www.pgcitizen.ca
THE
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2012
PRINCE
GEORGE
CITIZEN
Newsstand $1.50 incl. tax | Home Delivered 69c/day
BEST
front page
BEST
all-round
newspaper
Kings' 'Mane' stay
SPORTS 9
Hold off on Xmas
KNOX 6
Vanderhoof man wins
buddies
case
B.C. 8
Edge
ofa
cliff
WORLD
16
YEARN
FOR
YEAST
DINING 18
City mulls core ideas
Charelle EVELYN Citizen staff cevelyn@pgcitizen.ca
When the Prince George mayor and council sit down for an informal discussion about the core services review, as the committee of the whole they will pore over 13 of KPMG’s 32 suggested opportunities.
In the final report, which is now available to the public on the city’s website, the consultant team wrapped up their slightly more than five-month examination of the city’s activities and services with a 170-page document outlining up to $7.3 million in annual savings.
The remaining 19 opportunities will be discussed at later committee of the whole meetings. There are also another 67 suggestions KPMG has categorized for later council consideration either in the 2013 budget process (such as removing funding for the Little Prince steam train), for staff to implement next year (such as stop asking for new agreements for monthly parking), ones which would have medium- or longterm impact (such as reducing the frequency of summer downtown street sweeping) and those that need further study before considering implementation (such as contracting out grass cutting for
parks and boulevards).
One of the revenue generation ideas brought to light in the final report is for council to consider establishing a fee for putting out ‘extra’ garbage - beyond the amount that can be accommodated within the bin.
A tag, sold for a fee, would have to accompany any superfluous waste in order for it be picked up. KPMG estimates this could bring in anywhere between $230,000 to $460,000 in additional revenue.
Unlike the comparable cities in B.C. (Kamloops, Kelowna, Nanaimo and North Vancouver), Prince George does not currently have
a system set up to collect excess garbage.
In Toronto, where they have up to four free garbage tags for curb-side collection, KPMG also identified -- and city council followed through -- getting rid of the free pickup program and selling the extra tags to increase revenue and add more incentive to recycle.
Unlike Toronto and other municipalities a little closer to home that have undergone core services reviews in recent years, KPMG has identified the potential in reducing the size of Prince George city council from eight councillors to six.
— see CONSULTANTS, page 3
Out of the Congo, on to Seventh Avenue
Nurse adjusting to life in P.G. after African experience
Ted CLARKE Citizen staff tclarke@pgcitizen.ca
ack in the comfort of home, Megan Hunter is sleeping well these days. Having taken on a new role as clinical team lead at Blue Pine Primary Health Clinic on Seventh Avenue, her daily work as a registered nurse is challenging, but nothing like the chaos of overseeing a Doctors Without Borders health clinic in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Democracy rarely applies to the people in a war-torn country plagued by violence, corruption, disease and malnutrition. The former Belgian colony is considered one of Africa’s most dangerous places. For five years, government forces supported by Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe have been fighting rebels backed by Uganda and Rwanda. For 18 months, Hunter was a world away from her family in Prince George, but her chance to serve the people of Congo was a call of duty she could not resist.
“There are huge needs and there’s a lot that can be done, so it’s very satisfying workwise,” said Hunter, 34, who returned to Canada in mid-August.
“People are usually appreciative that outsiders are willing to come and give them a hand in what is invariably a difficult time for them. Conflict in Eastern Congo has basically been simmering since the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
“This was the second time I’ve worked in that part of the eastern Congo, so it was nice to be back and see some of the staff I’d worked with in the past. But at the same time it was a little bit sad because in the time I was there, they had a peace agreement [signed in 2009] that fell apart and they’ve fallen back into a conflict.”
Doctors Without Borders is known by its
Prince George nurse Megan Hunter helps a boy pour chlorinated water into a jug at a water station in the Mungote camp in the North Kivu province of eastern Congo.
French name, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF). French and Swahili are the two most commonly-spoken languages in Congo, and Hunter’s language training as a French immersion student for four years as a high school student growing up in Kingston, Ont.,
proved invaluable.
Hunter knew long before she graduated nursing at UNBC in 2002 she wanted to use her medical skills to see the world and MSF offered that opportunity.
— see P.G., page 3
DEAR ANNE
Martin's contributions to city long, varied
Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca
Former city councillor and longtime community supporter Anne Martin is being remembered as a true pillar of the city who will be hard, if not impossible, to replace.
“As my wife said this morning, it’s hard to think of Prince George without her,” said former University of Northern British Columbia president Charles Jago on Monday.
Martin, who died Saturday at the age of 80, played significant roles
in a long list of community causes - the Child Development Centre, the David Douglas Botanical Garden, the Two Rivers Art Gallery, the University of Northern British Columbia, Communities in Bloom, Winterlights and the Prince George Symphony Orchestra among them.
She was also a city council member for nine years. Of them all, helping to launch the Child Development Centre was the biggest of Martin’s many contributions in the opinion of longtime friend Valerie Giles. Martin was the CDC’s ex-
Her lasting legacy, EDITORIAL, PAGE 6
ecutive director from 1967, when it was known as the Prince George Cerebral Palsy Association and was located in a portable classroom at the corner of Winnipeg Street and Ninth Avenue. By the time Martin retired from the job 20 years later, it was housed in a much larger building on Strathcona Avenue, covering 11,000 square feet when a new
wing was added in 1984.
It has since grown to 17,000 square feet and now serves more than 1,000 children per year.
“It has made such an impact not just on this city but on this region because there were no services to help children,” Giles said. “Most of them were children who suffered from cerebral palsy but it has now expanded so much since then and it includes all developmental delay problems, whether they were emotional or physical or cognitive.”
—see ‘SHE HAD, page 4
Today's Weather
Hi +4° Low -2°
See page 2 for more details and short-term forecasts
ANNIE'S MAILBOX 22 A&E 22-23 CANADA NEWS 13-14
BRIDGE 22 CLASSIFIEDS 19-21 WORLD NEWS 15-16
HOROSCOPE 2 LETTERS 6 SPORTS 9-12
COMICS 23 MONEY 22 OPINION 6
CROSSWORD 23 B.C. NEWS 8
Contact Us
CLASSIFIED: 250-562-6666 READER SALES: 250-562-3301 SWITCHBOARD: 250-562-2441
58307
00100
SUBMIIItU
058307001008