On Aug. 29, city council voted unanimously to have the city prepare a report looking at the process used to determine if the mayor should write letters in support for local businesses, non-profits and elected officials.
But what actually happened behind the scenes, and who decided the letters should be written? On Aug. 24, the Citizen filed a Freedom of Information request to the city for emails, letters, texts and other documents related to the issue. The Citizen received that information on Oct. 7 at 4:27 p.m. The Prince George Folkfest Society’s Coldsnap event, P.G. Agricultural and Historical Association’s B.C. Northern Exhibition , Spirit of the North Healthcare Foundation’s Festival of Trees, 2022 BC Summer Games, Prince George Symphony Orchestra and Downtown Prince George’s Downtown Winterfest and Downtown Summerfest events each received one letter of support from Hall.
“Councillor Sampson is also looking for a letter in support of his application but Mayor Hall indicated that he wanted to discuss it with you before I prepare it,” she wrote.‘WE DO NOT WRITE LETTERS OF SUPPORT FOR BUSINESSES’ Approximately 22 minutes after receiving the letter from Hall, Sampson emailed Barcellos from his private email to ask for a second letter of support from the city’s economic development department.
Wasnik forwarded the email chain to Babicz on Sept. 23, 2021, to arrange a time to discuss the issue. Sampson emailed Barcellos late on Sept. 27 to ask how the conversation with Babicz went. Barcellos emailed Wasnik the following morning to ask if Babicz approved writing the letter, then replied to Sampson saying she’d been given the go-ahead to write the letter.
“Please note that no files were created as the events had noise permits,” Schmaltz wrote. “The noise permits are all attached as well. For The Best Damn Music Festival, you will see two permits. One is the original and one is the revised one.” One complaint, submitted to the city on Aug. 14 at 12:10 a.m. said the music festivals were “loud as hell.”