Sunday, December 31, 2023

Blog Watching 2023: The Year in Review

YEAR IN REVIEW 2023

For our Blog watching feature for year's end we offer up four headings to provide for a glimpse of some of the news highlights of the year soon to end.

Category number one will be the Overall Top story, as determined by the amount of views the article received over the course of the last 365 days.

Category Two will feature those stories of note from Prince Rupert City Hall.

Our third category explores some of the key topics of the year from the Business or Industrial footprint in the community.

A new addition, a fourth category for the review, will focus on the work of Emergency Responders from across the Northwest 

All of our results have been determined by the viewer count for the stories through the year.

At the bottom of each section you will also find links to additional blog resources to review themes in more detail, listed by the month.

Our Lists of the year, unfold as follows:

Overall top stories

As 2023 comes to a wrap, the prospects for the Port and how it relates with the city dominated much of the conversation for the community in the year just about to end.

From the latest data reviews from the Port Terminals, a month long labour dispute and the ongoing focus on how much the Port should give back to the community by way of taxes or grants continues to make for many a conversation around the region.

The City's focus on infrastructure and a keen interest on the revitalization of the city's downtown area, most recently through some high profile demolitions also was of much note for the public this year.

As well, themes of Emergency Service responses, whether by the RCMP, Fire Services, BC Ambulance or BC Conservation Service officers frequently found a fair bit of interest through the year.

Our look at how the months unfolded can be reviewed below:

Most Read -- All Inclusive



January

Port Response to City's PILT Report and discussion takes issue with a number of Council's findings

February

Vancouver Sun article highlights the now over one year incident of a tragic death at Prince Rupert Hospital, as well as other concerning issues of safety at facility

March

New Tourism initiative prepares to take to the streets of Prince Rupert 

April

Ken Cote bids farewell to the skies as he brings his decades of aviation to a close on the North Coast

May

Apartment building proposal for Frederick and Hays Cove to be revealed at tonight's Council Session

June

Belmont Hotel Demolition could be on the horizon

July

Moby Dick's Goats make for Prince Rupert return 

August

Prince Rupert's newest lounge opens its doors on Fraser Street 

September

Proposed change for Second Avenue Building on the list for Planning notes for Council tonight

October 

West side structure fire Tuesday claimed one life, sent others to Prince Rupert Regional Hospital

November

SD52 starts PRMS replacement planning with Management contract through Vancouver School Board

December

Drake Crescent Housing returns to the forefront, as Pacific Aurora Construction seeks variances for property in question


See our right hand column feature North Coast Review Backgrounders for links to archives of the year on a range of topics of note for the region.

Also as part of our right hand column options we have a North Coast Review Extra Edition feature which offers more in depth reviews of some of the larger issues of the Northwest this year.

Tracking the year in politics is fairly easy as well from our right hand column listings as well, just check out our archives for both the House of Commons and Legislature for items of note from the North Coast and Northwest in 2023.

Those who have deeper interest in the federal and provincial scene will find our companion blog D'Arcy McGee of interest, where we have archived notes from both Ottawa and Victoria.  

*************************************************************************

Municipal government

As noted above, action on derelict buildings and the ongoing work on infrastructure can be counted on to capture a large bit of interest by the public.

With Two Budget processes this year owing to a change in how City Council puts together their financial planning, any notes related to how the City plans to spend our money and how much they want found a good audience this year.

Housing plans, those currently underway, proposed or in some cases seemingly abandoned also were of much interest for readers as the twelve months of 2023 passed us by.

What municipal themes caught the interest of the readers through the year looked as follows:

Most Read -- Municipal Government


January









*************************************************************************

 Industry/Retail/Tourism 

The engine that is Prince Rupert is the port and 2023 saw the engine stall a bit, that mostly through the reduced volumes of goods through the DP World Container Terminal at Fairview.

The  years challenges meant significantly less work for many of the workers, both with the economic malaise in shipping and a summer labour disruption that brought Port operations to a near standstill for most of July.

There were some positives in the port related economy, some of the other terminals had strong years with the Grain and Trigon among those with positive throughput sheets, the new economic generators of energy resources also continue to build up their presence on the north coast.

While 2023 was a year of reflection for the industry, port officials continue to move forward with ambitious expansions plans for the Container Terminal and adjacent logistics terminals to service the port.

The Tourism industry saw an improving situation, with the Cruise sector delivering a good year of increased passenger counts, locally the commercial sector continued to see Prince Rupert's focus on the local small business operators, with some openings and some closures along the way in the year just ending.

Some of those closures continue an erosion of services that many took for granted over the years, with the town currently without an autobody shop and short of mechanics.

The lack of services and shopping making for more traffic eastbound to Terrace which has clearly become the shopping/service centre for the region, while parcel delivery services in Prince Rupert probably make for the largest growth business in the service sector. 

 

Some of the stories of the year are as follows:

Most Read -- Business/Industry

January

Port Response to City's PILT Report and discussion takes issue with a number of Council's findings

February

Wainwright Marine Services and Director Bates facing eight charges on 2021 Ingenika sinking

March

December

Terminal Build complete, Wolverine Marine Fuelling looks to 2024 start for Prince Rupert Operations 

For more background on the region's industrial, tourism and commercial sectors see the following:

Industrial Archive




Most Read -- Emergency Responder Files


January





For more background on the work of Emergency Responders across the Northwest see our archive below:

Emergency Responders Archive 2023


To all our readers, we hope you have a very happy and enjoyable New Year's Eve as we all provide our own farewell to an unforgettable twelve months of 2023. 

We offer our wishes for all the Best in 2024. We're looking forward to seeing what stories will be the ones that resonate through the year when we do this all again on December 31st, 2024!


Our archive of weekly Blog Watching for the year now ending can be found here.  

Posted by at
Labels:

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)