Thursday, October 4, 2018 | Your community newspaper since 1916
CITIZEN PHOTO BY JAMES DOYLE
Ken Hodges, executive director with the Tabor Mountain Recreation Society, points out the bullet holes on a vandalized gate on Wednesday morning near the Prince George Snowmobile Club.
Vandals trashing Tabor Mountain Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca Trouble with vandals is on the rise at the Tabor Mountain Recreation Area. Meant to be a place where hikers, mountain bikers, horse riders, snowmobilers and ATVers can enjoy their passions without a long drive out of the city, it’s also become a go-to place for more destructive pursuits. Gates have been ripped out, bridges destroyed, signs torn down and garbage dumped – and then there’s the shooting. Bullet holes have been found on all manner of things, from signs to locks, while a pair of gravel pits have become informal shooting ranges with an unwanted television and discarded propane tanks being some of the targets despite the risk of stray bullets flying into nearby trails. It’s all become too much for Ken Hodges, executive director of the Tabor Mountain Recreation Society. He is asking anyone who sees something suspicious to call
CITIZEN PHOTO BY JAMES DOYLE
On top of the vandalism in the area, illegal dumping is also a problem near the Prince George Snowmobile Club. the RCMP and “if you’re one of these vandals, how about thinking a little bit?” Prince George RCMP Cpl. Sonja Blom advises an observe, record
and report approach to giving the police the heads up. “The best information you can get is descriptions of the people, if they are in a vehicle a description
of the vehicle, a licence plate number if you have it, and if they do leave the area, the direction that they’re traveling,” she said. Charges for someone caught
damaging property or firing off a gun in an area where they’re not supposed to can range from mischief to careless use of a firearm to criminal negligence, she said. “If you see something, report it,” Blom said. “We cover a huge jurisdiction with a finite number of resources so we really do rely on the public to be the eyes and ears out there and especially in outlying areas like Tabor Mountain.” Since 2011, nearly 19,000 hours of volunteer work have been put into building up the complex that adds up to 407 kilometres of trails and more than two dozen new recreation sites, making it home to the largest trail system in British Columbia. “All of this is for the public,” Hodges said. He said the trouble really started to happen in the past year or so with the recent improvements to the trails. A particular problem has been people tearing down gates so they can drive their trucks into areas where the trails can’t handle their loads. — see ‘GET INVOLVED, page 3
Old Fort cut off, without water City scores high on tax fairness after landslide takes out road says business advocacy group Citizen news service Residents of a northeastern B.C. community say heat and power has been restored but they are still without water and there’s no indication when the earth will stop moving around Old Fort. A slab of earth has sloughed away from a steep hillside a short distance from about 30 homes near the community. The slow-moving slide has carried away the only road leading to the neighbourhood south of Fort St. John. Old Fort resident Bobbi Pardy says through Facebook messenger that crews worked through the night to restore power but the
Today’s Weather Hi +5° Low -4° See page 2 for more details and short-term forecasts
Peace River Regional District is still unsure how to get water to the community. She says a major crack has formed on a ridge between the original slide and the community and she hopes geotechnical engineers will check it soon. The regional district held community meetings in Old Fort and Fort St. John on Tuesday and has set up a regular water taxi service on the Peace River to link Old Fort residents to the nearby town of Taylor. No one has been injured since the hillside began to slump early Sunday but two properties remain on evacuation order while all other Old Fort homes are on
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evacuation alert. Businesses in Fort St. John are helping Old Fort residents who have chosen to stay in their homes, says Pardy. “Save-On-Foods will box up groceries for us and we pay by credit card and somebody else will deliver it to the river boats to bring to us,” she says. The supply lines are reassuring and Pardy says with power restored she can make bread again. But she says the shifting earth remains a worry. “It’s moving slowly, like lava, but every morning when we wake up and go... to the slide site, we are taken aback by how close it is getting to us.”
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Prince George is at the top of the class when it comes to the way the city treats small businesses on the property tax front, according to a Canadian Federation of Independent Business report. In 2018, small business accounted for 30 per cent of the revenue the city generated from property tax, while making up 18.4 per cent of the city’s total assessed value for property. That works out to a ratio of 1.63, the lowest among 20 municipalities analyzed for the report. The average ratio was 2.39 and the worst was Saanich at
3.46. Just three other municipalities had a ratio less than 2.0 – Kamloops, Chilliwack and Kelowna. Prince George also scored the best on the so-called “tax gap.” A small business paid $17.50 per $1,000 assessed value, 2.3 times the rate charged for residential property, the lowest ratio among the municipalities the CFIB considered. At 4.38, Coquitlam was rated the worst. Mayor Lyn Hall was “very pleased” with the outcome and echoed a sentiment expressed in the report about the importance of small business. — see ‘WE’VE GOT, page 3
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