BUSINESS: Chamber of Commerce moves to buy building A3 Friday, June 14, 2013 John Bowman reflects on his time at the College of New Caledonia A10
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New-look Free Press coming June 28
AWESOME CHERRY BOMBS
A ll an WISH A RT/F re e Pre s s
Coach Belinda Hanlon leads her U8 girls soccer team through some drills before a game Wednesday evening at Rotary Fields. The team’s name? “The Awesome Rockin’ Cherry Bombs – and yes, they chose it themselves.”
■ SKAKUN ON PINE VALLEY
Meeting should have been open DELYNDA PILON newsroom@pgfreepress.com
According to one city councillor, there was no real reason to make the meeting that decided the fate of Pine Valley golf course private. The city’s reasons for the private meeting are listed on the website. Staff cited Community Charter Section 90, which, paraphrased, says a meeting should be closed to the public if council is discussing personal information about someone being considered for an award, or who’s offered to provide a gift if it’s anonymous, for negotiations, or during land sales if disclosure could
be expected to harm the interests of the municipality. “One reason was it could have caused possible harm to the municipality,” Coun. Brian Skakun said. “I didn’t buy that at all. At the very beginning of the meeting I voted not to go into a closed session to discuss Pine Valley because I didn’t feel it fell within the criteria administration laid out.” At this point in time, because it was a closed session, no one, other than those who attended the meeting, knows who voted to sell Pine Valley, and who said ‘no’, an important consideration, Skakun said. “Now we are going to be talking
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about selling other land mentioned in the core review,” Skakun said. “I sure hope those discussions will be in public. People have a right to know, especially when they are talking about multi-million-dollar chunks of land and disposing of parks in the community.” He added he’s been approached by many people in the community, all of them upset about the closed session as well as the lack of discussion and the fact no one knew the issue was about to be raised in a meeting. Skakun called council’s commitment to transparency into question. “You can’t just talk transparency. You turn to PAGE A2
SALE STARTS
GREENHOUSE
Family Owned
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BEDDING PLANTS 9367 Nielson Road, PG Uncle John’s 250-962-7594 www.unclejohnsgreenhouse.ca
OPEN DAILY: 9AM-7PM
We’re changing. We, Prince George Free Press, are about to make some of the most significant changes in our almost 20-year history in the city. We are going to move to an enlarged and enhanced once-a-week community newspaper serving Prince George and area, and, in addition, we will offer an entire suite of special products. Two weeks from today – Friday June 28 – we will launch the redesigned Prince George Free Press. We will have a new, more modern look, but with all the same great community news coverage you’ve come to love and expect, and more. Next Wednesday’s newspaper, June 19, will be our last Wednesday publication. For those who seek more immediate news, we will be enhancing our very successful Free Press Daily e-paper, which is delivered every morning to your email in-box. You can subscribe to the Daily, for free, at www.pgfreepress.ca. In addition, we will continue to maintain our online presence with our website www.pgfreepress.com and on Facebook and Twitter. In July we will launch Free Press Northern Life, a lifestyle magazine that will contain everything you need to help you in your busy life … from restaurant reviews to home renos to tech news to staying healthy, it will all be in Northern Life. We are also re-vamping Big North, which is delivered to communities in northern B.C. Free Press North will let the rest of the North know what Prince George is all about. “We’re very excited about the changes,” said publisher Tracy McCall. “The Free Press will be able to present a complete package of products that will serve the residents of Prince George and provide exciting and effective new options for our advertisers that will enable them to communicate even more effectively with unique consumer groups.”
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