LUMBER PRICES TO STAY HIGH, EXPERT SAYS – PAGE 5 PARKWOOD SAVE-ON MOVE WILL HURT DOWNTOWN – PAGE 8
PRINCE GEORGE 0
58307
00200
BILLBOARDS SEEK LEADS ON MISSING WOMAN – PAGE 6
5
$2.00 Your community newspaper since 1916
Thursday, March 4, 2021
PGCITIZEN.CA
PRINCEGEORGECITIZEN
Housing project approved ARTHUR WILLIAMS
City council is supporting a 14-unit social housing project on Zelkwas Avenue, despite a 63-signature petition and letters from area residents opposing the project.
essential workers or who work in specified workplaces or industries might become eligible for their vaccines during Phase 3. From March 1-15, the province plans to vaccinate all its Phase 2 priority groups, which include: high-risk street people, hospital and community health care workers, high-risk seniors living in independent-living homes and the staff of those homes, high-risk seniors in supportive housing, and long-term support clients and staff. From March 15-April 11, the first cohort of the general population (80-and-older) and Indigenous people 65-and-over will be able to book vaccination appointments.
The Phoenix Transition Society is expanding its Harmony House operations with a new building on three lots on Zelkwas Avenue owned by Trinity United Church. Harmony House offers housing and support for pregnant women and new mothers struggling with mental health and addictions. Area resident Keith Annis summed up the concerns echoed by area residents in his letter to city council. “I feel that this building will not fit in our neighbourhood as there are only single family bungalows in the blocks closest to this proposed building,” he wrote. “I also feel that although I am all for helping people in need, it will bring undesirables to the neighbourhood. Angry husbands look for their wives, drug pushers looking for their customers and upset boyfriends looking for their pregnant girlfriends. I see nothing but issues coming out of this.” City council voted unanimously in favour of the third reading of a rezoning bylaw that would allow the development to proceed to the next steps. Final reading of the bylaw is dependent on the three lots being consolidated.
See PHASE on page 3
See SOMETHING on page 3
CITIZEN PHOTO BY JAMES DOYLE/LOCAL JOURNALISM INITIATIVE.
EN POINTE A group of Judy Russell’s Enchainement dancers perform a piece in Studio D as part of the Prince
George Community Foundation’s Prince George Live! fundraiser on Sunday. The event raised more than $55,000.
VACCINATIONS PLAN UNVEILED
TED CLARKE
The province has unveiled its COVID-19 vaccine rollout planfor Phase 2, which aims to have more than 400,000 British Columbians from high-risk populations vaccinated by the end of April.
Over the next two months, the province is targeting all seniors aged 80 and older, Indigenous people 65 years and older, hospital staff, general practitioners, medical specialists, nurses and other staff working in community support, as well as many of the province’s vulnerable populations. Monday’s news briefing in Victoria also revealed the province’s Phase 3 plan,
which includes people aged 60-79 in the general population. They likely have to wait until April to receive their first doses of vaccine, with distribution based on fiveyear increments and the vaccine offered to the oldest groups first. People aged 16-69 who are clinically more vulnerable, as well as Indigenous people aged 45-64, are also included in the Phase 3 rollout. The remaining adults in the province, aged 18-59, will be part of the Phase 4 rollout from July-September, with the oldest of the five-year increments receiving their vaccines first. If more vaccines are approved and become available, people in the 18-64 age category who are front-line