc.ca/nxnw.

When my partner and I were looking for a house, there was one that we really liked. Good space, nice kitchen, big yard. And one of the best parts was it backed onto a greenbelt. But before we thought about making an offer we did some research. Turns out the greenbelt was slated for a new subdivision. If we hadn’t checked it out we would have bought a house we thought backed onto the woods only to wind up buying next to a construction zone.

I think most people, when choosing where to live, consider the property itself, as well as where it is located. You might love the idea of owning a cheap multistory building, but not if it’s in the middle of a highway. The problem is, we only have direct control over our own homes, and not everything around them.

That’s where the Official Community Plan comes in. By its own definition:

“An OCP is a statement of objectives and policies to guide decisions on planning and land use management within the City.“

Essentially, a guideline to give you a sense of what the city plans on doing with various neighbourhoods. You don’t want your residential street to be transformed into strip malls without notice.

That’s a key point missing in some of the criticism being leveled at the Haldi Road residents fighting the city’s ongoing efforts to build a recovery center in their neighbourhood. People are characterizing them as “NIMBY“s willing to “forsake the forsaken.” And I get why the critics would do that – they are sympathetic to the needs of women struggling with addiction. But having questions about where the recovery centre should go doesn’t automatically mean you are unsympathetic to the needs of those who would use the center.

Here’s some things I think are important and even essential to a city, but don’t want built next to me: police stations, hospitals, movie theaters, McDonald’s, and night clubs. I’m sure you have lots of things, too. You’re not against them, but you don’t love the idea of sirens going up and down your street every time there’s an emergency or excited revelers lining up down your street to get into a club every Friday night. It would alter your neighbourhood and negate at least part of the reason you live where you do.

The people who live in the Haldi Road neighbourhood bought somewhere with a school and houses and wilderness. They like it that way and expected it to stay that way. Why wouldn’t they? The zoning bylaws said it would. The Official Community Plan put in place recently backed that up- so much so that when city council tried to alter zoning rules to build the recovery center, a court case said they couldn’t because it violated the OCP.

In this sense, there may be something more than whether or not a recovery center can be built in the Haldi Road neighbourhood at stake in this story. It might also be how much control you’re allowed to have over your own neighbourhood. The residents of Haldi Road have zoning bylaws, the Official Community Plan, a petition signed by members of the neighbourhood, turnout at numerous meetings, and a court ruling saying that they want their residential neighbourhood to remain a residential neighbourhood. If council successfully bypasses all of this, what does it mean for the zoning bylaws and Official Community Plan in any neighbourhood? This time it’s a recovery center, but it could hypothetically be anything: replace a school with a strip mall, a park with a garbage dump. The last one, incidentally, almost happened in my own neighbourhood in the 1980s until community members fought back.

A recovery center may have merit. But as the debate continues, ask yourself: if a recovery center, or a performing arts center, or an all-night roller disco was going to be built on a piece of land in your neighbourhood, how would you feel? Would you want to be consulted? And what if you and your neighbours decided you really didn’t want it to happen? How much control should you have over your neighbourhood?

There’s obvious criticism, especially with the relatively fresh elimination of 28 job at city hall. But, the city has roughly 80,000 people. 8 councillors is one for ever 10,000. Seems about right to me.

1. They only rank the top 100, and only look at cities with a population above 10,000
2. Ranking the most dangerous city in Canada is a little like ranking the worst hockey players in the NHL – they’re all pretty good compared to the world at large

Related to the above, you can also make an argument about the usefulness of “best” and “worst” ratings at all when it comes to crime rates. “Worst” may not mean “bad.” Hypothetically, you could become the most dangerous city in the country thanks to a single incident, so long as everywhere else was crime-free.

So with those grains of salt taken, here’s my question: what if Prince George actually is Canada’s most dangerous city? Maclean’s doesn’t throw a dart at a map to make these rankings. It’s based on actual data, calculating the number of “severe crimes” – homicide, sexual assault, aggravated assault, vehicle theft, robbery and breaking and entering – that occur per 100,000 people. Using this methodology, Prince George comes out on top.

After the first number-one ranking Prince George received, a Twitter movement called”#IHeartPG” sprang up. The idea was to spread positive messages about the city to counter the negative perceptions that would be associated with it as a result of the crime ranking. I’m all for spreading positive messages. I love this city, as my last two posts can attest.

But there’s a line between focusing on the positive and straight-up sticking your head in the sand. Every year, people spring up with the argument “I live here, and I feel safe!” point of view. Fair enough. Tell that to the people who’ve been victim to aggravated or sexual assault. The problem with your own experience is that it’s just your own experience. You can’t extrapolate whether a place is safe or not based solely on what’s happened to you. That’s why we use data like crime statistics.

Which brings us to the also-pervasive “it only happens to certain people.” Take your pick as to who those certain people are. Usually, people mean severe crimes like violence and assault only happen to gangsters. In official parlance, it’s people who lead “high-risk” lifestyles. Case in point:

“Those living high risk lifestyles have a high probability of being a victim of a criminal act, Stubbs continued, “however, the incidents of random violence for those citizens that contribute positively to our community is relatively low and the community needs to know that – this is a safe community.”

Which is also a fair point to make, I suppose. If assaults are going to be happening, it’s comforting to think that if I don’t do drugs and stay out of the wrong neighbourhoods, they probably won’t happen to me. But it also feels kind of crappy. What if you can’t afford to leave the neighbourhood? What if you’re some kid who witnesses a gang shooting? Or you’re a person who is trying to work with those leading “high-risk” lifestyles and you keep hearing about those problems and people you know are being hurt? Is it really a solution to say we’re not the most dangerous city because yeah, there’s dangerous crimes, but it’s only happening to bad people in the poor part of town?

None of this is to say that there isn’t value in the #IHeartPG movement or that the RCMP aren’t doing their job (crime is going down, after all). But I’ve been somewhat frustrated that since Prince George was ranked #1 again last year, the official line from city hall has been to encourage people to spread a positive message instead of a negative one. I like spreading a positive message. But it has to go along with a rational look at the facts and a discussion over whether we can do better. And that seems to be what the proposed Mayor’s Task Force On Crime (item G1) is about. In it, the mayor writes about the positives of Prince George, but adds:

“We lack a comprehensive strategy that: reduces crime and increases community safety; increases public involvement in reducing crime; increases integration between all stakeholders involved in crime reduction and; improves public awareness around the reality and perception of crime.”

Her proposal is to take a look at the model that Surrey has been using to reduce its crime rates and increase feelings of public safety and finding ways the city of Prince George, RCMP and other groups might adopt similar strategies. The emphasis on a positive message is still there, but so is acknowledgement that there’s room for improvement. That’s how change happens. I don’t know for sure that this task force will work. But I’m willing to bet it will work a lot better than simply looking the other way when another “high-risk” lifestyle comes to an end.

Last night as part of my MC duties, I got to present Jim Brinkman of Books and Company with the first-ever Coldsnap Person of the Year Award (that’s me holding an ice sculpture for him to smash, “breaking the ice” to open the festival). Books and Company has been a staple of this city for as long as I can remember, and hosts everything from open mics to chess clubs to various philosophy discussions put on by UNBC professors back in my undergrad days.

More than a bookstore, Books and Company calls itself Prince George’s Living Room, a title it has more than earned. It’s a store, but it feels more like a public space where people gather to find out what’s happening around the community, meet friends, and just hang out.

More important than attracting a lot of people, I think, is the type of people Books and Company brings together. Jim gave a short speech last night where he espoused the importance of live theater, meeting your neighbours, and taking a chance on seeing unknown musicians rather than the million-selling superstars. The importance of being a local as defined in this post by Steve Corona:

The gift of Books and Company and the businesses and spaces like them is their ability to cater to these locals and then bring others into the fold, creating more and more “locals” in the process. The more people are willing to discover the unique treats this location has to offer, the healthier our community will be.

In just over an hour, I get to MC opening night of the fifth annual Coldsnap Music Festival. I remember going to the first festival in 2008, back when I was still in university. It was a super-cold winter, with people’s cars not starting and the river freezing and causing ice jams that had people worried about floods.

I remember people braving this to go to these tiny downtown venues to see artists like Said the Whale and Dan Mangan that are famous now but no one had heard of then and just being blown away. And I remember being outside one of these venues and seeing everyone in there listening to this music and it looked like they were huddled up in a log cabin against the darkness of these downtown that no one’s supposed to want to go in, especially not at night on a weekday in minus 20. And I remember thinking that something like Coldsnap could really change the character of the city.

For the last five years, Coldsnap has been the time when music fans in other cities are jealous of Prince George because we get double-bills like Hannah Georgas opening for Joel Plaskett or Basia Bulat sharing the stage with Shad. And it’s also a time when a couple of kids from Quesnel can open up for a nationally-known group like Whitehorse and blow everyone away, including Whitehorse.

In fact, this year some of the acts I’m most looking forward to aren’t from out of town, but right here at home. I’ve never seen Derek Joyce play solo, but his recordings sound awesome. Keith Cummings has come out of nowhere for me. The Salt Water Brothers are former Tsimshian metal guys taking on traditional country. I finally get to see Vanderhoof’s Rosewood’s Diary and Terrace’s King Crow and the Ladies From Hell.

If you are in or near Prince George, I strongly encourage you to take a look at the lineup and come out to at least one show or workshop, especially if you aren’t a person who normally sees live music. Coldsnap is a great introduction to the talent this city has to offer, and a gateway to entertainment year-round.

Why is Prince George called “Prince George”? It might be in honour of King George III. But no one’s quite sure.

The local First Nation, on the other hand, know exactly why they have their name. “Lheidli T’enneh” quite literally means “people of the confluence”. This is because they lived and live at the meeting of the Fraser and Nechako rivers.

Ever since learning this, I’ve wished early European settlers hadn’t insisted on changing things. We’re still people of a confluence, not just of rivers but of highways, a railroad, education, and an international airport. But instead, here we are naming ourselves after a foreign monarch who never set foot anywhere near here. Our name, the very essence of our identity, has nothing to do with who we are and what we do. It’s meaningless.

* * *

Today, the 2015 Winter Games announced that the Lheidli T’enneh would be the first ever “Official Host First Nation” for the Canada Winter Games. It will involve using the Dakelh language in the programming, and the raising of the Lheidli flag, a first for the city of Prince George.

This is on the heels of a few other initiatives: the Tourism Prince George offices downtown have pictures of animals in their windows, accompanied by the Dakhelh language words for them. Along George Street, there are bilingual “Welcome” signs. And this past summer, city hall unveiled a public art piece by Jennifer Annaïs Pighin and Robert Frederick that incorporates Lheidli T’enneh traditions and history into its design.

I think all of these are great ideas. One of the most important things a community can have is a unique identity, and the best place to get that is its unique history. George Street is, for the most part, a generic street that one would be hard-pressed to differentiate from any other street in any other town. But add a language that you won’t find anywhere else, and you have much more a sense of place. The history of a territory is something that can and should be embraced by everyone who calls it home. “Prince George” means nothing. “Lheidli T’enneh” does.

image: the Dakelh characters for “Welcome” unveiled at the Canada Games House today

Last night was the the warm-up to Coldsnap show. Coldsnap is a winter music festival here in Prince George that I’m involved in organizing.

The kick-off accomplishes a few things: it gets all the volunteers (it’s an entirely volunteer-run festival) warmed up for over a week’s worth of shows in January, it lets us test new things and, with any luck, it builds up excitement for the shows in January so people start buying their tickets.

I’ve never done anything like this in other cities, but other people tell me that Prince George is a notoriously last-minute town when it comes to things like concerts. Sales will be at like 10% the day before the show and then the night of it sells out. It drives people who organize things like concerts and plays absolutely nuts. They’ve put all this time and effort into promoting something and up until the last minute they’re wondering what they could have done differently. Then it turns out they did everything just fine, people were just waiting to pick up their tickets at the door.

That’s why whenever there’s an early sell-out there’s a huge amount of relief. We found out we had hit sell-out level the night before the concert. So the day of the concert you can just focus on getting ready for the concert and NOT trying to drum up last-minute publicity when people already have their plans. And there’s always hope that the people who didn’t get tickets will take that as a prompt to buy tickets to other things they want to see a little earlier next time. Lots of people got turned away last night. So here’s hoping.

So it will be interesting to see how Green justifies the cost of a foreign relations trip while the core services review has the city actively talking about privatizing or contracting out control of things like the Four Seasons Swimming Pool and the Civic Centre, to say nothing of the recent elimination of the city’s entire environment division and 28 jobs.

Well, now we know. Just now Mayor Green, along with councillors Dave Wilbur, Lyn Hall, Cameron Stolz, Albert Koehler, and Murry Krause voted in favour of the trip and the money. Garth Frizzell and Brian Skakun opposed the spending (Frizzell supported the trip, however), and Frank Everitt was away.

Before we get further in, I’d like to once again point out that $12,000 of this comes from a provincial government grant aimed at exactly this sort of thing, money that could not otherwise be used for things like road repair or swimming pools. The remaining (up to) $23,000 comes from the 2012 economic development fund.

I’ve posted the full audio below, but here are what I took to be some key points from everyone who chose to speak on the subject.

Dave Wilbur:

“I’ve spoken often and passionately about the opportunity  it [the airport] has of creating good paying jobs for our future… our sons and daughters and their children… I think it’s important we keep the relationship as a key point as we go forward…

“But I want to make certain that people appreciate that this is not a short-term gain. It’s a long road, and it’s the medium and long-term gain for this community that I think is most important.”

Cameron Stolz:

“One of the things I’ve come to appreciate is that in China things move slowly… there’s a process that things go through and in China it’s very much about building the relationship… they really mean longer term, as in generational. So if they’re going to build on that they want to have a relationship with the organization and for them the organization is the mayor of the cities they’re involved with. It’s all about the mayor and the elected officials as opposed to any business owner inside of that city.

“International students are a huge economic driver and opportunity for our community. Each students pays the university or the college $22,000 a year to participate there, approximately. And on top of that, according to the university or college, they pay about that much again in the community.

“If you look at our number of international students… and compare it with.. Kamloops… [they] have three time the number of international students Prince George has… and they have a huge economic advantage…”

“And that’s just one small piece.”

Brian Skakun:

“To me it’s about optics. I know we have to keep looking after our economic interests but the timing is wrong, in my opinion.

“We’re going through a core review right now, we have people worried about getting adequate firefighter protection, we have city workers worried about getting laid off, we have non-profits and charities worried about getting their tax grants reduced, and I just think the timing couldn’t be any worse.

“We’re going through one of the most challenging times since I’ve been on council and this is my tenth year… The timing is wrong and I won’t support it.”

Lynn Hall:

“I think it’s important to point out that throughout China, throughout South America, School District 57, UNBC and CNC are highly regarded. It’s quite amazing that we, in fact, are one of three communities in Canada that are considered by these locations to send their students. So this is a huge opportunity and I think as Councillor Stolz has said we haven’t tapped into that as well as we should have.”

Shari Green:

“I don’t think there’s ever a great time, there’s always a challenge, we’ve certainly got some budget issues in front of us… but that’s one of the reasons we’re in the bind that we’re in economically and in our fiscal situation is because this community hasn’t grown and we need to diversify our economy and find other opportunites to bring other revenue into this community whatever that may be,  and that needs to continue regardless of what’s going on inside the building.

“And so from my perspective this is an important piece of work, it’s taken years to get it to the stage it’s at, it moves very slowly, and it’s going to move a little bit further ahead now.

“Until you have the government-to-government solid relationship in place, none of the business things come along.”

Garth Frizzell (in opposing using the city funds for the trip):

“A couple months ago we asked for some information back on whether there was any funds available for the PGX, and we got the news back that there wasn’t any funds available for that, so the reason that I voted against it is I don’t think that money is available or exists.”

Stolz (replying to Frizzell as chair of finance and audit):

“Councillor Frizzell may recall that in February council voted unanimously to reduce our contingency fund for council and redirect that towards an economic development fund… Those funds were reserved strictly for the use of economic development.”

Here’s the full audio of the votes:

Here’s a copy of the mayor’s request:

Mayor Jiangmen

As pointed out by the union representing city workers and Ben Meisner of 250, the timing of this may not be ideal from a public relations standpoint. It’s right in the middle of a core services review process aimed at saving the city money, a key plank in Green’s election campaign that’s supposed to see the city cut back and start saving money.

So it will be interesting to see how Green justifies the cost of a foreign relations trip while the core services review has the city actively talking about privatizing or contracting out control of things like the Four Seasons Swimming Pool and the Civic Centre, to say nothing of the recent elimination of the city’s entire environment division and 28 jobs.

Of note:

• A similar trip was taken by mayor Dan Rogers in 2010. He was accompanied by six people: two councillors (Don Basserman and Garth Frizzell), George Iwama (president of UNBC), then-Chief Frederick of the Lheidi T’enneh First Nation, Katherine Scouten (then of Initatives Prince George), and city manager Derek Bates. This trip cost $38,000, and was paid for by a $50,000 provincial grant.
• By contrast, this trip will have four people and is estimated at $30-$35,000. Only $12,000 would come from the province (that left over from the 2010 trip), with the rest coming from the city.
• A quick look online and I’ve found numerous return trips to and from China for four people coming in at under $10,000. So the remaining $20,000 or so would presumably be for lodging, food, etc. Not sure of the full breakdown for costs under Green’s estimates (maybe the staff person would deserve overtime)? I do know from first-hand experience you can stay in pretty nice places for pretty cheap on the Canadian dollar.
• Prince George is hardly the only city to spend money on trips to China. Quesnel and Dawson Creek politicians have both taken trips there recently.
• Of the $38,000 2010 trip, George Iwama said “If you can attract just 4 students to come here, then the trip will have paid for itself”. And Green does want to bring Lynn Hall because of his previous experience in the education sector, citing international education as an opportunity.

The meeting streams online starting at 6:00 tonight. Watch it here (or in person at city hall).

Update: Off they go.

Genre doesn’t matter, geography does. “Northern B.C.” is a tough area to define, but let’s just say roughly from Williams Lake northwards. Best place for me to collect them would be in the comments here, (where people can also upvote)  but if you feel more comfortable you can message me on Twitter @akurjata or email andrew[at]kurjata[dot]ca.

I want the bus to work. I take the bus in part because I want to prove that there is a market for it. I encourage people to try to take it where possible.

But it’s just so hard.

Ask anyone who’s attempted to take a bus and you’ll get the same complaints. It doesn’t depart frequently. Huge portions of the city aren’t serviced, or are only serviced once an hour (or less) or don’t get service on weekends, or anytime between the hours of 6 pm and 7 am.

These are chicken-and-egg things. Do you add more buses more frequently and hope it attracts enough new riders to offset the costs or do you wait for there to be more riders before you expand? My instinct is for the former. Anytime you want to attract new customers you have to have that initial investment. Car companies, movie studios, businesses– they all create their service or their product and then get the customers. They don’t wait for people to start knocking on their door asking for a service– they put that service out there and attract the users.

But none of this- NONE- is any good if people can’t figure out how to use the system that is in place. We could have the best system possible but if people can’t figure out how it works. This is my primary argument when looking at the bus system we have in Prince George.

Here’s the Prince George transit map. Here’s where you can find the schedules. And here’s what I’ve written before:

“How long does it take you how to figure out how to get from UNBC to Pine Centre mall? Bear in mind, these are two of the better served locations, and both are on terminals. Try doing it from a residential area. Or adding more than one destination.”

Plus, there’s always changes. In the past months, routes have changed or been cancelled due to road work,  the end of university, and the end of the school year. How do you find out about these changes? Well, you check the transit website, presumably every day before you take the bus, just to find out if there may be a change. More likely, you find out when your bus doesn’t come and you call someone to figure out why. Not that there is a number to call posted at most bus stops. Or even a map or schedule. Not a huge argument in favour of taking the bus over a car. I hacked together a system that will Tweet, email, Facebook message or text you when there is change. So it’s possible to make this more convenient. It just hasn’t been done. No idea why.

Right now, for most people, the bus is a last resort. It’s slow and inconvenient and given the option they will drive, take a cab, carpool, bike or even jog to work before they take the bus because it’s quicker and easier. Which is fine if we’ve decided that the bus is only there for people who can’t afford to travel any other way.

But if we want the transit system to grow– and I assume this is the case– seomthing has to change. And I would posit the first step is make the system we have – whatever it looks like – understandable. Post schedules at the stops. Find a way to let people say “I want to go from point A to point B, how do I do this by bus” and have it return a route. I don’t care if that’s an app or just a person on the other end of the phone whose job is to understand and communicate this information to whoever calls. Something. Because as long as the bus system is so hard to use that the only people who do it are those who can’t afford to do otherwise, it will never grow.

—

I had an initial point to writing this, which is that Prince George is looking for feedback on it’s transit system. You can fill out a survey here and there are open houses for feedback on Saturday and Sunday. Full details on this site.

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. How likely is it that someone driving by is going to know what this is all about? In case you’re still not sure, there’s a proposal to build a liquor store here, and the city is trying to let people know how to give feedback. Easy to parse, right?

If it’s that hard just to figure out what the signsays, how likely  is it someone will actively engage in this process? If you want people to be involved, why not present the information in a way that’s simple, clear, and actively encourages feedback?

—

I posted the full talk and wrote about in on my blog in more depth last year.

At the same time, the Coldsnap Music Festival was happening. One night a bunch of music fans were gathered inside the Art Space to hear some out-of-town bands. During one of the interludes a musician got on the mic and said something like, “It’s so awesome you guys are all out tonight. I know you’re going through a really tough time and it’s great to see the city rally.”

Everyone kind of looked at each other and then figured out what he meant. He was referring to the ice jams. Being an informed citizen, he was watching the news and knew that Prince George was flooding. Never mind that the flooding was localized to a few streets alongside the river– a far cry from the whole city being underwater.

This is where I find that concept of Kiez so fascinating. Most of the people in that room probably hadn’t even seen the flooding. It’s the same thing with the floods happening now. Rising river levels are making national news, and there are states of emergency and evacuation orders in localized areas.

Even though this flooding has been happening for over a week now, it doesn’t come into my daily reality at all. I don’t live by a river, I don’t commute past or over a river, and I don’t work by a river. So I don’t see the rivers, flood or no. So while rivers just a few kilometers away are making national news, I have no idea what they look like. This is true for the vast majority of people who live and work here.

I’m interested in when a localized event becomes something that affects the whole community. The Lakeland Mills explosion seems to have imprinted on people’s minds a lot, regardless of whether they saw the blast or know someone who works there. The flooding, not so much, though the media has sure picked up on it (my employer included). But housefires can be just as devastating as a flood to the people who have it happen to them, and those rarely get more than passing coverage.

I’m not saying any of this is right or wrong. It’s just an observation I’ve been thinking about.

—

Edit: As I was writing this, I decided to go take a look at the river myself. I biked along Cottonwood Island Park and put some pictures on Flickr, if you’re interested.

Beyond that, the space is focused on the technical end of libraries– computers, etc. There’s also some very nice chairs and some very nice views. I think I might actually take advantage of it as an extra working space once in a while.

Here are some pictures from the event:

There was a space theme, starting with the invitation. Then you get to the main lobby and are greeted by this:

A room full of space balloons, and an elevator with outer-space wallpaper.

The theme continued at the meet-and-greet. Music from “Star Wars”, “2001: A Space Odyssey”, and David Bowie played in the background while volunteers handed out glowsticks. Then, we all went up stairs for the main event:

We have liftoff!

Here’s some shots I took of the area. This is underneath the new portion:

And here’s the Skylab itself:

See the full set on Flickr.

I know White Rock also did one, and Oliver is about to have one, but I couldn’t find any primary sources talking about cost.

It’s also worth pointing out as Chris Leboe does that “I suppose you need to compare the scopes of work before you can compare fairly… Population alone might not be fair.” This is true. Maybe this core review will be much more in-depth and get more value per dollar than any of the others. But it’s worth having this benchmark to make comparisons.

As always, if you have better numbers or more accurate comparisons to be making, feel free to chime in. This is just a rough document done in my spare time, nothing “official”.

“It is not just a philosophical beacon of hope that we can be better than we are, it is a pragmatic tool to ensure those who are trapped by ignorance that the power they might want to wield against the less popular – like gays, First Nations, women, the poor, immigrants i.e. most of us – isn’t actually legal.”

Full article here.

“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 the city is spending money on this, THIS, of all things! Meanwhile, I’m seeing comments on Facebook upset that bylaw officers will be going door-to-door to take away unlicensed dogs or fine people who have “restricted breeds.”

While the merits of having restricted breeds or even a dog licencing program can and have been debated elsewhere, I think it’s only fair to make a couple of clarifications based on conversations I’ve had with Guy Gusdal, manager of bylaw services, as well as representatives from the union. Any errors are my own, not theirs.

1. The money thing

The optics of making hires of this sort, especially when jobs have just been lost, may be questionable. But the expectation for these positions is that they will, very directly and measurably, pay for themselves.

They get $17.24 an hour, but their work is “irregular part-time.” What this means is they only work as much and as long as they continue to bring cash in.

This has been experimented in the past. To start with, the two hires get a list of people who have paid for a dog licence in the past, but have not yet purchased one this year. They then contact them and ask if they’d like to do it this year. For the most part, it’s hoped that these are the sorts of people that intend to get the licence, but haven’t gotten around to it yet (just like they haven’t made it to the dentist). They will also go door-to-door and canvass at strategically chosen homes and neighbourhoods. Again, only so long as they are paying their own way.

Gusdal wasn’t able to provide me with exact numbers, but he says there are easily thousands of dollars in uncollected fees out there.

The union, for its part, thinks it’s a great opportunity for a student to do some summer work and make money for the city and themselves at the same time.

2. The bylaws and breeds thing

These are canvassers. Not enforcement officers. The focus of their job is not to find people they think are breaking rules and come down hard on them. This is more like the idea of having a kiosk in the mall educating people about the usefulness of having a dog licence and asking if they’d like to sign up– only instead of a kiosk, they’re going door-to-door. 250 outlines the difficulty these canvassers would have in actually enforcing anything. They’re correct. And the city isn’t expecting enforcement. Just outreach, and, hopefully, a bit more money.

Investor Rod McLeod and realtor Clint Dahl unveil plans for the condo/hotel unit.

Mayor Shari Green calls it “a dream come true.”

MLAs Pat Bell and Shirley Bond say it’s the day Prince George came of age and the beginning of a renaissance, respectively.

Elsewhere, anonymous commenters suggest the developers must be smoking pot.

That’s early reaction to a $40 million hotel/condo unit expected to move in around the corner from where I work downtown.

Here are some of the facts, as provided from a news release distributed at the event:

• Building height: 12 storeys
• Condos available for purchase: 35
• Condo sizes: 1195-2374 square ft
• Condo price range: $350,000 – $800,000

There will also be 150 hotel rooms, an in-house restaurant, shops, spa, gym, and underground parking. Construction could begin as early as this summer. It’s going up across from the Prince George Public Library, in the old RCMP building site.

To understand the full scope of this, understand: this is unheard of Prince George. For years, housing has been centre stage of many discussions about how to fix an at-best flawed downtown. In a 2009 article about revitalization projects across the province, Tyee writer Christine McLaren explained the situation thusly:

“A typical resource town, like many in B.C., Prince George grew rapidly in the 1960s and 1970s with the opening of several pulp mills. The city doubled in size each decade, and responded to the growth by spreading out rather than up. It was a decision that Dan Milburn, Manager of Long Range Planning for the City of Prince George says shaped the face of the downtown core from there on in.

‘A large suburban type land use pattern developed, and hence the desire for the creation of suburban malls, which initially tried to almost mirror the downtown in look and function,” Milburn explains. “Since that time, we’ve seen more growth in commercial space outside the downtown than in the downtown.’

Not only that, but while the housing market exploded through the rest of the province, land in Prince George remained cheap and plentiful, making single family homes financially obtainable for most residents. With little demand for cheaper apartments or townhouses, almost zero housing exists in the downtown core today.”

This is true. So much so that for the most part, discussion around getting people to live downtown has focused on cheap places for students or building seniors homes in the vicinity. This is something else altogether.

The Price of Luxury

$800,000. That’s the price for a twelfth-storey suite. You’ll get a view of the city (including, I’m told, the river), access to a pool, gym and spa, and private parking. So would you buy?

Immediate Twitter reaction:

“Bahahaaa no….”

“nope! Sounds to expensive for PG”

“Who is going to pay $800k to live downtown, or even $300k?”

Too bad. It’s already sold.

So what if you have eight-hundred grand and are looking for property of equal value? I just put a search in for residential properties in Prince George priced $800,000 and above. Unless you’re looking for a multi-acre property including a barn out in the country, there’s nothing. At seven-hundred grand, you get three multi-storey properties on the outskirts of the city, the cheapest of which has six beds, four baths, and what looks to be three garages. At $350,000 (the cheapest condo price), you’re still looking at at least three beds and three baths, often more, with (random grab) 2620 square feet of floor space, not to mention the yards.

These are not low-income seniors populating these condos. These are not students.

These are going to people who could live anywhere in the city. They could be in the country, in the Crescents, College Heights– heck, they could probably buy my top five choices for houses when I was looking, all in one go. In other words, these are not people who have to live downtown, they’re going to be people who want to live downtown.

Sift through comments on this story and you’ll find there are plenty of people who don’t believe those sorts of people even exist.

The Ghost of Ghia

Maybe it’s because they’ve been down this road before. Jason Morris brought up the subject of the last time something of this magnitude was proposed. In the fall of 2005 architect Yves Ghia announced the Metropolis Project. From the archives of Opinion250:

“He calls it Metropolis “3″ and he plans to build it  on the parking lot that stretches from Quebec Street to Dominion  along Second Avenue.  Yes, it is the stretch that runs along the back of the Columbus Hotel…

His  vision has  student oriented apartments (65 of them)  on the second floor above 30,000 square feet of retail space.  Parking for the units will be provided by the City  through the use of the parkade.”

You can still find the model for this project, along with a photo-op with ex-mayor Colin Kinsley in the “news” section of Ghia’s site, but as the commenters on Opinion250 today will point out, this hasn’t exactly panned out.

So there are ghosts to get past for this project. The idea of high-end living downtown has been a point of discussion, studies, and proposals for decades, with little to actually show for it. A couple of blocks away, a well-intentioned model for more modest condominiums on Seventh Avenue have been spinning their wheels for at least two years. On the more ambitious end of things, in 1967 it was fully expected that downtown highrises would be serviced by monorail.

Something to Prove

So there’s something to prove with this project. Though it may not be as ambitious as Centrum Prince George or Metropolis 3, it is ambitious nonetheless. This is not an all-encompassing project aimed at transforming downtown in one swoop. It’s an early piece in a checkerboard of properties and proposals being juggled by the city, the province, and private enterprise. A Wood Innovation Centre was announced when Gordon Campbell was still a popular premier, but today there’s little to show for it except the destruction of the PG Hotel (announcements, as always, are imminent). The Ramada and the Keg have made big bets on George Street, but a chorus of people are declaring the return of pay parking downtown will undo any and all progress that’s been made in recent years. But this latest proposal is something else.

Units are being sold. Sold fast, even. Construction should start in a matter of months. If all goes well, visitors could be staying in the hotel when they come for the 2015 Games. So, for now, this is no pie-in-the-sky project. This is something with buyers, timelines, and firm(ish) completion dates.

This will be a game changer. If it succeeds, it will prove something in the city has shifted. That people are willing to live in or near downtown Prince George, and what’s more, they’re willing to pay top dollar to do so. If demand is high, maybe it will kickstart other projects. Property values surrounding could see increases, too.

There’s pitfalls. The VLA, Prince George’s “poor” neighbourhood is close. Will it see benefits? Will the low-income people in nearby units be forced out into other neighbourhoods? Will the single-family houses with yards and fences currently inhabited by most of the middle class be drained inwards, leaving ghost neighbourhoods in their wake?

Will the shops and restaurant in the unit steal customers away from those small businesses doing OK along 3rd and 4th? Or if more business is attracted in, will the locals be forced out as higher-end retailers come along with a better offer?

What about roads? Every morning I see the closest thing to a traffic jam this city has smack-dab beside where this building with over 100 employees, 30 permanent residents, and 150 hotel guests will now be placed. How will traffic flow be adjusted to accomodate this? Can transit step up to the plate?

Those are questions beyond my capability to answer and, I should say, I don’t really expect anyone, from the developers to planners to council to answer them. This is the nature of cities. You never know how big projects will play out.

The bigger question, I think, is what if it fails? This is the opening shot. If this succeeds, others may follow suit. If it falls on its face, how many will back away?

So this will be a game-changer. Succeed or fail, the stage is being set.

What are you willing to bet?

“Bad debt refers to tickets that have been issued but not paid. This is not money the city had and then spent. Instead, it is money the city could have but doesn’t because people aren’t paying their tickets. I would argue that this is an opportunity cost, rather than an actual cost.

So let’s get rid of money that never falls into city hands and talk only about real money. This would be the money that the city spends on downtown parking, and the money that the city makes from downtown parking. People who don’t pay their tickets are not a real cost, but an opportunity cost, and so are not factored in here.

After doing this, the net revenue of downtown parking in 2007 rises from $80,054 to $139,011 ($80,054 + $58,967). But perhaps more significantly, the net revenue of the downtown parking program in 2011 changes from a loss of $81,193 to a profit of $23,232 ([-$81,193] + $104,425). Free parking is still not generating as much money as paid parking, but it’s no longer costing the city money– at least not real money, just money that it could be making that it isn’t otherwise. “

I was wrong. As pointed out in the comments section:

“The “cost” of bad debts (in most accounting procedures) accounts for money that was recorded as revenue, but will never be received.  While it may not be *this* year’s revenue that is now a “bad debt”, it was, at some point, recorded as money that had been earned (revenue), but will not be showing up in the bank account.

Therefore, in order for the books to balance, it must be “removed” from the system as an expense.”

Note: This post should be taken with a grain of salt, because I don’t have it verified by anyone. It’s just my read of some of the numbers. Corrections, to my math or my grasp of economics, are encouraged. Read carefully and if you see errors, please let me know– information at the bottom of the post.

I’m delving a bit further into the staff report to Prince George mayor and council regarding the on-street parking pilot project (you can, too– it’s right here). For the last two years parking downtown has been free for up to two hours, after which you get a fine for overstaying. At the last council meeting, Prince George councilors voted to return to a system where everyone parking downtown has to pay an upfront fee, such as parking metres.

One of the primary reasons councilors cited for this move was the costs. The report compares revenues and expenses for each year from 2007 to 2011 but notes “[t]he best comparison of revenue and expenses of Pay Parking versus Free Parking occurs when the 2007 figures are compared with the 2011 figures, as these figure are likely most representative of the true revenues and costs of each respective system”

So we can look to 2007 (paid parking)and see downtown parking generated $80,054.  We then look to 2011 (free parking) and see a net loss of $81,193. On the surface, pay parking downtown makes the city close to $80,000 a year, free parking costs it $80,000 a year. Council members definitely read it this way.

Brian Skakun:

“This is not free parking. It’s costing the city.”

Cameron Stolz:

“By switching to free parking it cost the city between $160,000 to $190,000.”

But here’s where my first-year economics courses come in handy. There’s two types of costs being talked about here- actual costs and opportunity costs. “Actual costs” refer to real costs– ie actual money spent on something. And then there’s “opportunity costs”– which refers not to actual money spent, but benefits that are sacrificed when you choose one option over another. Take a look at the revenue and expense table used here.

In the “expenses” column of the free vs paid parking downtown there are two items: labour and benefits, and bad debt. Labour and benefits refers to actual costs. Real money is spent on having city staff walk around downtown, monitor parking, and hand out tickets. This is money the city has and could spend elsewhere, but needs to spend on having staff ticket people. Bad debt refers to tickets that have been issued but not paid. This is not money the city had and then spent. Instead, it is money the city could have but doesn’t because people aren’t paying their tickets. I would argue that this is an opportunity cost, rather than an actual cost.

So let’s get rid of money that never falls into city hands and talk only about real money. This would be the money that the city spends on downtown parking, and the money that the city makes from downtown parking. People who don’t pay their tickets are not a real cost, but an opportunity cost, and so are not factored in here.

After doing this, the net revenue of downtown parking in 2007 rises from $80,054 to $139,011 ($80,054 + $58,967). But perhaps more significantly, the net revenue of the downtown parking program in 2011 changes from a loss of $81,193 to a profit of $23,232 ([-$81,193] + $104,425). Free parking is still not generating as much money as paid parking, but it’s no longer costing the city money– at least not real money, just money that it could be making that it isn’t otherwise. When Brian Skakun says “it’s costing the city,” he doesn’t mean the city is spending more money on parking enforcement than it’s generating from tickets, he means the city isn’t making as much money as it could be. When Cameron Stolz says free parking cost the city up to $190,000, he means there’s up to $190,000 the city could be making that it isn’t, not that free parking actually forced the city to spend $190,000 extra dollars.¹ When you start putting things in those terms, you can say that by not charging people an extra dollar a year to live here, it costs the city $80,000 annually or that it costs the city money not to have toll roads.

There’s a lot of other factors at play when it comes to charging for parking. Is there a shortage of parking spots downtown that needs to be managed somehow? Are there too many cars driving through the city core and pay parking is a way to encourage biking and transit? Any of these can be legitimate reasons to introduce pay parking. Heck, simply looking for a way to generate more money for the city is legitimate, as long as you’re willing to go ahead and say that’s what you’re doing.

But I wonder if the conversation shifts from “free parking downtown is costing the city money” to “we’re already making money off of downtown parking through ticketing people who stay for more than two hours, but we’d like to make more money by charging everyone who parks there for any length of time” if we’d see a change of heart.

—

For a full correction, see here.

EDIT(April 4):  In the comments, KrisB adds the following insight:

“I think you’re missing something by taking out the “bad debts”.

The “cost” of bad debts (in most accounting procedures) accounts for money that was recorded as revenue, but will never be received.  While it may not be *this* year’s revenue that is now a “bad debt”, it was, at some point, recorded as money that had been earned (revenue), but will not be showing up in the bank account.

Therefore, in order for the books to balance, it must be “removed” from the system as an expense.”

That is an important point, and one that pretty much deflates everything I’ve said. If the bad debt has been recorded as revenue already, it has to be removed if the tickets are unpaid. That said– and again I may be wrong– if there was no bad debt (ie if there was a more effective system of forcing people to pay their tickets), the city would be running a profit? So maybe instead of going after everyone parking downtown, there should be a more effective means of going after those who don’t pay? Which may of course just cost more money than it’s worth.

“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 the “open for business” mantra of the current council and the increased focus of improving downtown, which has had a real impact over the past few years.

It was the business community that pushed, and pushed hard, for the elimination of parking meters. The rationale behind not having parking meters in 2007 hasn’t changed. All that has changed is the fact that council is scrambling to cut costs and/or increase revenue so that drives all decisions.”

“It makes it so much tougher for the average person that wants to run for municipal office, that, you know, doesn’t have their own resources or can muster up that many donations.”

“At some point, I think that there has to be some sort of controls on this. There’s no limits for individual donations, corporate donations, union donations as I understand it, and I think… I think what I’m going to do is try and convince my council colleagues this year to come up with a of resolution and see if we can encourage the Union of B.C. Municipalities and the province to have some types of limits because it just seems to be getting out of control.”

This is one issue: should there be spending caps, so as not to price people out of running (or, in the case of the more conspiracy-minded, to avoid having anyone in anyone else’s deep pockets)?

On the other hand, this is private money, not taxpayer. And might it speak to a candidates’ ability to reach out to supporters, to convince people that they are the right person for the job, and have people support them not only with votes but with their own hard-earned cash?

In other words does it go:

raise money >> spend money on campaign  >> get popular as a result of spending money on campaign

OR

 get popular >> raise money because of popularity >> get votes for same reasons you got money (popularity)

It’s a question that has long been debated at provincial and federal levels, as well as in other (usually larger) municipalities, but hasn’t yet penetrated into the relatively small-town politics of Prince George. But if people are getting to elected to office with campaign budgets hitting the upper half of five figures, it’s a safe bet the discussion will be had.

“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 Hires New Executive Assistant for Mayor Shari Green“

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 area that is deemed to be equivalent to a municipality for statistical reporting purposes (e.g., as an Indian reserve or an unorganized territory). Municipal status is defined by laws in effect in each province and territory in Canada.”

This is the actual population living within the city limits of Prince George– if you’re in the regional district, you aren’t included, for example.

Prince George’s census subdivision looks like this (via StatsCan):

The population here is 71,974, up 993 people (or 1.4%) from the 2006 census.

There’s also the regional district, which is the broader population that includes Prince George, Mackenzie, McBride and Valemount, and those living outside of cities/villages. Here’s what it looks like on a map (via Wikipedia):

For this broader geographical area there was actually a decline from 92,264 to 91,879- down by 385 or 0.4%.

Census Agglomeration:

“A census metropolitan area (CMA) or a census agglomeration (CA) is formed by one or more adjacent municipalities centred on a large urban area (known as the urban core). The census population count of the urban core is at least 10,000 to form a census agglomeration and at least 100,000 to form a census metropolitan area. To be included in the CMA or CA, other adjacent municipalities must have a high degree of integration with the central urban area, as measured by commuting flows derived from census place of work data.”

My understanding of this is that this essentially the service area– people for which Prince George serves as the place where they get things like major shopping, hospital stays, etc. In some ways, the “real” population.

Prince George’s census metropolitan area looks like this:

It’s sitting at 84,232, up from 83,225 in 2006 — 1,007 people, or 1.2%.

Population Centre:

“A population centre will be defined as an area with a population of at least 1,000 and a density of 400 or more people per square kilometre. All areas outside population centres will continue to be defined as rural area. This new terminology will be implemented consistently across the Agency.”

So this, I suppose, is a measure of how many people live “in the city.” And in the city means at least somewhat densely populated– so even if you’re in city limits, you may not be in the population centre. Here’s what Prince George’s looks like:

What’s interesting to me is the difference in geographical area between Prince George’s city limits and Prince George’s “population centre.” The city itself is 318.26 square km, but the population centre is only 99.93 square km- mostly centred in what I would say are the main parts of the city: downtown, College Heights, and up towards the Hart. No one east of the Fraser is included, so if you live towards the airport you are not in this region. Same with anyone on Cranbrook Hill.

The population here is 65,503, up 437 (0.7%) from 2006′s 65,066.

So…. no mindblowing changes. Growth isn’t exactly keeping pace with Canada (which grew by 5.9%), and definitely not with British Columbia (up 7.0%). The Peace is booming, the northwest continues in something of a decline… Prince George is just staying the same. While my inclination is that a lack of rapid growth isn’t exactly a bad thing, I’m sure others will disagree. It will be interesting to see how this information is interpreted and used in the coming years.

“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 January 17th, Mayor and Council hosted a media conference to overview 2012 Operating Expense Reductions in three areas:  general overhead, personnel and grants.  During the media briefing, information was provided about program and service impacts associated with personnel reductions.  This included reference to the discontinuation of the Environmental Services Division which would require a re-evaluation of the City’s energy, air quality/clean air, carbon neutral and greenhouse gas management programs.

2.    When, if ever, was this information going to be proactively disclosed?

This information was proactively disclosed at the January 17 media conference.  In addition, the media has been provided with a statement and summary of City of Prince George initiatives related to environmental stewardship.  That statement reads:

The City of Prince George is committed to preserving the environment and supports a community approach.  This approach acknowledges there are a broad range of actions, strategies and commitments that can be made by individuals, community and interest groups, the education sector, public health organizations, businesses, and all levels of government to maintain a healthy environment.  The City has strong partnerships with lead environmental agencies and will continue to build these relationships. The City has also taken a multi-departmental approach to environmental stewardship and as such, the City’s commitment to the environment remains strong.  Innovative approaches to environmental sustainability transcend the organization and are reflected in initiatives such as:

*    The Downtown District Energy System;
*    The City’s E3 Fleet Program;
*    The City’s transit policy (Free Fare for Clean Air);
*    The City’s Sustainable Procurement Policy;
*    The micro-turbine system installed at the waste water treatment plant and;
*    Civic building energy audits and upgrades.

3.    When, if ever, will citizens be told what other positions have been eliminated as a result of these reductions?

At the January 17th media briefing, information was provided about program and service impacts as a result of reduced personnel capacity.  An overview was provided in relation to Parks, Community Policing, CN Centre, Civic Centre, Environmental Services, Development and Transportation Engineering, Long Range Planning and Parks Planning, Communications and Social Development.

The City of Prince George will not be providing a list of affected positions in order to ensure employee confidentiality for the 9 people directly affected. “

What catches my attention is this part of Mayor Green’s reply:

“On January 17th, Mayor and Council hosted a media conference… During the media briefing, information was provided about program and service impacts associated with personnel reductions.  This included reference to the discontinuation of the Environmental Services Division.“

I was not at that briefing, but other media was, including one of my colleagues. Tape was collected of the meeting that preceded it, and I listened to it, but heard no reference to the discontinuation of the environment division. In the interest of full disclosure, this tape does not include any comments made to media after the meeting. However, if you look through the media reports following that briefing, no reference is made to the environmental services being eliminated or discontinued. It is simply referenced as being affected, alongside other divisions. Here are media reports following the January 17 media briefing:

The Prince George Citizen:

“The layoffs and eliminated positions are in the city’s parks, long-range planning, community and social development, community policing, CN Center, Prince George Civic Center, environmental services, development and transportation and communications divisions.”

The Prince George Free Press:

“The 28 positions are in parks, community policing, the CN Centre, the Civic Centre, development and transportation, long-range planning and park planning as well as communications.”

Opinion 250:

“City Manager Derek Bates says it is not yet clear how the job losses will impact service levels. The job losses are spread out through; parks, community policing, CN Center, Civic center, Environmental services, Development and Transportation, Long Range planning, social development and Communications.”

HQ PrinceGeorge:

“City Manager Derek Bates says these cuts will affect 9 different areas of city services.

“In the areas of parks, community policing, C-N Centre, the Civic Centre, environmental services, development and transportation engineering, long range planning and parks planning, communications and social development.”

CKPG:

“The departments that will be affected are Parks, Community Policing, CN Centre, the Civic Centre, Environmental Services, Development and Transportation Engineering, Long-Range Planning and Parks Planning, Communications and the City’s Social Development Programs. “

So if the fact that the environment division was being eliminated was “proactively disclosed” by the city, it was information that was either missed  or not reported on by six separate media outlets.

Even a week later, in a Citizen story about PGAIR being worried about how the reductions would be affecting them:

“on Tuesday Mayor Shari Green announced the elimination of 28 jobs at the City of Prince George, including positions from the city’s environmental services department.

“Two out of three positions in the city’s environmental services department are gone,” PACHA president Dr. Marie Hay said. “To me, I think that is shortsighted and unwise. I can’t really believe the people of Prince George would agree to something like this.”

Later in the same story:

“Green wouldn’t comment on how many staff were cut from the city’s environmental services department.”

I emailed Mayor Green back, asking:

“Going through our records of the event, as well as what was reported by other media, I am failing to find reference to “the discontinuation of the Environmental Services Division.” It was said and reported that the environment division would be affected alongside other areas (CN Centre, Civic Centre, community policing, etc) but I am failing to find any mention of the discontinuation or elimination of environmental services.

If you can point me to where the elimination/discontinuation of environmental services was proactively disclosed, it would be appreciated.”

“Andrew, the City stands behind its earlier email of today in response to this question. “

Yesterday, I went on Daybreak North with this story: The City of Prince George has cut its environment division.

As I say in the piece, this seems to be a direct result of the layoffs enacted last month in order to cut costs. As was widely reported, 28 jobs were eliminated– nine layoffs, the rest through vacant positions not being refilled. In this interview following the announcement. Mayor Shari Green said the affected divisions would be

“parks, CN Centre and the Civic Centre, community policing, our transportation development services and long range planning, things like that.”

Elsewhere:

“parks, community policing, CN Center, Civic center, Environmental services, Development and Transportation, Long Range planning, social development and Communications.”

and

“parks, long-range planning, community and social development, community policing, CN Center, Prince George Civic Center, environmental services, development and transportation and communications divisions.”

Shortly after, CBC asked for a list of the positions being eliminated. The reply from the city was succint:

“The City of Prince George will not be releasing the titles of discontinued positions.”

I followed up with a phone conversation with Chris Bone, manager of communications and civic engagement for the city. Here’s what I tweeted immediately following:

#princegeorge city spokesperson Chris Bone says job titles not being released to protect confidentiality of those let go… (cont’d)

— Andrew Kurjata (@akurjata) January 19, 2012

(con’d).. as for positions that are vacant and being eliminated, Bone says not releasing titles gives city time to transition… (cont’d)

— Andrew Kurjata (@akurjata) January 19, 2012

… (cont’d) however, Bone would not comment on when or if taxpayers can know what positions #princegeorge is cutting at city hall..(cont’d)

— Andrew Kurjata (@akurjata) January 19, 2012

..(cont’d) Bone would also not say whose decision it is not to make the positions being cut at #princegeorge city hall public information.

— Andrew Kurjata (@akurjata) January 19, 2012

However, it turns out some of this information is just sitting there. For example, you can look around and see which job postings the city had out there that have been pulled. Additionally, as I say in the interview, you can just compare the organizational chart of 2011 with the current one and see the lack of an environment division. I did, and once I did, all I had to do was call up city hall and ask if it was indeed gone. The answer, every time, was yes. No one was hiding this fact. It’s just no one was proactively disclosing it, either.

There can be a debate about whether in tight economic times the city should pay for a purely optional environment division.¹ I’m interested in that discussion, but I’m also interested in this one: when, if ever, was the city going to proactively disclose the elimination of the environment division?

This comes down to a question of when citizens/taxpayers should be allowed to know the decisions being made by councilors/staff. So these are my follow up questions, to mayor, council, and any relevant staff.

1. Why was the elimination of the environment division not proactively disclosed to citizens?
2. When, if ever, was this information going to be proactively disclosed?
3. When, if ever, will citizens be told what other positions have been eliminated as a result of these reductions?

In the wake of the layoffs announcement, Mayor Green said “It takes willing and courageous leadership to make change happen.”

I’d argue it takes more courage to actually tell people what that change looks like.

 UPDATE: I got an answer.

But one of the highlights for me is the local musicians who get to play. There’s always been a local music component to the festival, but this year the locals were promoted a bit more heavily than in previous years– and with good reason. The locals are just as good as any out-of-town act (and that’s not a knock to the out-of-town acts, it doesn’t matter who came in from outside, the locals would have matched them).

On night one of the locals shows, I caught two young musicians, Darby Yule and Isaac Smeele for the first time– and bought cds from each after fantastic sets. I’ve been a fan of Jamie Bell for a long time, and was happy to hear him please the crowd once again. Then a group of UNBC students playing a mix of bebop and ska under the monikor The Bricks took the stage and, I believe, got more encores than anyone else at the festival. Night two was one of my favourite live experiences, Doug Koyama looping his vocals over himself. Then a few more newbise for me– Mother Tareka, a hip-hop artist who self-accompanies using saxophone, flute, and beatboxing, Avid, a new mordern-rock act, and Dead Street, consisting of various veterans of the PG music scene experimenting with  psychedelic and grunge.

And that’s not all– Quesnel’s band reeves opened up for Whitehorse at the PG Playhouse, and as good as Whitehorse was (they are a huge act on the indie scene), I’ve had multiple people tell me reeves sort of upstaged them. Even Whitehorse gave them a shout-out. And there were workshops throughout town that let other burgeoning talents develop and test out their skills.

I’m making the same point I’ve made before– there is an awesome amount of talent in this city. It’s great that Coldsnap can be used to highlight the fun and importance of live music, but these talents should be supported year-round. Fortunately there’s no shortage of opportunities. I feel bad for not posting this yesterday before Jamie Bell opened for Lauren Mann and the Fairly Odd Folk, but yeah, that happened. Incidentally, Lauren Mann is the group that took reeves on a national tour this past summer.  And tomorrow Canadian Waste (possibly the most buzzed-about live act at the moment) are playing a benefit show for a downtown building that’s supported the arts scene. On any given weekend, there are shows at Nancy-O’s, Books and Company, and various other venues around town.

There should never be anyone complaining about a lack of places to go in town. My biggest problem is not having the energy to go to everything I’d like to on any given weekend. And that’s the way it should be.

From CKNW:

Vancouver is one step closer to having an online database for renters.
A motion is going before council next week calling for the creation of a searchable rental database.
Mayor Gregor Robertson calls it a necessary tool for Vancouver renters, adding it will them avoid negligent landlords.
Robertson says the city already collects data on the history and safety compliance of building owners, and the goal is to make that information more accessible.
The idea for the database comes from New York City, where a similar website was launched last year.

Based on Prince George having its own problems, I’m wondering if this is a model being examined.

“Pierce said she’s also heard from tenants that the building’s owner has given tenants back their November rent and their damage deposits.”

Since I’ve done quite a bit of work on the Victoria Towers story for CBC, I was interested in this development, especially since as of last week none of my contacts among the ex-tenants had heard anything about getting that money back. So I called up Lisa Anne Pierce. She told me that she hadn’t actually heard from any residents, but she had heard from the building manager that the ball was rolling. She suggested I follow up with someone who was working directly with clients. I did, and she said she had not heard from the clients that they were getting money back.

I’m not blaming the Citizen or the Red Cross for this. It is far more likely that it was a misunderstanding, a mishearing, or a misprint than anything else. It happens. Everyone’s human. It is not a reflection on the overall work that either of these organizations do, organizations that I’m glad exist. But given that the building owners have been to court over 50 times for failing to pay money they were supposed to pay to tenants and contractors and are being taken to court by the city of Vancouver for failing to do what they were supposed to do, I would hesitate to report on that money being returned until it is actually, physically, in the possession of the tenants.

As I write this, the most prominent story on CBC’s B.C. website is about some Vancouver landlords who are being taken to court by the city for years of causing problems for their tenants and refusing to pay fines when ordered. A pretty big story from those Vancouver residents who’ve been dealing with these problems.

A pretty big deal for people in Prince George, too.

You see, the trajectory of this story has it origins in a November 3 fire at the Victoria Towers apartment building here in Prince George. Close to 100 residents were evacuated from the building, and it was too damaged for any to return.

A few weeks later, one of the former tenants invited me along as he cleaned his place out. That story aired on Daybreak North (you can find it here).

A portion of that story that didn’t go to air was this particular tenant relating to me the problems he’d had with the building in the past. He actually has had those problems documented by other media, like the Free Press and the Citizen. There just wasn’t room for it in that story.

But then things kept happening. I went to a tenant meeting, where evacuees were looking for money back since they paid November rent, and then were out on their own without word from the owners about getting compensated. Other former tenants started contacting CBC, relating their own problems with the building. I was directed to a website that documented problems people had with an apartment in Vancouver owned by the same people. A contractor got in touch, saying he’d dealt with the building owners and had trouble getting paid. I talked to people, and then started doing some searches for company registry and court documents. The results were surprising.

The Mehtas, a family named by everyone who contacted me as being the landlords/owners/managers of these various buildings, are officers of multiple companies around the province (officer being secretary, president, etc of the company). The main company is Zoro. There’s some other ones, including Pacific West (Group of Properties, Properties, Management, etc– the name changes), which is listed in the lobby of Victoria Towers as the owners and managers. I didn’t find this company registered anywhere, but it has a website and a phone listing, and it shares the same address as Zoro.

Simply having multiple companies isn’t necessarily newsworthy. What WAS was the court search. Over 50 small claims cases since 1991, from Prince Rupert to Prince George to Victoria to (mostly) Vancouver, primarily dealing with tenants wanting money owed or small contractors wanting money owed. Exactly what was going on in Prince George with Victoria Towers. Oh, and an arrest warrant for one of the Mehtas.

That was enough to do a story on, and so I did. On Monday of this week I went on Daybreak and outlined what I’d found. I should stress that a lot of this was thanks to help from people who’d already done some digging into this story on their own, and guidance from people throughout CBC. The story was fairly well received.

But then Natalie Clancy in Vancouver picked up on it. She’s a Vancouver-based investigative reporter. She rightly realized that this was a Vancouver story as much as it’s a Prince George one, and one with some fantastic visuals. She did some more research, got interviews, got tape, and turned the thing around for the TV newscast tonight. You can see the results here.

This story still isn’t done. Natalie’s story reveals that the City of Vancouver is now taking the Mehta family to court “allegations of failing to maintain the building and ignoring a string of orders to make repairs.” So perhaps something will happen there. But I would posit that it’s a bit of an issue that’s it’s taken this long for things to get to this point. I don’t know all the details, but 50 court cases over 20 years, plus who knows how many complaints with the Residential Tenancy Branch (they wouldn’t tell me), which is the first line of defence for wronged tenants, and it’s finally gotten to this point? It seems a bit long.

Not that I blame anyone in particular. It’s a complicated problem. Landlords are going to get complaints, and that alone isn’t enough to punish them. But there seems to be a lot of grey area in the landlord/tenant rules in the province. And as outlined by Prince George city councilor Murry Krause here, it’s not necessarily an easy fix. People need to know their rights. They need the resources to ask for them. The cities need the resources to enforce these rights. And ultimately, people need to live somewhere. If one of these places is all they can afford, what else are they supposed to do?

So I’m glad I was able to help get the message out there for some people who feel wronged by this whole situation. But I would be happier if this sparked a larger dialogue about finding a solution to this problem, and then putting it into place.

See also: No Magic Bullet: Tenant Rights in B.C.

Since this lack of knowledge is one of the main reasons I heard given for people not voting, I figured I would put together a little city council 101 piece for CBC. For help, I went to Walter Babicz, manager of legislative services for the city of Prince George. I simplified the very complicated processes he took me through– some of these processes are a little less simple than I make them sound, this is through me simplifying them, not him.

You can listen to the full item on the Daybreak North website.

I should mention that these rules, while specific to Prince George, can be broadly applied to councils across B.C. Some things differ (for example, whether the mayor votes every time or not), but other things, like how you get something onto a council agenda, are pretty much the same.

The gap between readings applies primarily to things like bylaws affecting property, for less consequential agenda items, the first three readings will sometimes take place in one go.

So now that you’re primed, you can follow me on Twitter as I cover tonight’s council meeting. Or you can follow Daybreak North, the more consequential observations will be tweeted from there.

the Victoria Towers apartment, still damaged

Summary: Even though the province of B.C. has a branch that can order landlords to repair or upgrade their rental units, it’s up to municipalities to make sure the work gets done. And many cities, including Prince George, have no mechanism to do this. So what are renters supposed to do when they have a problem? And who can fix it?

Local government doesn’t matter?

I’ve been working on the story of the Victoria Towers fire for the last while. About 100 residents were displaced when an early-morning fire forced their evacuation on November 3. I didn’t do the initial coverage (that goes to intrepid news report Betsy Trumpener), but I’ve been working on the follow-up. It’s nearly a month a later, and residents have been living in hotels and are moving on to other, more permanent re-locations. Here’s what I’ve done so far:

• gone with resident Tony Wedzinga as he packed up his belongings
• gone to a meeting of residents discussing what course of action to take since they have been unable to find out whether or not they’ll be getting their damage deposits and November rent refunded
• spoken with and set up an interview with city councillor Murry Krause on the city’s role in helping tenants deal with landlords

Out of this, I’ve had a few former tenants tell me that they felt like the maintenance of the Victoria Towers was less than stellar. I must stress here that as I write this that no official cause of the fire has been released. Anything you might hear is pure speculation. I have no idea what caused this fire, and I wouldn’t hazard a guess. This blog post is not about what caused the fire, the fire is just what brought me to what this blog post is about: inspection and maintenance of rental units.

I wanted to look into the complaints, and I wanted something official, not just people telling me they didn’t like the way things looked. Tony told me that he had, in fact, filed complaints with the Residential Tenancy Branch about the building. Indeed, both the Prince George Free Press and the Prince George Citizen reported on these complaints. For the Citizen, Arthur Williams reported:

“Residential Tenancy Branch officer T.A. Evans ruled that Victoria Towers owner Pacific West Properties failed to meet its obligations.

Evans ordered Pacific West Properties to complete 15 repairs on the unit to the bathroom, plumbing, ceilings and rest of the unit.”

I contacted the Residential Tenancy Branch on behalf of CBC, and received an email that included this information:

“· The Residential Tenancy Act requires landlords maintain a rental property in a state that is suitable for occupancy – and meets all health, safety and building standards required by law. · However, the province has no jurisdiction to force property owners to fix-up their buildings – that responsibility lies with local government.

· Municipalities establish standards of maintenance that are enforced through the local government’s own by-law enforcement procedures.

· We can’t comment on who applied to RTB, but we can tell you that a dispute was heard and RTB ordered repairs to be made to the building and provided monetary compensation to the tenant applicant.

· There was no further application, so we don’t know if the landlord complied with the repairs. Again, enforcement of safety codes is the responsibility of local by-law enforcement officers.”

This is where the story stops being about the Victoria Towers altogether.

It surprised me that even though the province has a mechanism that rules on tenant-landlord disputes, it’s up to local governments to enforce them. How do they do this?

As part of my research, I spoke with Tom Durning of the Tenant Resource and Advisory Centre. He suggested one of the better mechanisms is a Standards of Maintenance Bylaw. From the TRAC site:

“Municipal Standards of Maintenance (SoM) Bylaws allow local government to force landlords to keep their rental buildings in good repair. Although not all municipalities have SoM bylaws, TRAC strongly encourages all municipalities to not only pass these bylaws but strictly enforce them.”

And from the province:

“A standards of maintenance bylaw provides local government with the ability to meet the needs of tenants who live in unsafe and unhealthy accommodation due to poor building maintenance. The province has heard from many tenants who are frustrated by the sub-standard and deteriorating housing conditions in which they find themselves. The 1992 report of the Provincial Commission on Housing Options noted that while the location and extent of poor housing was generally well known to community organizations and local government officials, there was no mechanism to allow local officials to require improvements. Local governments also indicated an interest in using a standards of maintenance bylaw to expand their authority to maintain the affordable housing stock in their community and protect it from premature demolition. The Commissioners concluded that most municipalities would be willing to enact minimum maintenance standards bylaws if they had the authority to do so.

Now that the authority to adopt a standards of maintenance bylaw exists, a model bylaw has been provided to serve as a starting point for use in drafting a bylaw suited to local conditions.”

So I contacted bylaw services in Prince George. Turns out there is no Standards of Maintenance Bylaw here.

There is, however, a Standing Committee on Homelessness that has been looking into the issue. City councilor Murry Krause is on that committee, so we called him.

And here’s the thing. Even though the Standards of Maintenance Bylaw seems like a solution, Krause says their research says otherwise. There’s a few issues. First is the issue that comes along seemingly every city policy these days: cost. You can have this rule, but what will it cost to enforce it? How many extra staff will you have to hire to make it effective?

The second big issue he raised is that of whether or not it would be effective. Like other bylaws, it would be complaints-driven (ie the city would look into things if someone complained, not just by randomly inspecting apartments and other rental units). The problem? Most people living in units that would need to be upgraded are those living in the cheap places. And people who live in the cheap places are usually living there because they are poor, on some form of income assistance, or otherwise vulnerable and marginalized. They are in these places because they don’t feel like they have any other options. They don’t want to run the risk of being out on the street because they start complaining.

There’s other problems, too. From a Tyee article on landlord problems in Vancouver, speaking with then-mayoral candidate Peter Ladner:

“There is some difficult history in enforcing the Standards of Maintenance bylaw,” said Ladner, “where we’ve been challenged in courts and tied up in legal cases and wasted a lot of resources not achieving what we wanted to achieve. It’s inexcusable that people should be living in these kinds of conditions, but the city’s actual powers to change that are not clear.”"

Murry Krause is of a similar opinion. In his interview on Daybreak, he said, “It’s about us not passing feel-good legislation, it’s about us making sure that we put mechanisms in place that work.” What that is isn’t clear.

In my conversation with him, Krause seemed to be of the opinion that it involved improving access to affordable housing through the city and/or government so that low-income people aren’t at the mercy of low-cost-but-not-great-to-live-in rental units. But it’s still under investigation. As he said:

“I certainly don’t have a magic bullet.”

Indeed.

See also:

• CBC interview with Murry Krause
• The Tyee: A City Soft on Slumlords?
• housing.gov.bc: Standards of Maintenance Bylaw

rush{hour} by DJHuber

I’m going to take this one as vindication.

The city of Fort St. John has reported a 29.9% increase in ridership over the past year (the highest for BC Transit which serves Prince George, Victoria, and most other major B.C. cities outside Vancouver). The main reason, according to Victor Shopland, Director of Infrastructure and Capital Works?

“The big thing is that we changed the routes and we put the transfer station back down at the Cultural Centre. All the buses now meet together at the same time in half hour routes that are more convenient (emphasis mine).”

Earlier this year I wrote an overly-complicated post that basically says that the number one problem with Prince George’s transit service is it’s just too complicated. Trying to figure out how to get from point A to point B cannot be done quickly or intuitively, in part because there is no main hub, and also because they don’t leave with any consistency– you could be waiting at any given stop for any length of time between 15 minutes and an hour. From that post:

“I’d argue that if you were to worry less about hitting every side street as effectively as possible and instead focus on main roads and more frequent departures, you’d see a big uptick in people using this system…  This might not be the MOST EFFICIENT route to take, but it is the MOST CONSISTENT. It would be easier to understand. If you know which main roads your destination is near, you know, roughly, how to get there. And you know how long you have to wait, transfers and all, because EVERYTHING leaves every fifteen minutes. Or half an hour, if that’s too often for the system to bear. But at least YOU KNOW.”

Fort St. John did this, and they’re seeing results. In fact, my central word (consistent) is attributed to Shopland in the article:

“He pointed out that having the buses all come together at one location creates consistency so people know exactly where and when they can always get on the bus.”

I even had the opportunity to interview Mr. Shopland in preparation for his appearance on CBC, discussing Fort St. John’s success. I asked him whether the increase might be attributed to other factors– more elderly, more students, more temporary workers, less gas money. He said it was possible, but was adamant that the consistent departure times of half-an-hour and central hub were the number one factor, to the point that there was a measurable uptick in use almost from day one these changes were implemented.

I’m glad Fort St. John is having this success. And I truly hope that other cities are paying attention.

See also: What Bus Systems Could Learn From the iPhone

Yesterday’s Citizen featured an opinion piece by Todd Whitcombe, UNBC science professor and past provincial NDP candidate. It’s behind a paywall, so here’s the portion that I’ll be commenting on:

“None of these economic opportunities are going to generate the thousands of jobs that we need in this town in order to prosper and grow. And in order to enhance the tax base so that we can afford the services that we hold near and dear.”

This is an article entitled “Stagnant city needs more than review.”

I’ve already expressed by suspicion of the growth gospel in a previous post. In it, I wrote:

“Maybe we need growth in the short term, and even in the medium term. We’re in a relatively sparsely populated part of  a relatively sparsely populated country. But I’d feel more comfortable if there was some conversation about what our target population is. What do we need to enjoy a comfortable level of living, have various services provided, and avoid a crushing mass of people everywhere? How do we hit our target and then plateau?”

That’s a question I’d like to see Mr. Whitcombe and the other politicians/commentators who’ve raised this stagnancy point answer. What is the guarantee that population growth will lead to a better overall city? Mr. Whitcombe is calling for thousands of new jobs. I’m going to assume this includes a few thousand new residents. And I don’t begrudge anyone who wants to live here the opportunity. But once again I would like to ask– why pursue this above all else? Why growth as an end unto itself?

I have been squeezing some research on this subject into my reading. The best argument I’ve seen in favor of growth comes from “urban physicist” Geoffrey West. He’s been studying the mathematics of cities and has found that every time a city doubles in population, it only requires an 85% increase in infrastructure, energy, etc. As a New York Times profile on him suggests:

“This straightforward observation has some surprising implications. It suggests, for instance, that modern cities are the real centers of sustainability. According to the data, people who live in densely populated places require less heat in the winter and need fewer miles of asphalt per capita. (A recent analysis by economists at Harvard and U.C.L.A. demonstrated that the average Manhattanite emits 14,127 fewer pounds of carbon dioxide annually than someone living in the New York suburbs.) Small communities might look green, but they consume a disproportionate amount of everything. As a result, West argues, creating a more sustainable society will require our big cities to get even bigger. We need more megalopolises.”

Which is fine, up to a point. Even West acknowledges that our current lifestyle and growth rate is unsustainable, short of some remarkable innovations. Countering this urban optimism is another bit of math that comes from investor Jeremy Grantham. I’m quoting wholesale from the Business Insider column I read this in, in which Grantham writes (emphasis is mine):

“Four years ago I was talking to a group of super quants, mostly PhDs in mathematics, about finance and the environment. I used the growth rate of the global economy back then – 4.5% for two years, back to back – and I argued that it was the growth rate to which we now aspired.

To point to the ludicrous unsustainability of this compound growth I suggested that we imagine the Ancient Egyptians, whose gods, pharaohs, language, and general culture lasted for well over 3,000 years.

Starting with only a cubic meter of physical possessions (to make calculations easy), I asked how much physical wealth they would have had 3,000 years later at 4.5% compounded growth. Now, these were trained mathematicians, so I teased them: “Come on, make a guess. Internalize the general idea. You know it’s a very big number.”

And the answers came back: “Miles deep around the planet,” “No, it’s much bigger than that, from here to the moon.”

Big quantities to be sure, but no one came close.

In fact, not one of these potential experts came within one billionth of 1% of the actual number, which is approximately 10 raised to the 57th power, a number so vast that it could not be squeezed into a billion of our Solar Systems.”

Now, I know he’s talking physical wealth here but he goes on to write about population sizes:

“So, I then went on. “Let’s try 1% compound growth in either their wealth or their population,” (for comparison, 1% since Malthus’ time is less than the population growth in England). In 3,000 years the original population of Egypt – let’s say 3 million – would have been multiplied 9 trillion times! There would be nowhere to park the people, let alone the wealth.”

Would you like to know the world’s current growth rate? 1.14% per year. We are straight up shooting for something that would result in no physical space left on the earth’s surface.

So I repeat my questions. Why growth? To what end? When Mr. Whitcombe and others speak of the need for growth, are they planning for stagnancy at some point, either in this generation or in some future one?

Further: Why is a city of 70 to 80 thousand considered a failure? What are these services that we desperately need that we cannot possibly achieve without a few extra thousand people? Should every small community that hasn’t hit this magical number be aiming for growth on an even larger/faster scale than Prince George? And given that Toronto, Montreal, and Edmonton– Canadian cities with much larger tax bases– are struggling with their infrastructure, would Mr. Whitcombe prescribe a larger tax base (ie. a larger population) to solve all their woes as well?

The pursuit of growth, in both population and in wealth, is an incredibly pervasive goal– one that I rarely see questioned anywhere in the political or theoretical spectrum. And I would really like to know why this is. Because I don’t see us getting the technology to populate a billion solar systems– not now, and not in 3,000 years. At some point, this conversation is going to have to shift.

photo: The Smithsonian/Flickr Commons

Prince George has a new mayor, and a mix of old and new on city council.

As has become customary for election campaigns over the past few years, there were a number of candidates running on the idea of re-connecting with voters, being more accessible and transparent, and having a two-way conversation with citizens.

I’m curious if this will match up with another election theme: having a presence on social media.

In the United States, both the Republicans and the Democrats have caught onto using Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr et al to get their message out there.

In Canada, the federal election featured politicians on all sides Tweeting, and even an NDP iPhone app.

Most candidates in this past city campaign had at least a rudimentary presence online. Let’s see how they were used by those who were elected:

Frank Everitt

Everitt is a new face on council. He had no official website, but he did have a fairly robust Facebook page. He started with a post in early October introducing himself and posted with increasing frequency as time went on. Posts included explanations of his inability to attend one of the all-candidates’ debates, photos, and links to articles about the election. His most recent post as of this morning is an enthusiastic thank-you for his election.

He was on Twitter significantly less, and with far less conversation. In fact, his four most recent Tweets seem to be mistakes, with his latest (from election day) being the somewhat baffling statement “Could be sure taken their sweet time.”

34 “likes” on Facebook, 7 followers on Twitter, following 1, 5638 votes.

Garth Frizzell

Frizzell is returning to council, and is no stranger to the world of social media. He has had a robust Twitter presence for years, engaging in conversation multiple times a day, and he has opened up his personal Facebook page to subscribers, as well. He also has a blog, Google Plus, and LinkedIn accounts. Given that he reportedly found out he was re-elected via Twitter while at a Tweet-up, he odds of him connecting online are pretty much 100%.

1,296 followers, following 1,561, 830 friends, 6189 votes.

Dave Wilbur

A veteran of council, Wilbur ran a decidedly non-social media oriented campaign. As best I can tell, he has no presence on Twitter. He has the word “councilor” on his personal Facebook url which may be an effort to identify himself as a politician, or might just be him identifying his job. His wall is public, and the last few posts include a campaign sign and him touting his efforts to bring 911 to the Bulkley Nechako. Prior to his October announcement of running for re-election, though, the most recent posts were a few from July, and then a few from April. During the course of the campaign he posted six times.

116 friends, 6932 votes.

Cameron Stolz

Another incumbent, Stolz also ran a (failed) campaign to be the Conservative candidate for Prince George – Peace River while sitting on council. Did this extra campaign beef up his social media presence? Not on Twitter, where he has 32 followers, is following five, and has no Tweets. CameronStolz.ca does show a link to his Facebook page, and he has been pretty active on there: mp3s of his radio appearances, videos from candidate forums, links to articles about the election, and status updates.

Go back, though, and you’ll notice a complete absence of posts between March (when he lost in his Conservative nomination to Bob Zimmer) and September, when he announces his re-run for city council. We’ll see if he goes equally silent now that he’s no longer campaigning.

It’s also worth mentioning he seems to be more active on his personal Facebook page, which is open but I’m not linking to since he has fan page. I was only able to go back as far as October, when the page was overrun by happy birthday wishes.

32 followers, following 5, 109 “likes,” 542 friends, 7146 votes.

Albert Koehler

Albert Koehler is the second new face we’re talking about, and he seems to have a pretty firm grasp of the two-way conversation to be had on Twitter. If you visit his page this morning, it’s full of him replying to people congratulating him on his win. During the campaign, his messages showed him actively following people and replying to ideas  and questions they were providing. His Facebook page was regularly updated, including with links to his blog expanding on and explaining his positions. He has a YouTube channel, too. If I were a betting man I’d say that aside from Frizzell, he has the best chance of maintaining a presence online now that’s been elected.

130 followers, following 111, 92 “likes,” 7324 votes.

Murry Krause

There’s a Facebook page, but I’m fairly certain Murry doesn’t run it (unless he has a propensity for speaking in the third person that I haven’t observed in any other venue).  It is official, though, since MurryKrause.ca links to it, and run by a very enthusiastic fan who posted links, appearances, etc. Given that the page was “re-elect Murry Krause to council” I don’t know how much life it will have outside of the election campaign. No Twitter that I could find.

52 “likes,” 7976 votes.

Brian Skakun

Skakun was in and out of the Twitter world during his last term on council– mentioning the occasional concert he went to or observation about the city. He became much more active during the campaign, talking about politics and non-politics with others, and continues to be active today responding to congratulations and offering his own. He created an official Facebook page in early October and has been fairly present on there, as well. Again, if I were to guess I’d say we’ll see him intermittently on these platforms, but not with the regularity of Frizzell or Koehler.

235 followers, following 432, 168 “likes”, 9040 votes.

Lyn Hall

A newbie to council (though veteran of school board), and top of the pack for council votes. He has a Facebook account that was created in late September, shortly before his council run, but it’s speculative to say the two are related (though not illogical).  I see two or three posts that Lyn made, both mentioning that he’s running for council,  then a bunch of activity and messages from friends. If there’s a Twitter, I’m not finding it.

154 friends, 9529 votes.

Shari Green

The new mayor of Prince George has forayed into Twitter in the past, apparently under the example of Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi and the advice of Garth Frizzell. She made two Tweets– one in June announcing she was on Twitter, a second in September expressing her shock that her dad was on Twitter, then nothing. What did surface was the @ShariGreen4Mayr account (the misspelling of which I’m a bit baffled by since “sharigreen4mayor” was available). It made one Tweet with her slogan “Let’s Get Moving!”, followed one inactive account and went silent.

Perhaps this silence was due to all the activity on Facebook. Actually, probably not, since there were only a few posts there, though there were replies to pretty much everyone who wrote on the wall (and there continue to be, as congratulations go up). That said, I’m not expecting her to have a bunch of time to learn and use social media now if she didn’t see it as a useful tool of the campaign. Again, just a prediction.

21 followers, following 1, 146 “likes,” 6969 votes.

Stray Observations

We are obviously not at a point where social media is an essential component of a campaign, especially given that two of the least active users got some of the highest vote counts. Nor is social media an essential component of being an open, accessible leader– most of the candidates listed phone numbers and email addresses where they could be reached, and perhaps were spending so much time using those forms of communication broadcasting to the minority of people on Twitter seemed less essential.  After all, if you only have 27 followers but 60 unread messages, where might you spend your time?

Further, while much of the focus in the tech and media world is on Twitter, based on this cursory glance you’re going to see more activity from local politicians on Facebook. This is reflective of the population at large– there are still far more people on Facebook than on Twitter (and far more actively using phones and email than on either of those platforms, particularly when it comes to the age groups that vote).

That said, the next campaign is three years away. Three years ago, I don’t know that any of the candidates used Twitter. Maybe a few were on Facebook. Municipal candidates, at least here, seems to be some distance from keying in on the social media demographic compared to federal and even provincial politicians. But that’s their base. The Twitter community in Prince George now is still not as robust as the one in Vancouver was two years ago. So you’re not going to see people chasing votes there.

But that Twitter base is growing. And the whole “mobilize your base online” thing really started with Barack Obama, and then trickled outwards. With that team gearing up for another run, it will be interesting to see what, if anything, trickles down here.

Ultimately, it’s up to you. Would you like your new mayor and council to interact with you online? Or by some other method. I’m guessing this is the time to let them know.

See also: Prince George Election 2011 Informal Recap

The votes are in, and Prince George has a new mayor and a few new faces on council. From the start, pundits were saying the race between Green and Rogers would be a close one, and the fact that Green ousted the incumbent is a surprise, perhaps, only because it is notoriously difficult to oust an incumbent mayor (this is only the second time in the city’s history). On council, everyone running for re-election made it with the exception of Deborah Munoz, and the three newcomers (Lynn Hall, Frank Everitt, and Albert Koehler) are all established names in the city. On school board, a couple of incumbents were ousted, and look to be joined by five new faces.

The following is a few observations that I’m making after a brief glance around on Sunday morning:

Slates and Endorsements

It’s a bit of a hunt to find endorsements this time around, but there were a few (if I’m missing any, I’d appreciate you letting me know). The one that is likely the happiest this morning is the Prince George Recreational Hockey League, who had all of their endorsements (Green, Everitt, Koehler, Hall, Stolz and Skakun) get in.

Cope 378 had some endorsements, too, and came up about 50-50. Rogers is out, on council Munoz failed to get re-elected but Krause, Everitt, and Skakun all got in, and of their two choices for school board, Bekkering is in while Crawford is out.

The People’s Action Committee for Clean Air didn’t run endorsements so much as they graded candidates based on a questionnaire, however knowledge on the subject of clean air didn’t seem to be much help in getting elected. While Hall received an “A+” and topped the council race, the “A”‘s received by Dan Rogers, Deborah Munoz and Brad Gagnon didn’t seem to help much. Nor, for that matter did the fact that Shari Green and Brian Skakun received a “C+” seem to hurt. Of the remaining elected council members, Wilbur, Koehler, Everitt, Krause, and Stolz received a “B” grade while Frizzell was not graded as his form was submitted late. However, you can read his (and all the other candidates) answers here.

Absent from this year’s race, at least publicly, was anything resembling the “Let’s Go PG” movement of business owners endorsing candidates. Ben Meisner, however, reported on their absence earlier this year with a look at their past set of endorsements. As of nomination papers being filed, he had had no luck finding any slate from this group.

How much any of this mattered in how people voted, of course, is anyone’s guess.

Diversity

This is an interesting one. It is being widely reported that this is the first time Prince George has had a female mayor since Carrie Jane Gray left office in 1969, but it’s also a pretty male dominated council. This may not be surprising since only four women even ran for a seat (out of a total of 19). In terms of visible minorities, a group that the Globe and Mail reports is vastly underrepresented in local government in Canada– well, I wouldn’t exactly say those elected reflects the diversity I see when going about my day. Perhaps this is because there weren’t a lot of visible minorities running. The issue of why this might be, or if it even matters, could be an interesting discussion.

The World Is Run By Those Who Show Up

We had an open line for candidate’s to make their pitch to voters at CBC. A candidate from another city opened by saying “The world is run by those who show up.” If you take the world to be run by elected officials and/or the people who vote for them, then this certainly holds. Early numbers say that 15,266 people bothered to vote, in a city of close to 80,000. That puts total numbers at something like 18%, give or take a few, which is hardly a ringing endorsement for anyone. UPDATE: HQ Prince George says there are 53,000 eligible voters, putting turnout at 29%, though those numbers are still far from impressive.

I hesitate to speculate but I would guess that low turn-out in city elections is less people saying “it doesn’t matter who I vote for because my vote doesn’t count” than it is “it doesn’t matter who I vote for because city elections don’t matter.” But again, who knows? Either way, I’d argue they’re wrong because city’s are under increasing pressure to do more with less, and the next decade or so is going to see significant strain on budgets and infrastructure. Whether that contributes to increased turn out next time around– well, we’ll see in three years.

image via Opinion250

It’s local government/school board voting day in B.C., and if history tells us anything, it’s that turnout is going to be fairly low– 50% is, perhaps, optimistic.

I think this is too bad since in a lot of ways, civic government is the best example of “direct democracy” we have. Unlike federal or provincial elections where you only get to vote for one representative who may or may not wind up in the governing party and who, even if they do, may or may not be a cabinet member, in municipal elections you vote for every open seat. Maybe not every one of your choices will get in, but the odds are a lot better. And if they don’t, it’s not because of regional weighting or first-past-the-post– it’s because more people voted for everyone else. You even get to vote directly for the city’s “leader” (mayor), although it is worth noting that mayor’s don’t have the amount of executive decision-making power that many people seem to think.

For another thing, city issues are extremely concrete and direct. Water supply. Roads and snow clearing. Garbage collection, parks, and building licences. The look and feel of your community is directly affected by decisions made by city council. They may not have the taxing power and/or financial means to do everything they’d like to do, but lots of this is fundamental stuff. Federal and provincial governments manage important things, too, but I think not enough weight is put on the importance of local government.

To that end, yesterday on Daybreak we had two guests who broke down whythey think municipal elections important. Former school district trustee Lois Boone pointed out that school boards have a larger budget than city councils do, and have a direct effect on the education of children. Hear her interview here.

Likewise, UNBC professor Jason Morris was equally adamant that people should get themselves informed about the people wanting to run the city, and there is no shortage of ways to do so and reasons why you should. That can be heard here.

However, you may be reading this having no idea about where, how, and who to vote for. I’m not going to tell you (particularly on that last choice), but I am going go give you a quick break-down of where you can get some last-minute information for the Prince George area:

Where Do I Vote?

The City of Prince George has an elections page. It includes  a list of places where you can vote, and links to other information. I’ll even make it easier on you– you can vote at Kelly Road, Vanway, John McInnis, DP Todd, Malaspina, Rob Brent, Edgewood, and Blackburn.

Do I Need ID?

The provincial government has a list of election rules. Key information:

 ” you must have two pieces of identification that prove who you are and where you live. One piece of identification must have your signature on it. If your identification does not show your residential address, you can make what is called a “solemn declaration” as to your place of residence. The voting clerk at the voting place will have the form you need to use to make that declaration.” If you need to know more than that, go here.

Who Should I Vote For?

Hahaha, I’m not going to tell you that. But I will give you a list of places where you can get some of that information.

• The City of Prince George has a list of candidates, including some contact information and websites, if they were provided.
• The Prince George Free Press website has an election section. They even have a YouTube video where you can watch the entirety of one of the all-candidates debates. Social media!
• Also from the Prince George Free Press, a special online issue about mayoral candidates and issues. They also had one about councilors, but for some reason it’s no longer online. However, it was published in Wednesday’s paper, and it’s free, so head to a coffee shop or something and find it there.
• The Prince George Citizen also has an elections section– one for coverage, and one for candidates. Catch up on what you’ve been missing.
• Hey, you know who else has been doing candidate coverage? CKPG! Unfortunately, their candidate profile page seems to be broken. Here’s the link, just in case it comes back.
• However, CFIS’s Ben Meisner has been interviewing candidates on his show. You can get the podcast here.
• CBC has been doing coverage of the full northern BC region, so there’s not as much on councilors. You can hear from the mayoral candidates, though.
• HQPrinceGeorge has all their coverage here.
• Kevin Creamore is the man behind pgelxn.com, a blog focused on sharing information about the elections. It includes links to various media coverage and candidate profiles.

So there you are. You have until 8 pm tonight to do this, so you should, at the very least, be able to find a couple of people you like and vote for them– no obligation to vote for a full slate. But it is worth it to try and find people who you think can make your city a better place.

And as an aside, I’ll be working tonight on the CBC election special for northern BC. Starting at 8 we’ll have coverage of the full northern region, with punditry from UNBC professors Jason Morris and Jason Lacharite, former MLA/deputy premier and former school district trustee Lois Boone. We’ll have live coverage of the results, so tune in.

• Twitter: follow @pgtransitalerts

• Cellphone: text “follow pgtransitalerts” to 21212 (Canada only– this will text you every time the pgtransitalerts Twitter feed is updated)

• e-mail: Go to http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=PGTransitAlerts&loc=en_US

• RSS: If you’re a fan of RSS, you can find the RSS feed at http://feeds.feedburner.com/PGTransitAlerts

• Facebook: “Like” PG Transit alerts on Facebook in order to have them come up in your Facebook stream. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Prince-George-Transit-Alerts/107584505964257

For those interested, my original post provides information on how I made this.

Because of the size of the audience, a new trend has popped up with people posting general questions, comments, and promotions related to the Prince George area on the page. Stuff like concerts, fundraisers, and awareness campaigns. All things I generally like. But I’ve been deleting them. Back in June I wrote:

“Quick admin note: please do not use this page to promote unrelated events or businesses. Repeat offenders will be banned.”

This got six likes, and one happy comment. Time went on, and I deleted a few things. Then, someone started reposting the things I deleted. So I wrote:

“Unfortunately, clarification on this point is needed. Posts unrelated to Mr. PG will be taken down. That is not a judgement on whatever is being posted. It is simply a matter of volume. This page is one of the most popular Facebook pages in northern B.C. It is simply too easy for it to be overrun by people posting links to any number of worthy or unworthy causes, events, etc. There are plenty of other forums to share general news about Prince George. This is not one.”

And this caused some controversy. People wondered why they shouldn’t be allowed to post stuff about Prince George on the page. Why did the page exist if not a forum for just that?

I attempted to answer there, and I’m writing it out here, too, so I can have easy access whenever it comes up again.

***

Why you can’t post things unrelated to Mr. PG

With the Mr. PG page, I’m not trying to make money, I’m not trying to grow a brand, I’m just providing a way for people to say they like Mr. PG in the language of our times, the internet and, more specifically, Facebook.

That being the case, I don’t want the page to have people regret their decision to “like.” I don’t post status updates every day, because that would pollute thousands of stranger’s news feeds. I post when something related to Mr. PG comes about– he changes costume, a news article is written about him, or he is incorporated into a mural or museum exhibit. I’m happy for others to do the same, as well as share their thoughts on him– good and bad. It’s a fun forum to look at as people swap stories, questions, and photos.

If I were to open up posting on unrelated events, it could quickly get out of hand. You’d have to wade through a pile of concert listings, business promos and fundraising drives to get to what you wanted. It would be a general message board. At the moment, it’s only a few posts here and there, so maybe wouldn’t be that problematic. But even now it dilutes what is there, and sets a bad precedent. The quickest way to make people ignore the page is to have it present irrelevant information (and I do realize I’m griping about irrelevant information in a blog post about a Facebook page for a kitschy roadside attraction). The reason I’ve decided on a blanket policy is it’s a heck of a lot easier than having to decide turn-by-turn which unrelated post is maybe good enough to stay and which is just spammy.

***

Being “Mr. PG”

Also out of this discussion came people addressing “Mr. PG” directly and asking him (me) why he/I was being such a killjoy. One person even posted helpful tips on how I could grow my business by speaking in the friendly voice she imagines Mr. PG would have.

Something else I’ve tried to do, and perhaps not consistently enough, is to NOT give Mr. PG a voice. This page is not my interpretive art project. What I think Mr. PG would sound like and what you think he would sound like are completely different. I would hate it if someone else had made the Mr. PG fan page and was using that to post “lol whut?” status updates on a regular basis. So while I post news, I try to do it in a way that sounds like an administrator, not “Mr. PG.” Sometimes it can be fun to reply with a “sure” when someone asks Mr. PG if he’ll be their friend, but beyond that I don’t want to mess it up.

***

I’ll admit, this is a pretty silly subject to write about. And I don’t give it more weight than it has. This is a side project that takes a few minutes every month and is pretty much always fun. But there is a method to it, or at least an attempted one. I’m fascinated by community management, and this is the biggest community I’ve had to manage, even if it is just by luck. And what I just wrote is what I do to try to do justice to the online home of everyone’s favourite civic mascot.

***

EDIT: In the comments, Tyler Neilson brings up a good and ery fair point about Facebook pages having the implication of being run “officially” and the fact that I haven’t effectively placed a disclaimer on the site. That is something I am looking at how to best address (unfortunately, I’m not seeing a great way to incorporate the disclaimer so it’s noticeable without being overwhelming and ugly).

Kits beach on a Thursday

Last week,  I was down in Vancouver and Squamish. Vancouver while my partner worked, and Squamish for a wedding.

In Vancouver, I had the day to myself in Kitsilano. It was a sunny day, so at one point I went to the beach. It was nice and close by, but it was also covered with people.

In Squamish, the same thing. We had some time and were told about a great lake. It was fun– you could dive off rocks and into the lake. But once again, it was covered with people. So much so that when we tried going out a second time, we had to park on the highway and hike our way in because there was no room in the parking lot.

This weekend, we’ve been going out around Prince George. On Saturday, we went out to a well-marked, well-mapped lake about twenty minutes away. It was one of the nicest Saturdays we’ve had all summer. No one else was there. You could hear the occasional piece of traffic, but other than that we were completely alone (aside from a couple of loons).

Yesterday, we decided to go see Hixon Falls. There were a few people at the main falls when we arrived, but they left soon. Further down, in the chutes, there was no one around.

I don’t mind people. I get a charge out of having them around me in the city. And I like the lakes and ocean around Vancouver and Squamish very much. I think it’s great there’s so many people who want to get outdoors, and that’s there’s so many places they have access to. I would never begrudge anyone access to the wilderness.

But I find it far more relaxing to explore lakes and woods when there aren’t dozens or hundreds of other people around me. Even better is when there isn’t an extremely busy highway just a few metres away. I think a lot of people up here feel the same way.

That’s one of my favourite things about living where I do. A short drive, and you can completely escape everyone. Few people, fewer traffic. You can just enjoy the silence and the experience of being alone.

That’s why I sometimes question the mantra of growth. I don’t want to stop people from living up here. But I don’t necessarily think it’s always a bad thing to pursue population stability rather than population expansion. If Prince George were to grow to the point that all these lakes and rivers around town became as busy as the ones around Vancouver and Squamish, I feel like the quality of life will have been negatively impacted. Maybe not in a tangible, measurable way, but in a real one nonetheless.

I know the economic arguments in favour of growth. But I rarely hear anyone take them to their logical conclusion. If population always expands, eventually you run out of room. Maybe not anywhere in the near future, but eventually. I don’t think mega-metropolises are ideal places for humans to live. But you rarely hear that conversation. Just the one about how to get more people to live here or there. Or in some cases, how to encourage more people to have more babies.

And that’s fine. Maybe we need growth in the short term, and even in the medium term. We’re in a relatively sparsely populated part of  a relatively sparsely populated country. But I’d feel more comfortable if there was some conversation about what our target population is. What do we need to enjoy a comfortable level of living, have various services provided, and avoid a crushing mass of people everywhere? How do we hit our target and then plateau?

This is a topic I plan on researching in the coming months. But today is a sunny day off in a part of the world where we are lucky enough to be surrounded by getaways and the means to get to them. I’m headed out.

I was interviewed about the Listen Bird today for a student documentary today. It was because I wrote an essay about the Listen Bird a while ago— in it, I said

One of my greatest fears is that one day an overzealous downtown beautifiation project will eradicate the Listen Bird’s presence. Yes, he’ll survive in the bathrooms of Books and Company, but what of the ones hidden away in bowling alley doorways, back alley bus stops, or the downtown post offices?

I bring this up because I was interviewed in front of this bowling alley doorway Listen Bird today, and I noticed that even thought the rest of the area had been repainted yellow, the area surrounding the bird was left alone!

Awesome. Glad to see someone else felt it was worth preserving.

That would be bad enough if we had had a summer, but this has been the coolest, greyest, rainiest May/June/July I can remember. This is coming off of one of the longest and snowiest winters we’ve had in years.

Weather doesn’t traditionally get to me that much, but with the long-term forecast predicting more of the same, I’m starting to get worried. If we hit fall proper without breaking the 25 mark, I’m probably going to feel it.

To give you an idea of how bad it’s been, a day where it hits nineteen and doesn’t rain is considered one of the best.

I think the only reason we haven’t had a mass outbreak of depression is there’s been just enough sun to stave it off. An hour here, an hour there, with the occasional actual sunny day, even if still requires a sweater.

What it feels like is wanting dinner, but being given just enough appetizers to stave off the hunger. You’re never full, but you never reach the point of painful hunger, either.

But if that long winter sleep sets in without getting a full meal, I’m going to have to visit another restaurant.

Addendum:

I’ve heard some people saying the weather’s not so bad. Some cite statistics.

Here’s the thing about statistics: they can lie.

For example: A day where it rains intensely for one hour at 3 am, resulting in 5 mm of precipitation, and is then sunny and clear will statistically be rainier than a day that drizzles from 9 am to 9 pm resulting in 4 mm.

This has definitely been the long, drawn out rain and clouds.

We still have to get the Concerns of Royalty. They’ve played countless shows over the last few years, but we haven’t yet grabbed them. Hopefully we do before their current drummer leaves town. He’s a talented solo musician, too. We also could have done the Delightful Gang, since they are playing their last show this Saturday before various members scatter. Off the top of my head glaring oversights so far also include Cera, Foam Mesh Press and Ceremony, not to mention up-and-comers like Canadian Waste and Wisconsin Dream Guitar. And that’s just in Prince George. There’s a whole stack of artists scattered in Terrace, Quesnel, Fort St John, Smithers and beyond that we simply haven’t managed to get on yet.

Did I mention we feature a musical guest at least once a week?

It’s the same with authors. Every Wednesday, we talk to someone who’s either writing in northern BC or about northern BC. When I found out about this, I thought, “There’s no way there’s enough writing going on here to make this sustainable.” I now have a stack of books by authors that we want to feature but simply haven’t managed to get to yet. It grows every week. Don’t even get me started on poets, short stories, and extended essays. Not to mention musicians and authors who are simply touring through town.

We had to change the way people submit events for our arts announcements so that they would automatically be sorted by date because otherwise there was no way we could properly streamline the process of sorting them. There’s simply too much stuff going on. There are so many interesting stories, people and ideas that we want to get to but have difficulty doing with a mere two-and-half hours a day five days a week to do it in.

I used to hear people say there’s nothing to do in Prince George and get annoyed because if there was nothing to do, why didn’t they go out and make something to do? Now it’s even worse because I see that they don’t even have to make something to do. There’s tons of it. One of the hardest parts of my job is whittling everything there is to do into a few key points to announce on the radio. I almost always feel bad because there’s something I didn’t get to.

Once you scratch the surface you uncover a goldmine of interesting things. Not just here, but anywhere. If a region as sparsely populated as ours can produce this amount of talent I have a hard time believing the rest of the world doesn’t have at least as many stories and subjects to explore. It’s a good problem to have. Certainly better than “There’s nothing to do!”

But I find it interesting that the paper chose not to attribute any of the Tweets. As in, they have a bullet-point list of a dozen or so Tweets, but not a single username. So we have no idea who said what.

I find this a bit odd. When people are quoted in articles, write letters to the editor or appear in the “man on the street” segments, the quotes are attributed. So why not Tweets, where all you have to do is copy-and-paste the username? These people said these things in a public forum (albeit a virtual one), and it would seem to me under normal newspaper guidelines it would be reasonable to attribute these quotes.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the Free Press did this in any malicious or mean-spirited way. It’s not as if they’re stealing intellectual property and users are being denied payment. And the fact they’re taking Tweets to print is indication they’re embracing the role the internet can play in enhancing traditional media. They’ve been getting active online, frequently re-tweeting other media outlets and individual users alike. But when they do that, we see who they’re quoting. Hopefully in future editions they’ll do the same thing in print.

See also: “If It’s On the Internet, Does That Make It Quotable?” by Caroline McCarthy

New York tells you, above all: you should make more money. There are other messages too, of course. You should be hipper. You should be better looking. But the clearest message is that you should be richer.

What I like about Boston (or rather Cambridge) is that the message there is: you should be smarter. You really should get around to reading all those books you’ve been meaning to.

When you ask what message a city sends, you sometimes get surprising answers. As much as they respect brains in Silicon Valley, the message the Valley sends is: you should be more powerful.

He goes on. Fifteenth century Florence nurtured painters. LA likes fame, Washington insiders, Paris culture.

I haven’t lived in many cities, but whenever I visit a place I’m fascinated at trying to discover its character. I think listening for the message might be the best way to do that.

Victoria asked for some combination of insider-ism and aristocracy, and I’m not sure which was dominant. I’ve not lived in Vancouver, but the message I get from it is definitely money. Wuhan, China may have been too foreign for me to pick up on, but it certainly felt like it was “you should have more stuff.” People were discovering consumerism in a big way, and it was a city made up of new city dwellers.

And Prince George? “Big. Your stuff should be bigger.”

Everything here is about size. We’re constantly expanding construction. And when we do, we’re building ever-bigger McMansions. Bigger yards are better. When we were looking for houses, most realtors would show off the size of the yard, saying “lots of space for your toys”– meaning, of course, ATVs, motorboats, and other big vehicles.

Big box stores, big trucks, big nature to get out into, big snowblowers to clean out big driveways. There’s a growing cohort of people looking for something different, particularly in the downtown, but you’re kidding yourself if you think big isn’t the dominant message. Money comes primarily from resource-based industries, and goes primarily to big things.

I don’t know how I feel about that message. I don’t think I’ve bought into it, but I do have a bigger house than I grew up in, even if I don’t have a big vehicle in the driveway. I have a big yard, even if it is for gardens rather than power vehicles.

I’m curious if other people get the same message as me? Leave your thoughts in the comments below, or fire me message @akurjata.

Some quick background: as part of the 2015 Canada Winter Games bid, the city agreed to fix up existing ice facilities. That money, incidentally, comes out of a special tax levy the city created to pay for the games. So, money was budgeted to upgrade, at an expected cost of just under $16 million.

But ice rink users didn’t like that. They had been finding that ice time was slim and felt that the city needed to build a new arena. They showed up at council meetings and sent emails. It was enough for city council to ask for a report outlining a cost comparison between upgrading existing arenas and building a new standalone one. Staff warned that the report would add costs and push back an already tight timeline, but went ahead and did it. In the end, the original plan was estimated at $15.8 million. The new plan came in at just under $22.2 million. That’s an extra $6 million that isn’t being budgeted for. Council chose the more expensive option, and has now started a committee to find ways to cut costs and possibly delay other capital projects (such as upgrading taps at city hall) so they don’t have to raise taxes or borrow money.

Regardless of whether a city with three kin centres, the CN Centre, the coliseum, the Elks Centre, the outdoor ice oval plus numerous outdoor rinks really NEEDS to spend $6 million building yet another rink is necessary, there are a few things worth considering here. First, from the report, it says that in building a new arena the city would be committing to $16.8 million in capital costs. It goes on:

“City Council has currently approved the creation of a special tax levy to provide the approximately $11.1 million funding needed for Option A in addition to the improvement to other civic facilities. Option B would require an additional contribution of approximately $5.7 million, plus applicable taxes, to the 2015 Canada Winter Games capital budget in order to meet all the requirements in civic facilities.”

That extra $5.7 million? Well, as the Prince George Free Press points out:

“To put things in perspective, the extra money it would take to build Kin 4, if applied to the road rehabilitation budget, would double the amount of paving work for the next two years.”

But beyond that, there’s the ongoing operating costs. The report estimates that in order to operate the new arena the city will have to spend an extra $200,000 a year. Every year. Forever.

The Free Press goes on:

“This comes after a $35,000 study that recommended against building Kin 4.”

“Do we really need yet another ice sheet in Prince George? Those who use the ice sheets we have now will obviously say yes, but are they going to buck up and help fund it? The decision to build another arena has to be weighed against what we can afford and what the other needs of the community are. Another ice sheet is more of a want, than a need. We need better roads. We need our taxes to halt their exponential race to the sky. We need city council to realize there is an end to how much we can pay. We need city council to understand that the best “legacy” they can leave is to be responsible with the dollars they get from the taxpayers, not build monuments.”

For his part, Mayor Dan Rogers is concerned about cost overruns so early on. As he says in today’s Citizen:

“The city is on the hook for any overruns in operations or capital… I’ve been involved in organizing several major sporting events. Be conservative early on, because there are unknowns that will creep in.”

Ben Meisner is even more critical:

“The  price tag for this one capital item  has increased by about 30%. There will need to be upgrades to other facilities to meet Games standards but those details have yet to be determined.

What were they thinking?

Never mind the fact the City has entered into a contract with the Canada Games Council to provide the facilities as outlined in the bid.

Never mind the fact that inflation is creeping up, and that means we can expect higher interest rates for any money borrowed.

Never mind the fact that a new stand alone facility will cost more than $200 thousand a year to maintain and operate.

Never mind the fact that we have an aging population and in all likelihood demand for such a facility will decrease.

Never mind the fact that we have fewer children in the community   which has resulted in the closure  of schools.”

To me, the key point of this video is that often the reason people don’t care about important issues is because these important issues are not presented in a way that makes people think they should care, or are allowed to get involved. For example, he displays this portrayal of your stereotypical city bylaw notice:

Dense legalese that no one cares about. Phone numbers are buried at the bottom. He asks, if the city really wants people to get involved, why don’t they make an ad like this:

That was the first “holy cow” moment for me. It’s so obvious, and yet I never thought of it. Obviously not many other people have, either. That’s what’s so impressive. The applause he gets for saying people not caring about these public hearings is “not antipathy, it’s intentional exclusion” is well-deserved.

The second point for me, and the one that’s actually affected change in my own habits is when he says:

“The media plays an important role in developing our relationship with political change, mainly by ignoring politics and focusing on celebrities and scandals. But even when they do talk about important political issues, they do it in a way that I feel discourages engagement. And I’ll give you an example: the Now magazine from last week — progressive, downtown weekly in Toronto. This is the cover story. It’s an article about a theater performance, and it starts with basic information about where it is, in case you actually want to go and see it after you’ve read the article — where, the time, the website. Same with this — it’s a movie review, an art review, a book review — where the reading is in case you want to go. A restaurant — you might not want to just read about it, maybe you want to go to the restaurant. So they tell you where it is, what the prices are, the address, the phone number, etc.

Then you get to their political articles. Here’s a great article about an important election race that’s happening. It talks about the candidates — written very well — but no information, no follow-up, no websites for the campaigns, no information about when the debates are, where the campaign offices are. Here’s another good article about a new campaign opposing privatization of transit without any contact information for the campaign. The message seems to be that the readers are most likely to want to eat, maybe read a book, maybe see a movie, but not be engaged in their community. And you might think this is a small thing, but I think it’s important because it sets a tone and it reinforces the dangerous idea that politics is a spectator sport.”

Yes. I have written countless scripts at CBC. Every time we have a band or an author on, I include a link to their website in case people want to learn more. But more often than not politicians, government officials, and others do not get the same treatment. This despite the fact that most if not all now have a website that I’ve used to educate myself about who they are and what they do. This is changing. I don’t know how many people will go to the website for a crown corporation or opposition MLA versus your average musician, but at least by including the information, they have that option. And more importantly, they might feel like it’s expected that they’d want to learn more.

About a year ago, I wrote about how the Regional District of Fraser Fort George should be using Foursquare in conjunction with their Golden Raven branding. At the time, I suggested they focus on taking their Golden Raven slots and working to create a badge.

A year on, my opinions have changed somewhat. A badge would be cool, but shouldn’t be the primary focus. Fortunately, Foursquare has now opened a lot more elements to use rather than badges and mayors, covered in this extensive help section. And there’s still “tips,” which I’d love to see Tourism PG start dropping. They do a great job letting people know what’s up via Twitter, tips are basically like that only they’re unlocked by being near a place. If I check in at such-and-such hotel when I visit Prince George, having Tourism Prince George let me know what’s within walking distance is a great resource.

There are many, many interesting things being done in the geolocation sphere, and many of the most interesting are being done by tourism organizations. I welcome Tourism PG into this space, and look forward to seeing what they do.

[blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/#!/TourismPG/status/65878249141575680"]

It’s not about mayors and badges anymore:

A large part of Foursquare’s early hook was the game aspect. If you checked-in at some place more than anyone else, you took the mayorship. If you checked in at a certain number of places at certain times with certain frequencies, you got badges. That was enough to gain some early traction, but frankly it’s not a fun enough game to get people to continue using it (at least, it’s not enough to get me to use it).

But it was enough to get an early start on adding metadata to more locations than anyone else, which brings us to:

Tags for real-life:

What Foursquare is doing, and doing well, is building tags for real-life locations. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, tags are keywords  used to quickly categorize different things. For example, I might tag this post with “metadata” “foursquare” and “geolocation.” Then, when search engines like Google visit this site, they know what it’s about– and when you search for “foursquare”, it might come up in the results. It helps personalize recommendations.

I think the best example of metadata/tags for personal recommendations is on Last.fm. I’ve been listening to “The Asteroids Galaxy Tour” and liking them, so if I want to hear similar artists, I might look at their tags: indie, alternative, female vocalists, pop, soul. Artists who match those tags will be similar to the band, and give me a similar sound.

Taking that to real life, Books and Company on Foursquare has been tagged with “books” “music” “live music” “coffee” and more. It’s metadata applied to a physical place. And this gives Foursquare the ability to give you more nuanced exploration and recommendation tips. In fact, that was a major part of their latest version. Point three:

Exploration

Building up this combination of metadata and users has positioned Foursquare to be a powerful travel tool. It’s still early days, but you can see it getting better all the time. From their blog:

For years we’ve wanted to build a recommendation engine for the real world by turning all the check-ins and tips we’ve seen from you, your friends, and the larger foursquare community into personalized recommendations.

You’ll see our first pass at this in foursquare 3.0′s new “Explore” tab. The idea is pretty simple: tell us what you’re looking for and we’ll help you find something nearby. The suggestions are based on a little bit of everything – the places you’ve been, the places your friends have visited, your loyalty to your favorite places, the categories and types of places you gravitate towards, what’s popular with other users, the day of the week, places with great tips, the time of day, and so on. We’ll even tell you why we think you should visit a certain place (e.g. popular with friends, similar to your favorite spots). You’ll find it’s helpful for general things like “food”, “coffee”, “nightlife” (we built in quick access to these searches) and you’ll be surprised by what you get when searching for really specific things, like “80s music,” “fireplaces,” “pancakes,” “bratwurst,” and “romantic.” The more random you get, the more interesting the results get (though be patient with this first release… sometimes we can’t find every random thing).

And outside of the “Explore” tab, you’ll see some of this thinking starting to surface on the “Me” tab as well. As we started to tinker with our recommendations algorithms, we started to see “expertise” starting to emerge from the data – we’re seeing friends that have been to every karaoke place within 10 miles or tried every burger in Los Angeles. The new “Me” tab surfaces some of this, letting you seek guidance from your friends on the categories and places they explore most.

So, a combination of your history (places you like) plus data from your friends and people similar to you, it gets easier to surface places you might like in other cities. I like Books and Company. Foursquare knows this. So when I visit some new town, it finds places that have been tagged similarly to Books and Company, or places frequented by people with similar preferences to mine. Again, it’s early days, but the more people use it and the more you use it, the better it gets.

Conclusion:

Foursquare is one of those things that started off looking kind of stupid, but is building into an actual useful tool– one that can supplement and possibly even replace the guide book by bringing personalized recommendations no matter where you go. Obviously there’s a long way to go still, but it looks a lot more like something worth trying than it did when it was basically just a game.

Further Reading:

Fred Wilson: Exploresquare

Read Write Web: 2011: The Year the Check-In Died

Marshall Kirkpatrick: Why We Check In

Foursquare Blog: The Vision for #Fsq3 and beyond

Hi! For the first time ever, our latest EP, swans, is available for streaming online in its entirety! Incidentally, you can also buy the entire thing online at whatever quality you want (even FLAC!) for a dang ol’ tasty price of $5 RIGHT NOW! Head to http://cera.bandcamp.com/ to get on that!

Don’t wanna spend that much? Well, help yourself — and us! :) — out by inviting all of your friends to be a fan of our page! If we get 650 fans, you will only have to pay $4! For 750 fans, $3! If you guys do some truly wicked stuff and we get 950 fans, everybody can have the album for $1! One freakin’ dollar!

Y’know what, we’ll take it one step further, and say that if we get 950 fans, we’ll just straight up give away ten free downloads.

To sum it up:

650 fans: $4

750 fans: $3

950 fans: $1

Lastly, we’re going to be keeping an eye out, and anybody that has statuses that read something like “yo check out this sick band @cera, the more people that like them, the more of a discount you get on their EP!” will be entered into a draw to win some of our next batch of merch. A few lucky people will win some free swag just for pimping us!

It’s not new to write about how awareness and fans have become the new commodity in the music industry, and the recorded music is less a product than a promotion for the live show. Cera’s a band that I think can benefit from this given their live show experience. They’ve got 566 fans as I write this, be interesting to see how well this plays out. Incidentally, one of the band’s members posted an article from New Music Strategies called “Should I Be Worried About Piracy” recently. From it:

1) People who share your music are recommending you to people who respect their taste and opinion;

2) The vast majority of people who have unauthorised copies of your music would not have ordinarily paid for it anyway;

3) Do you really want for people who cannot afford your music to be prevented from ever hearing it?

Good advice.

Jack Layton is in Prince George this morning. I’ve heard this is the first time a federal leader has visited the city since 1993. This despite the fact that the city actually has two ridings up for grabs. Not as many as Montreal or Vancouver, I know, but more than lots of other communities.

I assume the reason leaders don’t visit often is that the Prince George ridings are considered “safe ridings.” Prince George – Peace River was Liberal from 1968 until 1972, and since then it’s gone to the Conservatives or the Consevative forbearers of the Progressive Conservatives, Reform, and Canadian Alliance. Cariboo – Prince George has been Conservative since it was created in 2004, and the riding that preceded it, Prince George – Bulkley Valley had been Conservative, PC or Reform since 1979 aside from one five year stint with the NDP in 1988. In the last two decades, the Conservative candidates have won with over 40% of the popular vote.

As long as I’ve been of voting age, Prince George ridings have largely being ignored by the parties at a national level. Again, I’m guessing it’s because the Conservatives feel assured of victory and focus on ridings that are vulnerable, while the other parties feel assured of their defeat, and so focus on ridings that are vulnerable.

This has been most obvious in the case of parachute candidates– people running to be the representative for a riding they’ve never lived in and may not have even visited. This hasn’t been the case for every candidate in every riding in every election, but it has happened. It’s happening in this election.

Parachute candidates feel like a flash-point for the party vs candidate debate. Is having a candidate who doesn’t live in the riding an admission that local representation plays a small role in the overall political game? Are we really just voting for the party and its leaders? Or are we supposed to be voting for an MP who can bring the issues of their constituents to Ottawa? In one case, a candidate refused to talk with local media– they were just a name on the ballot. If you voted for that candidate, could you feel like you were basing your decision on anything other than the party they were attached to? Does that matter?

I guess the parties do what they have to do. There’s only a limited number of days in a campaign. There’s only so many people willing to stand for office, especially if they don’t think they have a chance of winning. They’re going to focus on places where results aren’t a foregone conclusion. But I sometimes wonder what would happen if they campaigned everywhere with as much vigour as they do in swing ridings.

Further reading:

Jason Morris paints a sympathetic portrait of parachute candidates– and good reasons the party may use them. It’s good balance if you feel angry about parachute candidates. He also lays out an argument as to why BC’s north doesn’t matter.

I think there’s another form of ambient awarenss, though. It’s gaining peripheral knowledge about a physical place that you aren’t actually located in. I had a bout of that on Saturday night.

On Saturday, LCD Soundsystem were playing their last ever show at Madison Square Garden in New York. I’ve never been to NYC, and I’ve never seen LCD Soundsystem perform. I didn’t livestream the concert, but I still have a pretty good idea what went on. That’s because I was getting updates on how things were progressing throughout and after the show. On Facebook, my cousin had flown in from Dawson Creek to see one of his favourite bands. On Twitter, the comedian Aziz Anasari was there to see his friend play. And on Tumblr, multiple music bloggers I follow were posting pictures as it went. So even though I only popped online for about five minutes, I had a full slate of updates telling me what it was like to be in Madison Square Garden right at that moment. Again, I wasn’t looking for news updates on New York or concert reviews on the show. It was ambient knowledge.

A more long-going version of this geographical ambient awareness comes to me in the form of Prince George’s County. As a researcher for a current events show based in Prince George, BC, Canada, I’m often on the internet searching for documents, background, or updates from the city. But often, these searchers bring results to me from Prince George’s County, Maryland. I can tell you with 100% certainty that Prince George’s County is near Washington, D.C. even though I’ve not once sought out information about this place. I can also tell you that it’s in a tri-cities area and that in 2010 they had elections. There’s a strong African-American community, as well. Again, I’ve never done any research on this. All of this comes to me via peripheral knowledge picked up through Twitter updates, Foursquare locations, and Google news alerts I’ve received when searching “Prince George” (even when I use “-county”).

As long as I try to stay up-to-date on events in Prince George, BC, I’m going to have peripheral awareness of what’s going on in Prince George’s County, Washington. It’s ambient awareness, but awareness nonetheless.

I always have thought that the rivers were grossly under utilized. In any great city on a river- Paris, New York, Chicago, Ottawa, London- the river is a central part of the urban landscape. There are promenades and footbridges, restaurants and cafes that romantically look out over the water. Why doesn’t Prince George have any of these things?

Instead, there’s industry. It would have made much more sense to locate industrial facilities in other areas near the river that weren’t right in town. So, when driving towards the hatchery, you’d pass restaurants and lit boardwalks for nighttime walks instead of piles of wood chips and 2X4s. It would have given the city a certain soul, and made it more aestheticallly appealing.

I can’t speak to the historical reasons why the city was made the way it was, but it does seem to me there was a real absence of design going on. We don’t have a single indoor or semi-urban space to showcase the rivers. There are some parks, which is great, but sometimes you would like to appreciate the river in a context other than a hike or a picnic (particularly in the winter months). I don’t know what can be done at this point, but it should definitely go on the city’s wishlist.

Update: In the comments on this post, Jason leaves a great comment:

“Prince George residents should not have to seek out the rivers; they should just be there.”

Exactly.

It was a beautiful sunny Sunday this weekend, so we took the dogs for a walk in Cottonwood Island park alongside the Nechako River. The ice was breaking up, and it occurred to me that I’d never seen the river at this time of year. That’s because even though the two rivers in Prince George are the primary physical characteristic of the city I’ve called home for most of my life, it’s only recently that I’ve spent much time exploring them.

When we lived in Victoria, we were in a neighbourhood bordered by Beacon Hill Park and Dallas Road. These were the main walking areas in the area, and I felt like visiting them gave me a good feel for the city. The ocean is what has historically shaped Victoria, and to a certain extent it’s the heart of the city. In Wuhan, it was the Yangtze River and East Lake, and in most other cities I’ve visited it’s been some body of water or other. Around the world, dependence on water shapes modes of settlement.

In Prince George, it’s the meeting of the Fraser and Nechako that shapes our history. The First Nations of the Prince George region are even called Lheidli T’enneh, “People of the confluence of the two rivers.” But even though we have plenty of companies with “two rivers” in their name, I don’t think the rivers play much of a role in the daily lives of most people living here.

After our experience living in Victoria, I started looking at neighbourhoods in Prince George in different ways. I had always assumed life in Prince George would be fairly consistent– newer houses, suburban neighbourhoods. But I realized that there are areas that feel more like ‘Prince George’ rather than generic suburbs. When people visit Vancouver and Victoria, they don’t go the suburbs. They go to the neighbourhoods and parks around the ocean– Beacon Hill, English Bay, Stanley Park. Those are the places that give you a sense of where you are. In Prince George, it’s the rivers.

Since moving back, we’ve been visiting rivers more often, and in all seasons. It’s like discovering an aspect of the city that’s incredibly central, but I’d never been familiar with.  I’d recommend visiting the dominant physical characteristic of your own city from time to time. It gives you a better sense of where you are.

“Please don’t mess this up.”

That thought kept jumping into my head as I stood on the outskirts of the city, in a complete strangers’ front yard, against the backdrop of a completely frozen tree being used for iceclimbing.

That’s right. Iceclimbing. On a tree.

I first got wind of this before Christmas, when an associate producer based in Kelowna told us about some people who lived near her parents in Prince George.

She had been visiting three years ago over Christmas, and saw this tree, completely covered in ice.

She talked to them about having a story done for CBC, but the timing never worked out. Three years later, she still wanted to get the story out there.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t find the contact information. All we knew was the street, and that there was a tree covered in ice on it. Assuming the people were still there. Assuming they still did it.

So one day in December, after finishing all my other work, I took the CBC vehicle for a drive. Once I got to the street in question, my search began.

The problem was, on this particular street, there are A LOT of trees. Like, forests of them. I drove one way. Nothing. I drove the other, further. Nothing. Not yet.

I saw a couple of people walking dogs. I stopped and asked them: “Have you seen an ice tree? Like a tree covered in ice? For iceclimbing?” They thought I was crazy. “I’ve lived here for years, and I’ve never seen that. Someone would have told me about it.”

She paused.

“Unless it’s down that way. I don’t go that way very often.”

A glimmer of hope. But it was getting dark. And there were A LOT of trees. It would be easy to miss it if it was hidden behind another one. And what does an ice-covered tree LOOK like, anyways? I was ready to give up.

And then I saw this:

I couldn’t believe it. There really WAS no way you could miss it. The search was over.

Except no one was home. No one at the neighbour’s either. I wrote a note with context and contact information and left in the mailbox. I wrote down the address. I went back to the office.

The next day, I looked up the address. Yes! They were listed. I called. I left a message. I waited.

A few days later I got an email. Yes, they would be willing to have me come out and do a story. But they were busy. They didn’t use the tree often. They had a couple of neighbour’s who did, too, so they would try to coordinate.

A few weeks of back and forth and we finally found a time where one person from the house in question, and two neighbours could get out there and I could, too. So there I was, subzero weather (thank goodness– I had been worried the warmth we were experiencing might ruin the climbing conditions), them in their gear, me with my microphone and recorder, gathering the story of the ice tree.

And the whole time, I was worried about messing up. Everything about this story was perfect for weather. The story was great. Quirky, northern, sound-rich. The people were great talkers. The sound. Oh, my gosh, the sound. Gear being strapped on. Picks going into the tree. Ice shattering as it fell from the tree. I’ve done a lot of stories I like, but I knew this one was something special, even before I started putting it together. As they talked, and climbed, I just tried to stay out of it, make sure my levels weren’t too low or too high, that I wouldn’t miss a nugget. I didn’t want a story like this one to be ruined by my inexperience.

Not for me: for the story. I could hear how it would sound in the hands of someone more experienced. It would be amazing. I wanted it to be at least half that good. My worst fear was it completely falling flat because I failed to hit ‘record’ at the right time, or ruined the edits.

I have never spent so much time on a radio piece. I powered through all my other work so I could devote my full attention to isolating clips, mixing sounds and interviews, writing scripts. I stayed late.

After a full day of work on this, I was down to eight minutes. It was great, but eight minutes doesn’t cut it on radio. At least, not with my narrative skills. One thing I’ve been learning since starting at CBC just over a year ago was that the strength of a story isn’t about what you keep, it’s about what you cut. As the reporter, you’re invested in the story, so you think everything sounds great and is fascinating. To Joe Blow tuning in on his way to work, you’ve got to get the point. You’ve got to “kill your babies,” as the saying goes.

So I cut. Great things, too. Parts about how people would drive by as they were freezing the tree, alternately yelling support or about how they were crazy. Parts about how the one neighbour tried really hard to get introduced to the people with the tree. Clips about how if you’re climbing in the wind you get vertigo as all the other trees around you sway. I had to stay on focus: the tree. Climbing. It had to fit the arc.

I got great feedback from the others in the office. They told me what worked, what didn’t. I spent a few minutes working on it here and there in the weeks leading up to its airdate. I’m glad I had that time. This was my first “pac”, a packaged piece that stands on its own without the need for a host intro, because I’m the narrator. I introduce and end the story.

I borrowed techniques from shows like Spark and This American Life. Particularly narrating OVER the people as they talk so you can provide context and background while still keeping their flow. Narrating things as they happened (like the ice falling), trying to make it feel more like I’m “there”, on the scene, rather than sitting in a studio reading about things that already happened.

I’m proud of the end result. I don’t think it’s as good as it could be. Someone else probably could have done more. But I don’t think I ruined the story. It got out there. It’s been played on shows in Yukon, St. John’s, and Ontario. It was a great experience. It’s why I love radio. I hope you like it, too.

Iceclimbing – Syndicated Version by akurjata

There’s been a complicated history of arts publications, both on and offline, in Prince George over the last decade. The latest (and best funded) venture into this landscape is The Scene PG. Published by the daily newspaper Prince George Citizen, it currently functions as an online band directory/coming events calendar and a biannual glossy distributed freely around town. I was approached in my capacity at CFUR Radio to write some short reviews of local musicians. Even though writing about music is like dancing about architecture, I went for it.  The results are below (and since this is the internet, I added music):

Afreakwent

Not For Show – feat. Lulu Fonda (ugLy remix) by AFREAKWENT

Electronic-based music is undergoing something of a renaissance in Prince George. If the terms “house” “dance” or “electro” still make you think of glowsticks and white visors, it’s time to take a second look. While Afreakwent sticks to the minimalism pioneered in the ’90s, influences of the heavier dub and breaks movements add enough momentum to keep things interesting. http://soundcloud.com/afreakwent

The Concerns of Royalty – the Concerns of Royalty

A few people might remember the Concerns of Royalty as a two-piece band with a small EP that displayed a man being carried off by a large chicken on their front cover. They’ve since added a rhythm section and keyboards, but the dreamlike quality of that image remains. On their new, self-titled release the band explores a beefier sonic landscape that allows the timeless pop quality of their songwriting to shine through. “Telescopes” is the most fully-realized song on here, slowly building into a full-on competition between keyboards and electric guitar to see what sticks in your head the most. It’s one of the best songs of 2010, full stop, no “local” qualifiers, and the fact that other tracks like “Almost There” come close should be reason enough to check these guys out. http://concernsofroyalty.com

Wisconsin Dream Guitar – Vision Drums

Vision Drums by wisconsindreamguitar

The only reason you haven’t heard of Rob Dunlop is because he rarely releases anything under his own name. From Big Old Eyes to Maple You Know to Wisconsin Dream Guitar, he is the most consistently experimental singer-songwriter to emerge from the city over the last decade. Don’t let the “experimental” tag scare you off though– these are highly listenable tunes. And while Arcade Fire may have spent 2010 being raved about for an album about growing up in suburbia, don’t forget they’ve spent the last five years experiencing life as an international, jet-setting band. Wisconsin Dream Guitar forges inspiration out of suburbia not as a nostalgic memory but as a reality of life— people still live in these places, and sometimes they want art about it, too. This provides it. Highly recommended. http://wisconsindreamguitar.tumblr.com/

Cera – Swan

Cera – “Braid”

Individually, the members of Cera (Jamie Bell, Ryan Goertzen, Gordon Price and Justin Arding) have made just about every kind of music imaginable. Collectively, they create tightly crafted rock songs that have won them a large following in Prince George and beyond. The greatest challenge with this EP is translating their infectious live show into a recorded project. Fortunately, they more than meet this goal, most triumphantly on “Braid,” recorded at Third (the venue) with fans providing gang vocals. These are songs designed for a high-energy live set, not adapted for them. http://www.myspace.com/cerarock

sparethelove spoilthechild

sparethelove spoilthechild – “The Fallacy” (demo)

Equal parts heavy metal and melody, sparethelove spoilthechild are a welcome addition to the local scene. No recordings (yet), but they have been making a reputation for themselves opening for numerous local and out-of-town acts. Bonus points for having one of funniest Facebook pages around. http://www.facebook.com/STLSTC

***

You can check out the full magazine here.

The other day I was waiting for the bus. My particular stop is between two “timed stops”– what I’m calling the stops where the bus schedule actually says when the bus is supposed to arrive and depart. Waiting at a non-timed stop is always a little nerve-wracking, because unless you’re there before the bus is scheduled to depart from the previous timed stop, you’re not entirely sure if you’ve missed it or not.

So I was waiting, not sure whether to stay or go, and I started ruminating on things that would make my decision easier. They ranged from a system that would use geolocation to allow users to check in on where their buses are in real time using their cellphones to having portable bus stops that you could purchase and put on your back, so that if you’re walking between two stops the bus driver could see you and know that you want to be picked up. But the one that I think is the most practical, and requires the least amount of effort/new technology is this: have the bus come by more frequently.

This might seem obvious, but then, maybe it isn’t. After all, the people who have designed the current system have clearly decided that it is in impractical to have the bus depart more than once every hour, except on a few routes.

I’m not sure exactly why this decision has been made, but my guess it has to do with ridership levels. The only bus that leaves every fifteen minutes on a regular basis is the one going from the university to downtown (the number 15). In my own experience, this is by far the busiest route– and the most practical.

It’s easy to think that the reason it’s the busiest is, because, well, it’s the one from the university to downtown, and they would have high ridership levels regardless of the level of service. It’s because they had so much demand that they opted to increase the frequency. And that’s probably true, but I’d also argue that this frequency, combined with the relative simplicity of the route (straight up and down 15th and University Hill, with a loop at the end), probably increases use.

Consistency Increases Use

I KNOW this. How? Because when I’m in doubt, I take this bus. When I was standing in -20 weather, not sure whether my bus was coming or not, I decided it was time to start heading over to the number 15.

Let’s be clear: this is not necessarily the quickest possible option for me. There are quicker routes. But those routes LEAVE LESS CONSISTENTLY. And that makes the difference. Here’s my option chart when I’m not sure if I’ve missed my bus or not (taking out the choice of taxi).

This would be an easy decision to make if I had all the information. But I don’t. I don’t know if the bus has left or not. So even though in scenario one, it makes more sense for me to wait a couple of extra minutes, when I don’t have that information, and don’t have the means to immediately figure it out, I have to go with heading to the 15. It may not be the best choice, but it’s definitely not the worst.

So what the heck do iPhones have to do with this?

This angle came to me after reading a post from Marco Arment when comparing iPhones to Androids (the Google operating system). He argued, esssentially, that one of the iPhone’s strengths was it had one, single device that everyone, not just the geeks and gadget blogs, could assess and understand. If you don’t have a bunch of time to compare devices, but you know you want a cool smartphone, you’re getting an iPhone.

This is true.

Let me expand on that.

I’m currently in the market for a new phone. I’m going for an Android. But I’m willing to put in the research. And let me tell you, there’s a fair amount of research to be had when it comes to choosing the best Android device. There’s variations in models, carriers, custom operating systems, all of which affect the overall performance of the phone. Unless I know all (or at least most) of these variables, I’m not going to be confident in making a decision. If you told me I could have a random iPhone or a random Android, I would go with the iPhone. The Android might be better, but it could also be much, much worse. Androids simply AREN’T CONSISTENT ENOUGH.

See that word? Consistency.

The buses aren’t consistent. I use the bus to navigate to and from work, and even something as small as leaving early or late throws me off in terms of making a decision about which route to take. I simply don’t have the confidence to figure out the quickest route from point A to point B without investing in a fair bit of research. At this point I’m familiar enough with most of the variables between downtown and my home to be able to figure something out, but it still takes a few minutes and an actual physical schedule in front of me. This is not a system I’m using to run errands. I’m not improvising.

And that’s just it. I’m not going to recommend an Android to a casual user. The iPhone is accessible to the CASUAL USER. Androids aren’t. The bus system isn’t.

Make it Simple

To get people ACTUALLY taking the bus in a meaningful way, you have to make it simple. Right now, it really isn’t. And until everyone develops a lot more of an environmental conscience or the price of gas skyrockets, the vast majority of people are not going to choose the bus over their own car or a taxi, no matter what the environmental or economic benefits might be. It’s simply too confusing.

Seriously. Here’s a link to the Prince George transit map. How long does it take you how to figure out how to get from UNBC to Pine Centre mall? Bear in mind, these are two of the better served locations, and both are on terminals. Try doing it from a residential area. Or adding more than one destination.

This map:

is a mess. On its surface, it looks simple enough, but bear in mind: all of the buses leave at different frequencies. Some are every fifteen minutes, some are every half hour, some are every hour. Some go until after ten pm, some have their last run by 6:30. Weekends have less runs than weekdays. Does this map make it apparent that at the Spruceland exchange, the bus circles in front of the mall onto the highway before arriving at its stop, then takes Ahbau around the backside of the mall before getting onto 5th Avenue again? Once you hear that, how confident are you in trusting any of the rest of these maps to give you all the visual cues you need to map out an unfamilar route or destination?

I’d argue that if you were to worry less about hitting every side street as effectively as possible and instead focus on main roads and more frequent departures, you’d see a big uptick in people using this system. Just as the 15 goes up and down 15th every fifteen minutes, have the 1 go up and down 1st, 5 goes up and down 5th, 10 goes up and down 10th, plus routes up a down the main lateral arteries (Foothills, Tabor, Ospika, Central, Carney, Nicholson, Victoria etc) with the same consistency. This might not be the MOST EFFICIENT route to take, but it is the MOST CONSISTENT. It would be easier to understand. If you know which main roads your destination is near, you know, roughly, how to get there. And you know how long you have to wait, transfers and all, because EVERYTHING leaves every fifteen minutes. Or half an hour, if that’s too often for the system to bear. But at least YOU KNOW. You understand. And arriving late, early, or going to an unfamiliar place isn’t as much of a stress because getting there is inuitive, not a lesson in cartography.

And that’s what the bus system could learn from the iPhone.

Further reading:

Oliver Thereaux - Fixing the Bus System. http://olivier.thereaux.net/2010/08/04/fixing-the-bus-system/

Marco Arment - Too Much Choice Hardware Choice. http://www.marco.org/2730711751

I don’t have a boat, but if I did I would get all my supplies from Marine Plus. Here’s why.

One of our mic stands at CFUR broke. Well, it didn’t break, but the bolt holding it onto the desk did. Seems fairly straightforward to replace, but as it turns out, it was pretty tough. I spent the better part of the morning driving around town trying to find a music or hardware store that had one with the right thread and at the right length. Not that these places didn’t try to help, because they did, and without naming names let me just say this: shop local if you want people who will actually try to help, and if they don’t have something will still try to offer a solution.

Which is how I wound up at Marine Plus, a boating store. One of the guys at Northern Hardware (another case-study in customer service) surmised that it would likely have a selection of long bolts, one of which might serve our needs. He was right, but not without work. The guy at Marine Plus spent a good fifteen minutes searching through his stock to find something with the right thread before finally finding one that was about five feet longer than what we needed. So he cut it, then added some bolts in order to make sure it would stay secure on the desk. Then, he charged me nothing. Not for the part, not for the service– even though, as a radio station, we likely wouldn’t be giving him lots of repeat business. So I’m doing what I can– recommending Marine Plus to anyone wondering where they can go to get help with their boats– or their bolts.

“I’m always amazed how artists working completely independently can create something so similar. It’s happened to me, and apparently, it’s happened to Slingshot. Add a dogwood on top and you’ve essentially got the City of Prince George logo.”

This is what he means. Here’s the logo for the City of Prince George side by side with the logo for Fenchurch, a skateboard-clothing company:

For those of you who don’t know (and I’m not surprised there would be those who don’t, since it’s impossible for me to find a link on this  [update: link is here]), the City of Prince George’s logo is a dogwood¹ (British Columbia’s provincial flower) over top of an image that represents the coming together of the Nechako and Fraser Rivers. It’s pretty cool, actually, but vague enough that it can be interpreted in many different ways. For example, most people I ask think it’s a snowflake and some random lines. Slingshot, the company that created the Fenchurch logo describes their design thusly:

“After submitting many ideas and sketches for the Fenchurch logo, the arch design was conceived. There are many ideas behind the design, the first being that it comprises of two mirror images of the letter F. It has a very strong and solid feel and its architectural forms are vaguely reminiscent of the arches and stained glass windows found in churches and the main one being a graphic representation of the train tracks of Fenchurch Street Station.

The logo is in no way pictorial or literal and therefore does not limit the the products that the company produces, it has already experimented with shoes as well as clothing and offer many accessories that are not necessarily related to clothing. By creating a logo that was in a way anonymous it means that Fenchurch is not limited to the clothing market alone.”

But even Fenchurch is not alone. It seems Mr. Petriw brought the similarities of the two logos to the attention of the designers, who, according to Mr. Petriw’s Facebook page responded:

“Ah yeah, you know since I did that logo in 2000, I’ve seen several that are similar. Must be zeitgeist! Or maybe because it’s a form that can represent many things. The worst one for me was when I went to Paris two years later and walked past the 30 year old Les Quatre Temps mall, check it out:

- thankfully that’s been knocked down now and they have a completely different logo.”

It’s a pretty interesting case study of a strong design being used to represent different things. Anybody else have records of similar motifs?

About a year ago, I became frustrated by the Prince George transit system. Specifically, I didn’t like the fact that there was no easy way to be alerted to changes to routes and information– unless you checked the website daily on the off-chance there was a delay or cancellation of a route, odds are you didn’t find out until your bus didn’t arrive.

So I decided to hack a little bit in order to create an RSS feed using information from the website so that I could subscribe to the alerts in the same way I would subscribe to a blog. Using my feed reader of choice, I receive updates whenever they occur in the same place I get my news and updates from my favourite blogs.

Which is all well and good for me, but I never really found a good way to share this with people not familiar with feed readers. But with recent developments in the world of Twitter, I’m able to change that. Now, anyone will be able to get alerts via Twitter, text message, or email.

• Twitter: follow @pgtransitalerts

• Cellphone: text “follow pgtransitalerts” to 21212 (Canada only)

• e-mail: Go to http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=PGTransitAlerts&loc=en_US

• RSS: If you’re a fan of RSS, you can find the RSS feed at http://feeds.feedburner.com/PGTransitAlerts

• Facebook: “Like” PG Transit alerts on Facebook in order to have them come up in your Facebook stream. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Prince-George-Transit-Alerts/107584505964257

For those of you interested, I created the feed using open.dapper.net.

In order to send it to Facebook, I subscribe directly to the Dapper feed using Google Reader (I do this in order to scrape a date). I then share it to Hootsuite, which outputs into the Twitter account. Here’s how.

In my second system, I burn the feed to Feedburner, then activate the “socialize” option under the publicize tab in order to send the information to Twitter. Here’s an overview of how that works.

UPDATE NOVEMBER 2011: I no longer use Hootsuite in this equation. Once I have my Feedburner feed, I send those alerts directly to Twitter, as outlined here. I have the PG Transit Alerts Twitter account set to automatically update Facebook, as is now allowed under the settings tab in Twitter.

I suppose I would have less to do with the second one, but still. Building awareness. Thanks to everyone who voted!

Of the social media ventures I’ve undertaken, I think my favourite is the Mr. PG fanpage. I made it two years ago when fan pages were relatively new, basically because it didn’t exist.  I sent an invite to a few friends, and left it at that. Within days, there were hundreds of fans, it was mere months before it hit 1,000, and it currently sits at over 4,000. I do very little with it other than add photos and the odd bit of Mr. PG news. I don’t want to turn it into a platform for anything other than for people to express their admiration for Prince George’s faux-wood mascot. I’ve become the de facto social media spokesperson for a forty-year-old symbol of Prince George, and I’m not going to muck it up by pushing any sort of agenda– no promoting non-Mr. PG related events, pages, or people, no matter how worthy they might be. Stick to the message: he’s a big replica of a wooden man who currently stands at the intersection of Highways 97 and 16, greeting visitors to the city.

I think it’s this philosophy that lets the community surrounding Mr. PG flourish. People write on the wall commenting about how they feel about Mr. PG and the city he stands for. While some of it is negative, some is juvenile, the overwhelming number of comments are things along the lines of “I love Mr. PG!” My favourites are stories about Mr. PG back in the day, be it the niece of the guy who played Mr. PG in the Grey Cup parade, or just people who have moved away and say that whenever they see Mr. PG, they know they’re home. It’s nice to give people a platform to express positive sentiments about the city when so much of the online chatter is negative.

I also think that people in Prince George have reached a point where they actually DO feel pride about Prince George. Some people seem to be embarrassed at being represented by a wooden lumberjack, but many more seem to view him as an important symbol of the city’s foundations as it moves into the 21st century. Rapid globalization has made people look for things that anchor them in a particular locale, here in Prince George Mr. PG is one of the most potent symbols of where we are. Celebrating and reinterpreting what that means is a big part of what’s happening on the Mr. PG fanpage. I love seeing the stuff people come up with, and hope the community continues to grow.

photo: Mr. PG mural for Studio 2880 by Irene Fyvie. 8′ X 4′ acrylic on wood

Remember this? The open house on the issue is tonight:

It’s the 2nd Floor of the PG Golf and Curling Clubhouse, which is here.

If you can’t make it you can read about the plan here, fill in a comment form online here, or download the comment form right here and email it to kwatt@city.pg.bc.ca.

Other ways of submitting are dropping it off at Planning & Development, 2nd Floor City Hall, 1100  Patricia Boulevard, Prince George , B.C., V2L 3V9 or faxing (250) 561-7721.

With such a huge chunk of land at shape, there’s not really a good reason to not take a quick look at this and form some thoughts. Local governance sometimes seems like one of the few levels left where public input can actively affect policy, so hopefully this opportunity doesn’t go to waste. Oh, and I’ve embedded a copy of the plan right here, so you can read it without downloading.
Preliminary Draft Golf Course Pine Centre Neighbour Hood Plan

“RCMP are anticipating thousands of people could turn up for a “tubing” event Saturday in the Miworth area.

“With the expected large number of participants, Liquor Control Board regulations will be strictly enforced with the issuing of fines and seizure of liquor. Open liquor and the consumption of liquor in a public place are among those offences being targeted. A police boat will be patrolling the river in order to keep the event safe and to assist with any emergencies. There will also be a number of road checks deployed throughout the Prince George area in order to detect and deter impaired driving.”

Nice to know police are prepped for this, but I’m not a fan of high-traffic areas out in nature. Still, a river float is a classic Prince George experience so if you’re looking to do it with a few thousand friends, you may want to check this out: 2nd Annual HUGE River Float on Facebook

One thing I love about working at CBC is having the onus to contact random people and talk to them about what they do. You never know what you might learn.

Take, for example, a story I just did on the 41st Annual BC Old Time Fiddler’s Competition here in Prince George. What sparked my interest in this was that it was number 41– meaning this competition dates back to the sixties. Based on the age and the name of the group “old time” I expected this to be a small group of older people carrying on their tradition.

Wrong.

As it turns out, the organization has anywhere between 140 to 160 members in Prince George alone. That’s a sizable force in a city of 80,000. There’s older members, yes, but every age group from under 10 to over 80 is represented. And while the BC Old Time Fiddler’s Association is a province-wide community, it turns out that Prince George is its historic headquarters:

The British Columbia Old Time Fiddlers’ Association was formed in 1969 in Prince George by a group of individuals dedicated to promoting and preserving the Canadian style of old time fiddling in British Columbia. By 1978 other fiddlers from throughout B.C. were interested in forming a provincial association and approached the Prince George group with the proposal to turn the name British Columbia Old Time Fiddlers’ Association over to the provincial body. After some discussion, it was agreed upon and Prince George became Branch #1.

via bcfiddlers.org

So here we have an organization founded in Prince George over forty years ago that has spread throughout the province and continues to have a strong presence in the city– but how many people in the city are more than vaguely aware of it?

Prince George has so many stories, yet you continuously run in to people who feel like there’s nothing here, there’s no history, and there’s no ability to have an effect beyond the city limits. The more I learn about what’s going on here and what’s come before, the more it becomes my goal to eradicate this attitude as much as possible.

Here’s a cool event from “northern BC’s music capital” (not sure when they got that designation, but events like this certainly help make the case). Essentially, in order to encourage people to try out bus routes they offer free transit that includes local musicians playing on the bus. Would love to see that here in Prince George. Via fortstjohn.ca:

Music that Moves You”. On June 16, July 21, and August 18, 2010, from 7:00 – 9:00 pm, you can hop on a transit bus and enjoy live music as the bus travels around the city.  This is also a great way to try out the transit system!  Each event will feature a different bus route – so you can try out all three throughout the summer.  And the best part – the event is free!  Support local musicians and try out transit for no cost.

…

For each event, you can either start at the Cultural Centre or you can join the bus at any stop along the chosen route.  And of course, you can get off at any stop you like.

*EDIT*
@brent_hodson tweeted this video from a previous Music that Moves you event:

“Tourism Prince George is delighted to host Vancouver radio station Rock 101 contest winners while they are in Prince George to attend the Elton John concert at the CN Centre on Friday night.

In addition to their contest prize package Tourism Prince George has arranged for our guests to enjoy a limousine service during their stay, a guided tour of the City, VIP treatment at the concert, as well as an array of local products highlighting what our community has to offer.

Based on initial negative promotion of Prince George as a select location for Elton John’s current tour, Tourism Prince George believes this response will ensure contest winners have a positive impression of Prince George.  “This experience has shown us that here in Prince George, we can turn lemons into lemonade and have a bit of fun with archaic perceptions of this amazing city,” comments Sue Clark Interim Executive Director with Tourism Prince George.

Tourism Prince George promotes the city as a preferred destination for visitors traveling here for a special event, a vacation, or a longer stay to experience the urban sophistication and spectacular wilderness that live here side by side and uniquely ours.”

If you have no idea what this is all about, I direct you here.

PS. I wonder if Tourism PG has a contingency plan for this: Prince George is the Worst Place Michael Palin Has Ever Visited

Arthur Williams says what I’ve been randomly arguing:

Golf course would make a great park

…

The redevelopment of the Prince Golf and Curling Club location provides Prince George with an opportunity to develop a truly great city park. However, the city’s draft plan for the golf and curling club area primarily consists of commercial space and housing which the city doesn’t really need.

The consultant’s report estimates it will take over 25 years for the proposed plan to be built out under normal economic conditions.

Instead of lining one of the most prominent and well-travelled spots of the city with mini-malls, the city could turn it into a showcase for Prince George.

All the greatest city parks include a mix of uses which draw people from all walks of life.
…
By turning the golf course site into a public park and linking it to Carrie Jane Grey Park by pedestrian underpasses, the city could create the winning formula.
…
To build such a park would normally cost hundreds of millions of dollars if it could be done at all.

Here we have a golf course in the perfect location for a park with manicured lawns, gently rolling hills, ornamental ponds and paths already in place. Why bulldoze it to make room for housing and retail space which the city doesn’t need?

This is a once-a-century opportunity to change the face of the city. What better way to celebrate the city’s 100th birthday than with the grand opening of a Centennial Park?

It would give Prince George a green, vibrant, beating heart. No mini-mall can do that.

Yes, yes, and yes. Mr. Williams is becoming my favourite person writing about Prince George lately, and he is right on the mark for this one. When we were looking at purchasing a house there were some very nice ones near the golf course– but the idea of the nearby greenspace becoming strip malls ruled out the entire neighbourhood for us. I’m sure we’re not the only people who would rather live near a first-class park than an extended retail dead space.

If only there were some way of showing support for this plan… oh, wait, what’s this? A call for feedback?

“UPDATE: Open House – Monday July 26, 2010 from 5pm to 7:30 pm
Prince George Golf and Curling Clubhouse, REMAX Room (upstairs) 2515 Recreation Place

Provide your comments on the plan by Tuesday, August 3, 2010, please click here”

So there we are, then. It’s in your hands.

“Nominate Your Neighbour’s Fabulous Front Yard!

Front yards with curb appeal don’t just increase property values – they enrich our neighbourhoods. That’s why Prince George Communities in Bloom (CIB) is asking the public to help recognize those who create and care for attractive front yards (or business frontages), by nominating friends, neighbours and businesses through a fun Front Yard Recognition Program.

Not a competition, the goal is to let those thoughtful gardeners know that their efforts are appreciated – as well as encourage others to follow suit. Nominating a neighbour, a business – or even yourself – is easy. Simply print the Nomination Form, fill it out by hand and submit the completed Nomination Form to the Service Centre at City Hall. Nomination Form available at www.city.pg.bc.ca.  If you don’t have a printer, Nomination Forms are available at City Hall’s Main Service Centre. Those who nominate a neighour will be given a given a cheerful CIB Front Yard Recognition sign to present to their neighbour to display. Now’s the time to say ‘Thanks’ to your favourite neighbourhood green thumb! “

I like this. I’m going to pay attention to house and business-fronts I like and add a few nominations myself. It really does make a difference when people care about making their neighbourhood look presentable.

From CBC:

“What does Vancouver and Prince George have in common? Both cities would love to have a team in the NHL ;)”

“People, people – let’s not fight over whether Vancouver or Prince George is a worse place to live. Let’s focus on what we can all agree to – that Fort St. John is a worse place to live.”

“By the way, 100 years ago people in Toronto probably thought Vancouver was an ugly little saw mill town with no culture.”

“Canadiana 101:
Towns with the prefix Prince, Port and Fort generally attract the “fringe” and are to be avoided at all costs.
Forwarned is forarmed.”

“Rock 101 added 2 new recordings to their play list last year and this year are on target to add 4 more !!!!!

What??? You mean that there’s still six pink floyd tunes out there that they didn’t know about until just recently?”

From the Globe and Mail

“Vancouver is south of the Prince George. Now what body part is south of the armpit that would be an apt description for Vancouver?”

However, my favourite comment of all came from Opinion250.com, in response to the accusation that toothbrush sales don’t exist in Prince George:

“we don’t need to brush…we have fluoride in the water…”

So, all in all, some people are taking it in good fun, some are opting to take the high road, some are throwing it right back, and others are using it as an opportunity to pointlessly bash other cities– pretty much like any other news story.

Tomorrow, Daybreak is running reaction from local MLA’s, and apparently Mayor Dan Rogers will be appearing on Rock 101 at some point.

As for me, I’m going to reflect on what can happen when you say to yourself, “Hm, I wonder what will come up if I type ‘Prince George’ into a Twitter search this morning?”

Local classic rock station the Drive has shot back with its own take on the contest:

Opinion250.com has launched its own contest to provide reasons why Prince George is better for concerts than Vancouver.

And local MLAs Shirley Bond and Pat Bell have weighed in.

Surprisingly, it’s even reached the top spot on the Globe and Mail’s most viewed stories:

wow?

After all this, it seems Classic Rock 101 has changed its tune somewhat, because now the contest page reads:

“Prince George… The Jewel Stone of BC’s Interior. Where the key economic driver is harvesting money trees and toothbrush sales don’t exist… because everyone’s teeth are perfect. Where the only thing that smells sweeter than the roses is the aplle pie cooling on window sills and the air is so fresh everyone lives to be 105!

Which makes it blatantly obvious why Elton John would book a tour stop there!

And because it’s Elton, we’re going to send you… We’re just not sure which is better… Seeing Elton John… Or spending a beautiful evening in Prince George.

Sir Elton John – Friday, July 16th at the Prince George CN Centre… in Prince George! Enter Now by logging in and answering a few questions about your knowledge of the city of Prince George.

Prize includes:
- 2 tickets to see Elton John on July 16th at the CN Centre.
- 2 adult flights
- Hotel accommodations for 2 adults
- $200 spending money.”

Heck, they’ve even changed the picture from this:

To this:

Although I think I detect a hint of sarcasm in there– after all, their special “Prince George” line still encourages us “backwoods” citizens to try and use words with “more than one syllable” when complaining about the contest.

With the back-and-forth kicking into high gear, I want to reiterate my comments from yesterday– this is clearly being done in the most ignorant way possible for humorous effect. Fight back, sure, but don’t take it too seriously. Remember back when the major Prince George rivalry was Kamloops? Welcome to the next league up.

And, if you’re interested, here’s my interview that aired this morning:

***UPDATE*** the Prince George Free Press brings us word that Mayor Dan Rogers will be appearing on Rock 101 sometime next week to dissuade them of their views***

***EDIT: Having just talked to the Rock 101 guys, it comes off a lot funnier in audio than it does in print.***

*** EDIT 2: I’m not going to lie, at first I was pretty upset about this, but as the day wears on, it just becomes silly. It’s like the Simpsons episodes where they go to other countries– you just have to laugh it off.

I encourage to give them a call at (604) 291-9463.

“Prince George, The Armpit of BC’s Interior… Where the key economic driver is welfare and toothbrush sales don’t exist… because no one has any teeth! Where the only thing hiding the overbearing stench of pulp mill is a heavy cloud of denial. And if the poor air quality doesn’t kill you, a full-fledged infection from persistent knuckle dragging will.Which begs the question… Why would Elton John book a tour stop there?

But because it’s Elton, we’re going to send you. And best of all, we’ll bring you home… after checking you over for pine beetles.

Sir Elton John – Friday, July 16th at the Prince George CN Centre… in Prince George. Enter Now by logging in and answering a few questions about your knowledge of the city of Prince George.

We want you to be fully aware of all the details for this contest.Pros:
You get 2 tickets to see Elton John. He’s a mega god in the music world and has sold slightly less than a bazillion albums.

Cons:
- The concert is in Prince George.
- We’re super sorry to tell you but you’ll have to spend the night. However, you will be staying in the closest hotel to the airport AND they have 24 hour security.
- You’ll be on the last flight arriving in Prince George before the concert and on the first flight leaving Prince George the next morning.
- You probably won’t want to eat there so be sure to fill up on airplane food.

Prize includes:
- 2 tickets to see Elton John on July 16th at the CN Centre.
- 2 adult flights
- Hotel accommodations for 2 adults
- $200 spending money. We recommend using it to numb the pain!”

via Classic Rock 101

And from the Facebook page:

we wish he was going to a cool city, but…

I went to this who last night, and it was great. Check out the bands (I can’t find Abigal, but she was also very good).

Ryan G // Jamie Bell & The Cutest Band Ever // Wisconsin Dream Guitar // Concerns of Royalty

“The words hung over the room like a soaring eagle as soon as they came out of Mayor Dan Rogers’ mouth.

‘…maybe your vision for downtown includes a restaurant on Connaught Hill…’”

-the Prince George Citizen, May 27, 2010

There’s been a lot of talk lately about downtown Prince George. For years decades it’s been a point of contention for residents, as everybody debates how, or even if, it could be revitalized as an urban hub. This isn’t a post about that. This is a post about the idea quoted above, from the mayor of our city, sparked by the downtown debate, that I just can’t shake.

Why? Why? Why?

Why would this seem like a good idea?

Granted, it’s just an idea, thrown out as a bit of a brainstorm, but I’m a little bit disturbed at the thought of it catching on. I mean, just look at the breathless way the Citizen chose to describe it. There’s the possibility that the watercooler talk and letters to the editor just might be enough to make somebody pursue this. They shouldn’t.

First off, according to this tool, Connaught Hill Park is roughly 0.03034 km², or 3.034 hectares in size. In the aforementioned article, it is said that “The experience of other B.C. municipalities indicates it is absolutely possible to build a restaurant inside a city park. Stanley Park alone has four, all of them medium-to high-end dining (plus vendors, concessions, and eateries at the Vancouver Aquarium and other park attractions).” Really? We’re drawing comparisons to Stanley Park here? Stanley Park which is 404.9 hectares large, bigger even than New York’s Central park? I mean… just… seriously?

You want to know how big the Keg, a mid-sized downtown restaurant, is? Five percent of Connaught Hill park’s total. That’s not counting parking, the need to add services, a dumpster, and the like. You’re basically proposing taking one of the nicest views in the city and replacing it with a garden for the restaurant.

I get the appeal. Prince George is seriously lacking in nice, outdoor dining. But there’s no shortage of alternatives– two are just throwing ‘em out there, the third is one I really think should be pursued.

1. Fort George Park

Fort George Park is far bigger than Connaught Hill, plus it has the added benefit of not being on a hill, already having multiple parking spots, and having other destinations you could build beside (a museum, for example). Oh, and there’s the possibility of getting a view of the river. Which brings me to

2. Beside a River

Of all the poor planning that has cursed Prince George in the modern age, it’s the complete under utilization of the rivers in our public space. There’s plenty of walking trails alongside them, but very little in the way of anemities where one might sit and contemplate it in a manner other than a picnic, in the same way that oceanside dining does in our coastal cities.

While we don’t have any retail/commercial venues beside rivers, we do have some very nice heritage houses in some severely undervalued neighbourhoods (undervalued largely because of crime rates, mind you, but no worse than those in the neighbourhoods surrounding Connaught Hill). If  you’re going to put all that investment into an area that’s out of the way anyways, why not use it as a catalyst for bringing in other home-based busineses or bed and breakfasts into areas in need of a little touching up? Not the greatest idea, but I would prefer to see a NEW public space created alongside a river rather than lose a nice existing one to a commercial development.

3. The Roof of the Civic Centre

I actually think this is an extremely viable option. First, it’s within the downtown, which serves the purpose of developing it. Second, it has nice view. I eat my lunch beside the Art Gallery on occassion, and it’s quite the pleasant summer scene, with a fountain and Art Gallery on the one side, and the green of Connaught Hill Park overlooking everything.

In the winter, you get lights and a skating rink:

Unlike Connaught Hill, which is closed in the winter, Civic Plaza is open all year long. It is an existing facility, so you wouldn’t neccessarily need to staff it all the time, as it has other revenue sources. It already has catering service, so you could easily open a rooftop restaurant during the nice summer months and, if necessary, shut down or move indoors when it gets colder. It’s large enough that you could create a rooftop garden for atmosphere.

Now, it’s very possible that there’s many good reasons this wouldn’t work that I’m just not aware of. But if we’re spitballing here, I’d like to see this enter the conversation.

]]> http://www.andrewkurjata.ca/blog/2010/06/24/an-alternative-to-a-restaurant-on-connaught-hill/feed/ 0 http://www.andrewkurjata.ca/blog/2010/06/24/an-alternative-to-a-restaurant-on-connaught-hill/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AndrewonPrinceGeorge/~3/sherjcwp7z0/ http://www.andrewkurjata.ca/blog/2010/06/24/meeting-258365-by-tf103chl-chris-leboe/#comments Thu, 24 Jun 2010 18:03:33 +0000 akurjata http://andrewkurjata.ca/blog/2010/06/24/meeting-258365-by-tf103chl-chris-leboe/

Great shot here from tf103chl (Chris Leboe). I actually saw this and wished I had my camera, so I’m glad he caught it. I’m a big fan of crows, but they’re starting to act really ominous this year.

This post is exciting for me because I get to combine my two passions– social media and civic boosterism of northern BC into a single post. Here goes:

***

What is Foursquare?

Foursquare is a social networking site that encourages users to share their location with friends. You do this by “checking in” when you visit a new location and are rewarded in two ways: 1. receiving badges for certain tasks (for example, “Adventurer” for checking in to 10 different venues or the “Don’t Stop Believin’” badge for karaoke) and 2. becoming the “mayor” of a venue if you check in somewhere more than anyone else. These rewards may or may not have real-world value (most famously Starbucks offers discounts to mayors of their outlets).

What is Golden Raven?

Golden Raven is a marketing campaign created by the Regional District of Fraser-Fort George, Tourism Prince George, and Tourism British Columbia. It brands cultural tourism destinations in northern BC as part of an overall “Golden Raven Experience” that lends itself well to cross-promotion. It also has some great visual design (my opinion).

How Should Golden Raven Be Implementing Foursquare?

Very simply. They should be working with Foursquare to create a Golden Raven badge that users get from checking in to a set number of Golden Raven destinations. This isn’t unheard of by any means. The City of Chicago has an “On Location” badge that encourages users to explore the city by checking in at locations used in the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

Frankly, this is no-brainer. Heck, in 2008 Golden Raven engaged in an offline version of exactly this sort of thing with the Golden Raven Passport Contest. In this promotion, you picked up a passport-style booklet with some information about each of the cultural destinations. Then, when you visited a site, you got a stamp. At the end of the year, everyone who participated was entered in a contest to win cash that corresponded directly to the number of locations you had visited. Substitute “smartphone” for “passport” and “check-in” for “stamp” and there you are, with the added benefit of participants being able to share their experiences on Twitter and Facebook, thus increasing the chance of these locations being promoted via word-of-mouth advertising.

Problems?

There are a few possible ones.

1. Most obvious is that people might check-in without actually checking the place out.

Of course, places that are actually offering cash value for this would be most concerned, but solutions are coming into place– and if big brands feel its worth the risk of abuse, why wouldn’t Golden Raven? If you really want it to be fool-proof, just put the physical stamp-and-passport thing in place alongside the Foursquare promotion. Trust me, smartphone addicts will still want to use Foursquare. Which brings me to number two…

2. Not everyone has a smartphone.

I don’t have stats, but my gut instinct is that people in northern BC are later adopters than Foursquare centres of New York and San Francisco. That said, the market is growing, this would attract people who are younger that might not normally take part in such promotions, word-of-mouth, blah blah blah. But  if you fear alienating non-smartphone users you could let them check-in at the mobile site using public computers and/or you can offer the physical stamp-and-passport promotion alongside it. Or, you could just offer the stamp to Foursquare/smartphone enthusiasts and use other promotions for other segments (it’s not like having a badge has to cost you anything).

3. What if Foursqaure doesn’t want to work with Golden Raven?

I sincerely doubt this. Any user can suggest badges and my gut instinct is that official representatives of a regional or provincial tourism body could attract attention from Foursquare (which is still a start-up looking for name-recognition, after all). And if there’s right-out rejection,  it’s not as if there is a lack of other location-based services in existence.

And even if there isn’t an official partnership in place, tourism offices should be on these geolocation services– now. It’s a great way to communicate with people who like to go out and explore new places anyways (that’s why they’re on Foursquare), share tips (the History Channel’s Foursquare page is a great example for what a Golden Raven brand on Foursquare could and should be doing), and, frankly, add a little hipness to heritage sites. It’s also a good way to make other promotions– I manage the CFUR Foursquare location, and any special you can come up with, Foursquare lets you implement. This could be anything from mayoral discounts to free visits after a certain number of check-ins– things that are pretty standard practice in the tourism marketing world already.

***

So that’s it in a nutshell. I’m actually going to email this to the Golden Raven representatives and see if they respond. I’ll let you know if they do.

Moore’s Meadow in Spring:

maybe it’s time to give her a bath?

Mother-In-Common-Law with Icecream

Dinner at My Parents

seven-layer salad

The teacher: my brother teaches my mom how to text

Free:

First Strawberries of the Year:

the first edible things to come out of our garden

“Bike Lane” coming off of the main highway in Prince George

It’s the last day of Bike to Work Week. Even though I bike to work more often than not, this week I forced myself to do it on days when I normally wouldn’t have (rain, up the University Way hill on a deadline). And you know what? It wasn’t bad.  Especially since in most of these instances, I could have taken the bus, which very wisely has bike racks on it now. Hopefully other people had the same experience and we see an increase in biking in the city. Before I ride home, here’s a couple of biking links to consider:

“The New Grand Tour“ is a great article from the Walrus about how Europe has embraced sustainability in a way that North America really hasn’t. Here’s an excerpt that made me re-think what biking culture could be:

“…we rode almost exclusively in dedicated bike lanes, which as Canadians we’d come to believe consisted of a stripe of paint on the edge of a busy roadway, or even just a pictograph of a bicycle floating helplessly among parked and idling cars (serving mainly as practice targets for passing motorists). Copenhagen’s bike lanes, by a comparison so stark it makes little sense to use the same term, are flawlessly designed and maintained, with physical barriers such as curbs, medians, and parked cars between them and the motorized traffic, and their own traffic lights at major intersections…

““Here, the bicycle is a vehicle,” he explained. “It’s a tool. We have 500,000 people who ride every day, and I always say we don’t have any cyclists in Copenhagen. None of them identify themselves as cyclists. They’re just people who are getting around the city in the quickest way.””

Look at the picture above. That’s not uncommon for a bike lane along the main commuting lanes in Prince George. It’s better in places, but if a sign asking motorists to “share the road” is all we can ask for coming off one of the main highways in the city, it’s not exactly encouraging newcomers to commuter-biking culture.

With that in mind, This Magazine argues that bike share programs in Canada may be on their way back »

A short while ago, I saw the old Weenie King cart in a junkyard. Now, I notice this operating in the downtown area:

So to my mind, one of two things happened:

1. The Weenie King wanted to appeal to more an urban market, so replaced “weenies” with the more vaguely-ethnic sounding “Kabobs”; or

2. The Kabob King has actually forced the Weenie King out of his once-unchallenged throne as the monarch of food in downtown Prince George.

Thoughts?

Do you have any other comments about the BC Transit website that you would like to provide?

To which I said:

This is a very outdated site. For a person unfamiliar with the city and existing routes, this website is actually inferior to using a physical, paper schedule. At least in that situation you can see overlapping routes easily and mark particular points using your fingers or a pencil. Here we get individual, hard-to-read images of this that are difficult to read and fail to integrate information from more than one page. As someone who has lived here my whole life and uses the bus on a daily basis, the website is only useful as a quick check to see schedule updates. If I were a new user, I would call a cab.

It would be nice to see ANY use of the advances in online map-making and trip planning on this site.

The fact that there isn’t an RSS feed for transit alerts is astounding– people should not have to navigate to the website everyday on the off-chance that there’s a transit alert. Transit alerts are just that– alerts– not regularly planned events. It is not something that’s going to be incorporated into most people’s daily schedules, nor should it be in the age of feed readers, Facebook pages, and Twitter. There is very little to making it possible for people to subscribe to alerts using SMS (text messaging), email, or RSS feeds, and I am surprised this has yet to happen.

The number-one comment that I hear from anyone when I mention that I take the bus is how difficult it is to figure out the bus system in this city (Prince George). A well-designed website could help alleviate at least part of that problem and bring in many more transit users, particularly casual ones who will not invest in the half-hour project that is trying to figure out how to get from point “A” to point “B” under the current system. Please, do not underestimate the value of this website to attracting new users. A well-designed, easily navigable public transit website is a key component to any long-term growth in ridership.

If you agree, say so (and feel free to copy and paste from me).

Today, the final physical copy of Cutbanks magazine hits newsstands, coffee shops, and bookstores throughout Prince George. This was a valiant one-man project taken on by my former co-volunteer-worker Tyler Clarke, when we were both editors at the UNBC newspaper Over the Edge. He was tireless then, and he became even more tireless as he took on the ambitious project of writing, producing, and distributing a monthly magazine devoted to the arts and culture scene in Prince George. Unfortunately, the costs and the time have proven to be not worth it, and he is retiring the physical version, with the online version continuing for as long as he still has the time. I feel bad I didn’t contribute more; it’s a great idea and it’s unfair that the burden has been entirely on him, especially when there is so much interest in it. I did, however, contribute one thing to it: some photos and this essay on my favourite piece of grafitti: the Listen Bird. Here it is, along with some photos and links.

****

The Listen Bird lives in my neighbourhood. At least that’s where I first encountered him, sitting on a garbage can at the entrance to the local park. I was amused by the simplicity of the design and the curious message, just a few circles and lines attached to a speech bubble intoning the viewer to do just one thing: “Listen.” I snapped a picture with my cellphone camera, made it my default background, and moved on.

Over the next few years, I started to encounter him everywhere I went. At first I thought he was limited to my immediate neighbourhood, the Heritage region near 1st and Foothills. Then I saw him cropping up downtown and thought he was a civic thing, but by the time I caught a glimpse of him on my commute through downtown Victoria, I realized that this was part of a much larger phenomena. When I started getting serious about photography (and by serious I mean actually owning and using a camera more than twice a year), collecting instances of the Listen Bird seemed like an obvious subject. And indeed it was, as someone had already started a Flickr pool (basically, a shared online photo album) devoted to sightings of the Listen Bird worldwide. Here, you can view pictures of the bird from coast to coast, be it the stylized versions found in Montreal alleys, the oversize blocks taking roost on top of the Edmonton skyline, or a bilingual pair recently spotted at a downhill ski resort.

According to discussion on the Flickr group, no one really knows who’s responsible for the first Listen Bird. It’s quite possible it originated as an armadillo in the mid-1980s, and was the work of a “bizarre songwriter and musician named Robin, last name unknown.” The geography, at least, seems credible, as an inordinate number of the birds posted to the group come from the Albertan capital. I’ve always thought of Edmonton as what Prince George would look like if it were to suddenly have a population boom and failed to do any urban planning, so perhaps there’s something innate to northern, semi-industrial cities that give the bird’s message poignance. While Vancouver and Montreal wear their culture on their sleeves, the charms of Prince George and Edmonton are apparent only to those who take the time to search for them, letting them soak in over the course of a number of years. Look at this magazine. It’s devoted to uncovering the hidden culture of Prince George, every issue flying in the face of the chorus of voices singing “There’s nothing to do here!” Against that backdrop, the Listen Bird’s message takes on an almost political tone.

One of my greatest fears is that one day an overzealous downtown beautifiation project will eradicate the Listen Bird’s presence. Yes, he’ll survive in the bathrooms of Books and Company, but what of the ones hidden away in bowling alley doorways, back alley bus stops, or the downtown post offices? The Listen Bird is public art in its purest form, given without compensation or credit, its message as open to interpretation as any other, its presence cropping up in unexpected places, giving the urban elements of Prince George a cohesive vibe while linking it to similar projects across the country. I don’t know if it’s one or two or more artists spreading the bird around the city, if there’s some underground movement in tagging culture that I’m not a part of, or if it’s just something that spreads virally, the way things used to before the days of YouTube and email forwards. And I don’t want to know. The anonymity of it gives the message a life of its own, untethered to a singular persona or public figure. Mao Tse Tung famously began his political journey with a 4000 character screed scrawled on the bathroom walls of his college, or so the story goes. Factual or not, it is true that many a political movement has galvanized public support by posting their message in public places where all can see, regardless of race or class or religious screed. And while the anonymous nature of the painter ensures they will never reach political notoriety, it also gives their message a time-and-placelessness that no personal manifesto can ever achieve.

As someone with no easily definable skills (communications professional with a political science degree?), I’ve had to spend a fair amount of time self-promoting. I’m not alone in this, as the internet age has rendered Google the new resume and Twitter the new handshake circuit. The Listen Bird is an antidote to all that. Whether he’s at the edge of the forest or the back of a bus stop, he serves as a reminder that there’s always a story left untold. The people and the things you can find in this city are as interesting and enlightening as anywhere else in the world. We have languages, bordering on extinction, that are absolutely unique to this geography and the culture that came out of it. Our history, written or oral, is as fascinating and as complicated as any metropolitan centre or rural outpost. The elements at play as we seek to define ourselves in the face of the 21st century can and does fuel debate as heightened as anything going on in the power corridors of Vancouver, Victoria, Ottawa. And the arts and music being created here may sometimes be messy and terrible, but they can also reach moments of unqualified greatness that I rank as among the best I’ve ever experienced. This is open to everyone. We can all find it. All we have to do is listen.

For Black History Month, I made the proposal that we do a story about John Robert Giscome. The extent to which I knew about him was this one-line sentence from the Citizen:

“Closer to home, John Robert Giscome is the first recorded black person to spend time (1862-63) in the Fort George area, and is the namesake for the community of Giscome.”

So I started looking around, and Giscome’s story is fascinating. He was Jamaican born and came to the Americas to work on the railroad near Panama. He then followed the Gold Rush to California, before joining in the black American migration to British Columbia at the invitation of Governor James Douglas (who is also a great study).

He and his partner, Henry Dame of the Bahamas, came up to north-central BC and with the help of local guides “discovered” the Giscome portage, then known as “Lhedesti” or, “the shortcut.”

The two were successful in their mining efforts, and Giscome retired to Victoria with the modern day equivalent of half a million dollars.

Aside from the interesting turns in this story, including an encounter with cannibalism,  it’s fascinating to hear a story of Canadian exploration not centered around a European (even if it does still result in a migrant to the area being credited with the ‘discovery’ of a route that had actually been in use for centuries). Here’s a guy who traveled across continents, started with very little, encountered the well-documented discrimination of the period, and still managed to settle down with $500,000 cash in modern terms.

A great coda to this story is that of Cecil Giscombe, an American poet who in the mid-90s traveled to Prince George and area to research a long-form poem/book about his potential relative and a wider exploration of the relationship between place and internal narrative, as well as the relationship between African-American thought and the abstract freedom sometimes symbolized (rightly or wrongly) by Canada.

Black History Month, an American-born event, can seem somewhat removed from the realities of northern BC, but through Giscome I’ve discovered a conduit into that narrative that I look forward to delving into over the coming month, and beyond.

*NOTE* The aforementioned Cecil Giscombe will be on the show tomorrow around 7:45 Pacific. He’s a fascinating talker, and I highly recommend a listen CBC Radio One in northern BC or online here.

Further reading: “John Robert Giscome” via the Huble Homestead/Giscome Portage Heritage Society

Regional Parks Plan – Open House Forums and Online Survey

“We are also gathering information on the needs and desires of the people using the parks in the Region – through public sessions in Prince George, MacKenzie and McBride-Valemount, a public survey, contact with a variety of stakeholders and through the RDFFG website. Stakeholders include government agencies, First Nations, heritage, tourism, education, recreation and nature organizations, and community associations.”

UNBC town halls and community meetings

“To improve the quality of life in its region, the province, and beyond, by attaining the highest standards of undergraduate and graduate teaching, learning, and research. UNBC is committed to serving a vast region by building partnerships and by being innovative, resourceful, and responsive to student and community needs. “

MyPG.ca

“myPG is the first community sustainability plan for Prince George – a broad, long-term plan developed and carried out by the whole community.
What will my PG look like in the future? What changes would I most like to see in my community? Your responses will help to shape our community.”

Aside from the fact that I’m pretty sure the future of the “hardscrabble” (?) city of Prince George (population 80,000, service center, and home of a university and college) isn’t completely dependent on the building of a mosque, it’s nice to see this getting sway in a national paper. I’ve been looking forward to seeing what a beetle-kill lumber mosque would look like since this was first announced, and now some movement’s being made. Disappointed that the local paper didn’t give this as much coverage.