Questions, suggestions, and statements flew around the room as more than 200 people piled into the Civic Centre for City Council’s town hall meeting on Public Safety tonight. (Tuesday)
Presentations were made by City Manager Walter Babicz, Prince George Fire Rescue Chief Cliff Warner, and Prince George RCMP Superintendent Shaun Wright.
Following the presentations, a question and answer session was held, with several passionate members of the community asking questions about several topics, such as “what is the plan for Moccasin Flats,” “what can be done about the smoke that comes into the Millar Addition from the encampment,” and “is there a plan to open up a treatment centre in Prince George.”
Other residents used the opportunity to make statements such as “we can’t rely on the provincial or federal governments to come up with solutions,” or “there needs to be better communication with the non-profits who are putting plans and programs into action.”
The town hall meeting was originally brought forward as an idea by Councillor Kyle Sampson in a notice of motion presented to Council last month.
“I felt that people came out ready to be part of the solution, ready to be constructive, ready to provide concerns, frustrations, anger in some cases, but also information that’s going to be pertinent towards helping resolve some of the issues that our community faces towards public safety,” Sampson said.
Sampson noted a lot of the concerns he heard were not surprising, but the dialogue around the concerns were interesting.
“One thing that I found, just one example, I’ve got notes on notes, but one thing that I found interesting that I hadn’t thought of was somebody came up and shared “We need more mental health and addictions resources,” ok, that’s not new information, “We need more treatment facilities in the North,” absolutely, we’re advocating for that, “We need resources that are going to help give people independence, life skills, to help get them out of the situation where they need really low-barrier housing, and get them into a situation where they can go into some independent housing and get out of that precarious circumstance. Sometimes I go “How did I not think of that, but that’s a great point, people need low-barrier housing because maybe they are lacking skills or resources, and maybe it’s not exclusively due to their addiction or mental health challenges, maybe there’s more variables there to consider.”
Prince George City Council will workshop the information heard and come up with actionable items.
“Everyone’s going to have a different perspective on what they heard, there’s nine of us, plus staff, so now how do we take that information and come up with some actionable items,” Sampson said.
“I’m really looking forward to this process, because my perspective is going to be different than [Councillor] Brian [Skakun’s] perspective, which is going to be different from [Councillor] Susan [Scott’s] perspective, so now how can we say, this is what we all heard, what can we do to improve on the situation, what are some actionable items that are relatively easy, simple or accessible to us, and then what are some of the next level, harder to achieve things that we can work towards, and show the public what we’re doing to get there, and then show them once we get there, this is what we’re going to do next.”
Council will report on their workshop at a regular council meeting next month.
Something going on in the Prince George area you think people should know about?
Send us a news tip by emailing [email protected].
