By Cheryl Jahn

Mayor to form downtown task force

Feb 28, 2024 | 3:41 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – It was a letter that was added late to the Council agenda from the Prince George Business Owners Advocacy Group taking a shot at the efforts in past years to deal with ails the downtown.

“The business owners were very adamant that something has to be done,” says John Zukowski, Spokesperson for the Group. “We just we can’t keep going this way. I mean, we’ve had a building blow up in downtown Prince George that should have got some attention, and I think it did.”

Specifically, the letter reads: “We had a Mayor’s committee (Safe, Clean, Inclusive Downtown Committee) under the last Council and the results were nonexistent and ineffective to address the ongoing issues we are facing. Criminal actions have increased, arson theft and violence against business owners is increasing.”

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The letter prompted Mayor Simon Yu to take a stance. “We would to see some special help,” he says. “This is important to us. I do believe we need to form a task force to hear from the citizens along with RCMP and our Bylaws to see if we can improve the situation here.”

But John Zukowski says a repeat of the past simply isn’t working. “Nothing got done. It was a facilitated committee which meant that it was guided. But you tell me, Facilitation, I tell you. Got it. So we we didn’t get the opportunity to talk. We didn’t get the opportunity to get anything done. So that was just an exercise in going through the motions.”

In late 2019, Council Chambers was jammed with people upset at what was happening in the downtown and Zukowski says the City has to grab the bull by the horns, regardless of provincial policy.

“This is a community of business owners turning around and going back and saying, okay, civically, this is what we need to do. The city needs to back the business owners.”