A former mayor, city manager and city planner walk into a consulting firm....

And why aren't there as many concerts at CN Centre? Read to the end for a moose traffic jam

Welcome back to a more seasonal weather pattern. I stopped by the Vaisakhi celebrations Saturday along with hundreds of people, hit up the UNBC plant sale Sunday and spent part of yesterday figuring out how to set up a new canoe rack. I also saw Fast X which was a perfect movie, 10/10, no notes, yes I like these films, no I can’t explain it. Hope your weekend was good.

We’re starting today’s newsletter with a couple of stories from the Citizen. The first is about what former mayor Lyn Hall, former city manager Kathleen Soltis and former manager of planning Ian Wells are up to, which is they…

“Are all listed as staff members at Wellesley Consulting Group. Hall’s title at the company is associate, government relations and strategic partnerships; Soltis’ title is associate, stakeholder engagement, people and culture; and Wells’ title is associate, land use and development planning, government relations.”

That’s kind of interesting in and of itself, thought the Citizen also notes that all three were key players in the downtown parkade fiasco, “which saw the public kept in the dark about millions of dollars in cost overruns on the downtown city project.”

There’s not any direct link between the parkade, this consulting firm and the new jobs reported — as in, no reason to think anything nefarious is going on — but still it’s interesting that all three left city hall with this hangning over them and all three found work at the same place. The real reason, though, is probaly this: “The company was founded in Prince George by managing partner Ross Birchall.”

Arena musicians aren’t coming to town

The next tidbit is an interview with the manager of the CN Centre about the difficulty Prince George is having getting concerts to come to town post-COVID restrictions:

Everything from the cost of travel, the high U.S. dollar exchange rate, Canadian taxes on touring artists, and a shortage of skilled production technicians is leaving concert promoters scratching their heads wondering what they have to pull out of their tailspins and get back to booking shows like they used to do.

CN Centre entertainment manager Glen Mikkelsen says there is no easy answer.

“Prince George is not alone, all the markets like ours – Dawson Creek, Kamloops, Kelowna, Lethbridge, Red Deer, Moose Jaw, Regina – across the country have the same issue, there’s just not a lot of entertainment as far as concerts coming into our buildings,” said Mikkelsen.

“The Canadian entertainment industry is challenged right now to find acts that will play venues like ours.”

Lilac art

After my piece on lilacs, I received quite a few pictures of lilacs but also these notifications:

Send me more lilac art and memes, pls.

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