The City of Prince George held the first TALKtober information session Saturday.
Topics discussed included things like upcoming city events, downtown improvements, and traffic.
City Manager Kathleen Soltis was vocal on subjects such as playgrounds and emergency response.
The city is looking to expand on its emergency response capacity as a result of the Cariboo wildfire and Fort McMurray fire.
“We have already been in discussions with the province, they have been consulting with us, together with some other municipalities, and what they want to know is ‘how can they handle emergency social services like [the wildfires] better?’,” explains Soltis.
“One of the things they’re looking at doing is automating the systems. Those who were looking for financial support had to do manual paperwork and that paperwork was separate from the Red Cross’ system.”
Soltis says they are also looking into ways the city would handle a disaster forcing Prince George residents to evacuate, such as a fire or flood.
On the topic of playgrounds, she says there was a report forcing action on a number of playgrounds around the city.
“We found that a number of our playgrounds didn’t meet CSA requirements anymore and we didn’t want to be in that position,” Soltis says.
“So there were quite a number of that were taken out of service, but in addition to that we have $250,000 per year now that we’re allocating to brand-new playgrounds.”
The second, and final, TALKtober information session will be held in the Bob Harkins Branch of the Prince George Public Library on Wednesday, November 29th, from 6:30pm to 8:00pm.
Looking ahead for 2018 the city wants to focus on the downtown, advocacy, and continued investment in infrastructure | #CityofPG pic.twitter.com/wLGG52ZR4i
— My Prince George Now (@mypgnow) November 25, 2017
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