Mayor Simon Yu, one year in: Part 2

It’s been a little over a year since Prince George chose Simon Yu to be their Mayor, and a little under a year since he was sworn in.

The Mayor sat down for an interview with My PG Now to talk about how he’s adjusting to the job, including:

• What he didn’t expect about the job
• Some of the accomplishments achieved by Council in the first year of this term
• Working with City Council
• Promoting Prince George around the world
• Plans for the future

Part one, in which Mayor Yu talks about current issues in the city can be found here.

Yu said the job is a lot more complicated than he originally thought when he first ran for the Mayor’s Chair.

“It’s challenging in many areas that I was not completely aware of,” he explained.

“In terms of time commitment, in terms of all the learning I have to do to bring myself up to speed, and more importantly, I was not aware of so many files are intertwined, with provincial, federal files, and we have to, as a Mayor, have to do so much advocacy and so much work to address some of the issues that traditionally are not municipal issues.”

Yu said he was aware of some of these things, but did not realize the complexity involved at the time of the election.

“I’m trying my best to navigate between all these files to get things done for the people, along with my Council, that’s where we are after one year.”

Yu said his health is still good and his energy is still high.

“Hopefully in the coming year, my best day of the first year will be the worst day of my second year,” he said.

“Technically speaking, my ability to conduct meetings and give speech at certain events, these things get easier as time goes, and also getting to know the Councillors better over the year so we understand each other’s working style a bit better, know the administration a bit better, so in those respects, it gets easier, but the file itself is not getting any less complicated.”

Through the first year of this term, Yu said he and City Council have been laying the groundwork for working with the provincial government to address and put some structure around mental health, homelessness, and drug addiction.

“We’ve done many good pieces of advocacy in terms of working with the provincial government, personally, along with the council, signing the MOU with the Premier to set the goal to end encampments as a whole for the city. That commitment took us a while to get it done,” he explained.

He added one accomplishment was getting the 2023 budget done under trying circumstances and while there was an increase in the tax levy, he thinks council has done well.

“Overall I think we laid a groundwork, I don’t think the citizen will see too much of what’s going on on the street,” he said.

“Even in terms of public safety, we are improving compared with the last few years, things are getting better, but we didn’t get to some of the problem overnight, so I ask for patience, give us another year or two, I will say things will turn drastically.”

Yu said over the past year, he thinks Prince George has been promoted around the world as a place that’s open for business.

“We have received a lot of interest into what development opportunities are here,” he said.

“Fortescue’s interest to build a hydrogen hub here, this is the work we can look back on as an accomplishment of 2022-2023. Based on this work, we would like to see renewable jet fuel project go ahead in the next few years from the renewable diesel fuel plant.”

“All of these projects to build the existing success of 2022-2023, if we work together, I think if we look back, 2022-2023 is the foundation year, like every development, when people pour the concrete on the ground, people don’t see a house there yet, and yet it represents 30 per cent of the construction, the foundation is important,” he continued.

“A lot has been done, do I wish for a lot more? Yes, very much so, but Rome was not built in one day.”

Many Prince George City Councillors share different views on different files, which Yu said is a good thing. 

“I think one thing the public can be assured about, each Councillor, each one has been given complete freedom to think, speak, as much as they want, how they view the situation,” Yu said.

“This is what democracy is about, people get their information from the public, and you, as an elected official, you express your point of view, in that way it’s good. Sometimes it might appear council doesn’t get along on a certain file and feel very strongly, in that sense the people have to make their own judgement in terms of each topic, each issue individually, how we voted, why we voted this way.”

Yu said he and some of the new Councillors are still in learning mode.

“I think overall, this discrepancy is not a bad thing, and I will encourage people to talk to more Councillors and to find out their view.”

“I think we have a very strong council in terms of capacity wise working together, for the good of people, we are still in the process of lining up the different priorities, what you want to get done first, what is the file most dear to you, and we don’t have exactly a portfolio system in terms of each councillor is taking care of a certain topic.”

“We’re still trying to work out our differences in many ways, so we can work more efficiently in many ways for the people of Prince George.”

Yu said after one year, he has a pair of priorities for the next three years.

“I would like to see a multi-generational development plan to be done, it can be visualized by all citizens, so the development of Prince George, in the next 50, 100 years, and people have some notion, what Mayor Yu, if nobody else say ‘yeah, this perhaps what Prince George might look like 100 years from now.”

“The plan doesn’t have to be exactly right, it has to be a topic piece that people are able to discuss, pivot here and there, in order to move ahead.”

“Without a plan, it’s difficult to plan the city, so I would like to see that plan along with infrastructure to support the plan in place.”

The second plan is to make a structure to address social development by working with all partners, including Indigenous partners, NGO’s and all levels of government.

“How do we make a happy community for all, how do we find a way to, as a municipality, together with the province, redistribute some of the wealth and make sure every citizen has a way to advance,” he said.

“This is a big piece, I do believe I have learned a lot this first year, and I have some ideas. How do we better use the Prince George Community Foundation, Northern Development, and how do we synchronize some of the programs together, to make them more efficient, and to develop the city, not just for the business community, but for everybody.”

Yu said the city will be hiring a new Intergovernmental Officer to help put the plan together.

He added he isn’t thinking about re-election just yet. 

“Once these two plans are together, then we’ll see, if people say Mayor Yu, maybe you’re the best one to carry it out, then I will listen to the people, I’m not here to do this job for myself, and if people think I have done a good job and I have put a good plan forward, and they would like me to continue to carry out some aspect of the plan of course, I will throw my hat back in there.”

“But if people, within a very short period of time, next few years if the plan is done, those are good plans to move forward, but there are younger, more energetic persons to take over and execute these plans, well then, it’s time for me to do something else, but I will listen to the people of Prince George. It’s a personal decision still a few years away, I think it will take a year or two to get those plans done.

Yu said to ask him again in two years.