There’s enough room in this town for quite a few of them, as it turns out.
Prince George held the annual Regional Mayor’s Caucus, hosting more than 30 municipality leaders from across the province.
Coming into wildfire season across BC, emergency preparedness was on everyone’s mind.
“We want to have a close working relationship with the provincial government. What does it look like every year for us to be able to, in our case, receive evacuees and the funding component to it? it’s a huge dollar investment for us,” said Prince George Mayor Lyn Hall.
When asked about how he feels about the upcoming season, Hall said, “Nervous. We see this as an annual event and I’m nervous about it. We are seeing drying conditions, conditions that are just as dry if not drier than last year.”
“You talk to any mayor in rural BC and they are concerned about it.”
Also on the docket was a discussion that’s familiar in the Northern Capital, and according to Hall, also for the other mayors. He said the social and economic balance of communities is an issue they all deal with.
“We have quite the dichotomy here in Prince George; we have 70 plus million dollars of development downtown yet we still have social issues, whether it be mental illness, opiate issues or drug addiction.”
The meeting of the mayors is designed to bring ideas and concerns about municipalities to the Union of BC Mayors and then further on to the provincial and possibly even federal governments.
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