If the core services review process was the benchmark for 2012 at city hall, then 2013 was dominated by the fallout.

The charge was led by brand new city manager Beth James, who joined the corporation at the beginning of May to replace Derek Bates after his October 2012 departure.

James was a local government neophyte but brought years of experience as a senior executive in provincial government and private sector management consultingto her new role as the city’s chief administrative officer.

James quickly began cleaning house and among the first things to get spruced up was the final core review report from consulting firm KPMG.

Though council had already begun the process of weeding through the ‘opportunities’ laid out by the consultants, staff were tasked with essentially rewriting it to turn it into a workable document, called the core services review implementation plan.

The 120-page tome presented business cases for a plethora of actions from the entirety of the KPMG report, whether they were part of the initial 40 forwarded to the core services review committee, as well as new ideas.

Sticker shock

Following the July 8 meeting to tweak and approve the plan, Prince George residents who may not have been following the process with a fine-tooth comb were caught off guard by some of council’s decisions.

A recurring theme through many of the rate and user fee increases was that there wasn’t enough being paid for services and that the city needed to move closer to a full cost-recovery model.

“There’s a lot of stuff that were underfunded or undercharged along the way, so we’ve made a lot of adjustments and there are some folks that aren’t pleased that are having to pay more for services that they’ve been enjoying the benefit of,” said Mayor Shari Green. “So is it unpopular to charge people? Of course it is. I’d love for everything to be free, but that’s not the reality. And as costs have risen over the years in a variety of ways, our utilities, our labour costs, all sorts of things that rise, we just go to the taxpayer over and over.”

Alongside increases to arena, aquatic and business licence fees, off-street parking rate increases and the implementation of a new business licence fee for low-density residential rental units were also approved.

When the appropriate bylaws were finalized and affected residents began receiving notice in the mail of the changes, the blowback began.

Complaints rolled in as monthly rates for off-street stalls increased between 12 and 85 per cent, causing some permit holders to seek out cheaper options or cancel their contracts altogether.

It wasn’t the rates themselves that were the problem, said Downtown Business Improvement Association president Rod Holmes, but the rate of increase.

“We know the bills have to be paid. There’s not a question about that, never have denied that,” he said in October. “But at the same token, things have to be reasonable.”

Some rental property owners were miffed by the new requirement of a business licence – to the tune of $155 in 2014 – for housing in a residential building with less than three units, including secondary suites and duplexes.

Members of council expressed some regret about the decisions and the effect they had on the average resident.

During a November council meeting, Couns. Frank Everitt and Albert Koehler both expressed concern that there was no mechanism by which a decision of council could be adjusted after the fact.

“I think it’s a sad state of affairs when we can’t recognize the amount of increase we’ve put on people in our parking facilities and be able to deal with it,” said Everitt. “I understand that we don’t want to be flipping back and forth but I think we have a legitimate problem in front of us and we as a council need to be able to find a way to review that for people.”

But for the mayor, who said one of her top priorities coming into the position was sustainable fiscal management, none of these things should have been a surprise.

“I think I’ve delivered exactly what I said I was going to do. And the core review was a painful process for a few people,” she said. “I thought it was an absolutely excellent process – and long overdue – and something that is done in many organizations, public and private and a municipality should be no different.”

Buy and sell

Despite the preceding months of rhetoric that gave the impression it was a done deal, council turned its back on a major decision to reinstate paid parking on downtown streets.

By making the unanimous decision in September to not award a $1.2 million contract to Aparc Systems for the supply and installation of pay parking and licence-plate recognition equipment, council effectively killed the concept.

At a Sept. 23 meeting, Coun. Garth Frizzell said he and his colleagues were looking at the solution to the wrong problem. “For any number of these different reasons and, in addition, after hearing the will of the business community… we heard loud and clear this isn’t something that Prince George supports and I don’t support it either.”

Throughout the process, from the time the city declared the free parking pilot project a failure in March 2012, business groups such as the DBIA and Chamber of Commerce said the problem was a lack of enforcement of the two-hour parking rule.

As part of the 2014 budget process, council approved a $450,000 investment into a licence plate recognition system. The cost is said to include two mounted licence-plate recognition units that would go on two vehicles along with handheld units for staff and downtown signage.

The past year was another nail-biter for supporters of Pine Valley Golf Course. Following a core review suggestion to offload the course and sell the land to developers, council took a narrow 5-4 vote in a closed session to keep the land.

And while supporters breathed a sigh of relief, they can’t get complacent as the issue isn’t closed forever.

“I articulated that to some delegates that came before us awhile back to say this could very much be up for discussion again and as conditions change in the market, and as conditions change in the community, and councils change and priorities change there’s nothing to preclude a future council from revisiting the issue,” Green said, after announcing the result of the vote in early June.

Financial times

Mayor and council doubled up on their city budget pleasure in 2013, thanks to a 2012 a decision to move next year’s deliberations from February 2014 to this November.

Thanks to a motion by Coun. Albert Koehler, initially attempting to tie the tax levy increase to the rate of inflation, city staff were tasked with keeping the 2014 hike to a limit of 2.5 per cent.

“It would be nice if we could manage to hold the taxes on this [CPI] because we owe it to our taxpayers,” said Koehler, when he filed the notice of motion in June. “The taxes are given to us in trust so that we manage them properly.”

When council deliberated the idea in July, a motion by Coun. Cameron Stolz to set the cap at 1.5 per cent was out-voted 6-3.

Coun. Lyn Hall said he worried a 1.5 per cent cap would hamstring staff and would cause them to have to make drastic cuts. He offered a 2.5 per cent limit for more flexibility.

For Green, it’s that kind of thinking that has caused her to abandon a campaign commitment to challenge staff to see if they could find up to 10 per cent savings where they could in the operating budget – a claim she said has become misrepresented.

“That message I think perhaps got lost along the way in the eyes of some. They seemed to think I promised 10 per cent cuts and that’s not the same thing, in my mind,” she said.

That challenge to staff wasn’t meted out as strongly as it could have been, Green added.

“They do the best they can with what we give them, absolutely. If we gave them less, they could find a way to make it work,” she said, but added it’s ultimately about having a council ready to stand behind that decision. “And if you think a tax increase is a cut, then you don’t have a council willing to stand behind dramatic budget impact.”

After all was said and done, the operating budget increase was 0.72 per cent, with the remaining extra money put into snow removal and the general infrastructure reinvestment fund set up this year to handle the city’s civic facilities.

“There are a few of us who definitely think there’s room in the budget for change. But unless you have a real consensus around the table to do that tough work, it’s just divisive, which isn’t helpful,” said Green. “For me it’s an idea that I’ve chosen not to advance with the team because I don’t believe it will get the support that it would need and the long term fortitude to keep at that work is not there.”