Civic Budget Realism: Freeze Wasteful Spending, Fix the AAP & Hold City Administration Accountable
City Hall must stop treating taxpayers like an endless bank account. With local families facing economic hardship and 300 jobs cut at Northwood, municipal spending must be frozen, department heads held to strict budgets, and the broken AAP borrowing process fixed.
While working families, seniors on fixed incomes, and local businesses are forced to tighten their belts, City Hall continues to operate in a complete bubble. Property taxes climb while money is funneled into pet projects, electric Zambonis, and administrative wants instead of municipal needs.
Worse still is the weaponisation of the Alternative Approval Process (AAP).
The current AAP isn’t real public consultation, it is a bureaucratic blank cheque engineered to succeed by relying on public inaction. Passing tens of millions in new debt through obscure paper counter-petitions is wrong. If a family can’t afford luxury items during tough economic times, City Hall shouldn’t be taking out $30 million dollar loans on their tab.
It’s time to pull back the curtain, open the books, and return City Hall strictly to its core mandated responsibilities.
Cases in Point:
The Days Inn & Knights Inn Real Estate Pattern: Look no further than the City’s track record in commercial real estate acquisitions. In 2019, City Hall spent $7 million to acquire and demolish the Days Inn property on George Street.
Fast forward to the Knights Inn at 650 Dominion Street, purchased privately in 2019 for roughly $1.1 million and assessed at $1.21 million, City Hall stepped in and paid an astounding $4.15 million. That is nearly $3 million over assessed value for a 61-year-old building destined for demolition, with taxpayers left on the hook for millions more in site clearances.
The bottom line is clear: City Hall is not a real estate developer, nor is it a corporate tycoon, and they suck at playing the market. Whenever the city steps into commercial real estate, local taxpayers get taken to the cleaners. If the City ever genuinely requires a property for legitimate municipal operations, acquisitions must be handled through a designated, independent arm’s-length agency with strict oversight to protect taxpayers from getting fleeced.
Unnecessary Taxation: The 2027 Stormwater Tax. As if land gambles weren’t enough, City Hall is pushing a standalone storm water utility tax set to hit utility bills in 2027. Sold under the guise of an infrastructure levy, local residents have seen zero clear plan proving these funds won’t simply be absorbed into general revenue while spending continues unchecked. At a time when families and small businesses are already being pinched by high living costs, adding another layer of municipal taxation is unacceptable. We need an immediate freeze on new taxes and levies until City Hall gets its internal spending under control.
This isn’t strategic planning; it is poor judgment, zero fiscal restraint, and reckless execution. Taxpayers deserve real oversight, not multi-million-dollar gambles and back-door tax hikes.
The $30 Million AAP Omnibus Debt Grab
Look no further than how City Hall rams multi-million-dollar borrowing through the Alternative Approval Process (AAP). Borrowing over $30 million was presented to taxpayers as a massive omnibus ask, using the exact same tactic the federal government pulls off when they stuff dozens of controversial items into giant omnibus bills, hoping nobody has the time or energy to read the document from start to finish.
By bundling five separate loan authorizations together, City Hall tucked administrative “wants” into the same package as essential repairs, using an obscure paper counter-petition where public silence is counted as consent. That isn’t public consultation; it’s an engineered blank check designed to dodge real public scrutiny.
The Hidden Catch-22:
Under Section 179 of British Columbia’s Community Charter, an incoming Council has the legal power to repeal loan authorization bylaws and stop non-essential borrowing in its tracks, but only if binding contracts haven’t already been signed.
Once City Hall signs “ink” on procurement and construction deals, cancelling the debt triggers breach of contract lawsuits and costly penalty fees, trapping taxpayers on the hook regardless. That is why we must freeze non-essential borrowing commitments from recent AAPs on Day 1, perform immediate project audits, and halt all unsigned contracts before the window closes.
Development Services, Permits & Licensing:
Acts as the city’s built-in boat anchor, stalling economic growth and slowing local project delivery.
- Red Tape & Delays: Months of administrative backlog stall private investment, tying up capital and inflating construction costs before breaking ground.
- Economic Bottleneck: Local contractors and small business owners face unpredictable timelines and costly bureaucratic hoops, discouraging new development.
- Loss of Revenue: Slow processing delays additions to the tax property roll, directly undercutting the revenues needed to support city services.
- Incompetence or Intent? Is this administrative lag caused by a lack of expertise, or is bureaucratic inertia being used to maintain control?
- Misaligned Priorities: Developers take on 100% of the financial risk, yet municipal delays penalize private investment while cost-free growth sits frozen.
- The Stagnation Trap: Holding up progress hurts local employment, stifles tax base growth, and sends investors directly to neighboring communities.
Development Services, Permits & Licensing: Acts as the city’s built-in boat anchor, a severe economic bottleneck driven either by administrative incompetence or intentional bureaucratic control. While private developers shoulder 100% of the financial risk at zero cost to the city, months of unnecessary red tape tie up capital, inflate construction costs, and delay critical additions to the property tax roll. By penalizing private investment and forcing forward motion to a crawl, City Hall isn’t just trapping growth in red tape, it’s driving local jobs and tax revenues straight to neighboring communities. You can’t run a business if the front door is locked..
My Action Plan:
- Audit the Books & Hold Department Heads Accountable: The new council must conduct a deep-dive line-item review of every department budget. Managers must be held strictly accountable for their spending, no more automatic budget rollovers, bloat, or internal empire-building.
- Refocus on Provincial Mandates: City Hall’s primary job is to deliver essential local services, roads, core infrastructure, and public safety. We must stop funding the personal wish-list and pet projects of city administration at the expense of primary civic duties.
- Freeze Unnecessary Spending & AAP Borrowing: Put an immediate hold on non-essential borrowing commitments from recent AAPs and audit every major project line item to trim the fat before another dollar of debt is incurred.
- Modernise & Fix the AAP System: End the paper-form obstacle course. Bring the AAP into the 21st century with a secure online portal where residents can easily cast their vote using their residential folio number in under five minutes.
- Ditch Costly Outside Consultants: Stop passing the buck to expensive third-party firms. Use local knowledge, in-house technical talent, and practical common sense to solve civic issues.
- Freeze & Re-Evaluate the Civic Core Plan: Put the downtown Civic Core Plan on immediate hold to protect taxpayers from massive capital costs. City Hall should not own these proposed multi-million-dollar structures; instead, the city should lease municipal land to private developers who will fund, build, and maintain the premises themselves, generating steady lease revenue for Prince George while insulating taxpayers from building liabilities and cost overruns.
- Establish Civic Asset & Physical Plant Oversight: Restructure city administration to introduce a dedicated, proactive maintenance and asset management program. No more ignoring municipal buildings and core infrastructure for decades, only to ask for emergency funds later. Every facility must operate under a scheduled maintenance budget that protects its longevity and stops deferred maintenance crises.
- Overhaul Development Services & Implement Performance Guarantees: Conduct a complete operational review of permits and licensing to eliminate unnecessary bureaucratic bottlenecks. To guarantee accountability, implement a timed fee-rebate penalty structure: if the city fails to meet strict, standardized processing deadlines for core deliverables, a portion of the permit fees is automatically refunded directly to the developer.
- Eliminate Secrecy & End In-Camera Abuse: Stop hiding routine civic business, land speculation, and major spending decisions behind closed doors. Bring transparency back to City Hall by dramatically reducing in-camera meetings, enforcing proactive public disclosure, and accelerating Freedom of Information (FOI) processing times so taxpayers aren’t kept in the dark.
A City is a Civic Service, Not a Profit-Driven Enterprise
We must remember who ultimately picks up the tab for every mistake, delay, and vanity project: the homeowners and local workers who live here, pay taxes here, and raise their families here. City Hall is a civic entity meant to serve and protect its residents, not a corporation designed to fluff its own bureaucracy at the expense of the people who foot the bill.
If you’ve made it to the end of this page, you know there’s more to John Zukowski than just another local business owner running for office.
With me, it has nothing to do with shiny beads and shallow flattery. I’m here to do the work that has been avoided for at least three administrations. It’s time the city gets back to doing what the city is, by legislation required to do, and I, in concert with the right councillors, will make sure that happens.
If I can craft detailed, common-sense solutions like these, imagine the accountability I’ll bring to FOI delays, conflict of interest debates, and development gridlock. The city needs to learn it can’t tax it’s way out of bad decisions and poor spending habits. If you do it “right” being on City Council isn’t a part time job.
I’m ready to do the hard work. On October 17th you need to break the 6-3 voting block.
I need you to get out and VOTE, voting for me would help.