The costs we get charged go up faster for cities than inflation, so to just maintain service levels a city has to either increase taxes, hike the price of services, attract more money from the province and federal government or bring more people into the city to reduce the burden for everyone. That last two options are the ones I've pursued over the last 18 years, and when I have a team working with me, we've been really successful.
We have a unique time of growth over the next decade in Prince George. In the coming four years here are some known and confirmed changes:
1) construction of the Northern Health Acute Care Tower. This $1.7 Bn. project will take four years to complete, during which time we will have hundreds of additional construction workers in the downtown, for that project alone. As it is built, the medical system needs to find 100s of full time permanent medical workers to staff the facility.
2) Renovation and staffing of the Mental Health and Addictions facility, formerly the Youth Containment Centre - This $72 Mn project is slated to open in just over 1 year, and will require approximately 100 permanent new workers.
3) Vitreo Minerals - They have already announced the need to hire 290 workers for the their full time work near Bear Lake with full intention of bussing the workers back and forth.
There are many other expectations in the community around growth. Two different companies have chosen to build grocery stores, Fedex is even now building their new 40,000 sq ft facility on Boundary Road, and more is coming.
We're a city in the middle of a forest, and forestry is always cyclical - that means it will come back as a force someday. In the meantime, our economy is very diversified and there is every expectation of growth.
I write all this as a context. The growth in economy and population means we are poised over the next decade for a time of growth in the livability of the city. Densification in some areas to share the costs of infrastructure means that can share the additional costs that inflation brings.
I'm not offering promises of what will come, because we will need to build it together; instead this letter lays out the knowledge I have, the expectations I hold and the high value I put on making arts, culture and sport thrive here.
That said we are currently the 57th most expensive city in BC of 161. We can't get to 161st overnight, but the measures above, together with relentless attention, will get to 65th by the end of four years.
