Prince George City Council has given the green light for city staff to establish an annual Citizen Recognition Medal Program.
The motion was approved at tonight’s (Monday) meeting.
Councillor Kyle Sampson brought forward the motion as a notice of motion.
“PG is filled with individuals making extraordinary contributions in all sorts of various areas,” Sampson said.
“Many of these contributions often go unnoticed, despite their significant impact on our community, and I think it’s time that we take an effort to recognize those efforts.”
Sampson noted the goal is to create a program that recognizes and celebrates excellence, while inspiring others to get involved.
According to the discussion portion of the document Sampson put forward, a limited number of recipients would be honoured each year, selected by a committee of extraordinary individuals from diverse backgrounds.
The committee would present a report to Council by the end of the third quarter of 2025, with an aim of launching the program for 2026.
The document also said the Committee would “explore options that are meaningful but not overly costly, to make sure recognition is impactful.”
He also noted City Staff would not be eligible, but he also included a motion to have City Administration review and enhance the City’s employee recognition program as necessary.
Councillor Susan Scott said this is an example of something that has evolved in the community.
“I think this is a great attempt, when I began on Council, this kind of recognition was done in a dinner, and each member of Council sat at a different table and talked up the community and listened the various organizations were that were making the difference in our community,” Scott said.
“That evolved into more of a stand up sort of cocktail style of gathering with music, and in this year, we did an event in the plaza. It’s different, it’s not better or worse or anything else, it’s different, but I think this is a great step forward.”
Mayor Simon Yu questioned if establishing a new committee would discount recipients of previous recognition programs, citing a recognition program that was discontinued six years ago.
“Are we going to be duplicating different things so their name represents a certain type of award that now means something a little bit different because of a different terms of reference?” he asked.
“Shouldn’t we just enhance the program a little bit? Are we trying to re-establish something completely new? This is something I’m struggling with.”
Councillor Tim Bennett, who appeared through Zoom, responded by saying he was previously awarded the Queen’s Jubilee medal for organizing the local Christmas Seniors’ Dinner.
“While that medal is no longer awarded, and the Queen is no longer with us, that does not diminish the recognition that I received at that point,” he said.
“I don’t necessarily know of us revamping a new recognition program will necessarily diminish the recognition of those who have previously received recognition from the city.”
Councillor Brian Skakun said he felt the workload of City Staff was being ignored.
“Now we have three notice of motions tonight, we’re getting to a point where we have several notice of motions each meeting,”
“So to administration, at what point when we start talking about all of these notices of motion and directing staff does staff decide what falls off the table to satisfy the requirements of these many notices of motion?”
City Manager Walter Babicz responded by saying Council’s strategic plan will be returned to Council in December.
“That would help inform Council’s priorities, and would help us build the corporate work plan, which we would then return to Council early in the new year,” he explained.
“The notices of motion that Council has approved, that would be a signal to administration that those are priorities of council, and administration, the senior leadership team would discuss how much is doable with the current resources, and when we return the corporate work plan to you, then it would be our suggestions on what programs or projects would be dropped off to make room for anything that’s approved by Council if we feel that we don’t have the resources to do all of the work in the current time frame.”
Skakun also said there would be “political upside” to having the committee, noting it would be taking place during the municipal election cycle in 2026, and there are people who don’t want to be recognized for their efforts.
“I really hope that who ever ends up on this select committee who will establish the framework, I really am counting on them to make sure that the awarding of these awards is as apolitical as possible,” echoed Councillor Trudy Klassen.
Sampson questioned if Council had actually read the document.
“It spells out a lot of what’s being talked about here,” he said.
“I’ll specifically read out one portion that says “the awards selection committee should be comprised of extraordinary individuals from diverse backgrounds representing some of the different possible backgrounds of which a nominee may be eligible to bring a broad range of perspectives to the selection process.” So this speaks to type of folks who we’re going to have on this, that would be external, because, let me be clear, it also says in here that City Staff and Council would not be eligible for the award, so I guess there’s a lot of detail in here that maybe isn’t being read that would spell some of these concerns out.”
Sampson also reiterated this is not a revisement of a previous program the city ran.
“This is about establishing a program that has maybe a broader catchall on recognizing folks in our community as it speaks to it directly in the motion,” he said.
“Motion number one is to develop this program through a committee, with terms and components to be considered moving forward, this is not establishing the selection committee, this is not establishing every component today, this is saying let’s get going on the work to make sure we can do this and recognize folks.”
“I really reject the comment of this being a big political program,” Sampson added.
“There has to be timelines for a purpose, so if somebody wants to make some sort of claim that because the timing happens to line up with 2026, you can speed up the timeline all you want, I’m trying to draw realistic timelines that are realistic for this Council, this committee and staff to accomplish, and if we want to try to politicize it, I think that’s really disrespectful to the people that this is trying to recognize in our community. This is not political, this speaks to that through the document, and if you read it, you would know it.”
Skakun also brought up concerns on the second motion attached to the notice of motion, which “directs Administration review and enhance the existing Service Recognition Awards program to further recognize City employees for their long service and dedication to our community, and report back to Council with the results of that review.”
“I think if we’re going to get down into the weeds on how a department head or a supervisor in the streets division, or something else hands out an award at work, after work, via email and that, I don’t think it’s our business,” Skakun said.
“But for us to say to our administration “well, you better review and enhance the existing employee service recognition,” then it’s going to come back to us and what, we’re going to okay it? Or not okay it? We don’t do that, we don’t direct administration on how to do their job.”
Sampson responded by saying it would not come back to council for it to be okayed.
“This is simply saying “hey, we understand there’s some discrepancies, we’d like staff to review their policy and we’d like them to enhance where they see fit,” that is that this says,” Sampson said.
“I’ll add further, before submitting this, as appropriate, I asked Mr. Babicz, “is this something you feel would challenge you in a difficult way by bringing this forward,” and the answer was no.”
Ultimately, Council voted to approve both motions, with Yu, Skakun and Klassen opposed to both.
Councillor Garth Frizzell was unable to attend the meeting due to a personal matter.
Other items discussed tonight included reports on two nuisance properties, and support for the Santa Clause parade.
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