On January 24th 2011 Abbotsford council closed Matsqui Pool.. On February 7th 2011 the mayor and councillors give themselves a large raise, benefits and perks as well as an Never-ending stream of yearly pay raises. Perhaps explaining council’s desperate need to save thousands of dollars by closing Matsqui Pool.
As to the question of whether council deserved a raise – the closing of Matsqui Pool, and the history of that closing, provide clear evidence that mayor and council did not deserved one single cent of an increase.
Mayor and council are suppose to be stewards of the City of Abbotsford’s finances and assets, not vandals.
For years council and management of Parks and Recreation have wanted, indeed have tried repeatedly, to close Matsqui Pool.
Just as an aside: Have you noticed that when council and Parks and Rec management want to build something (an arena or a museum/gallery) they are all about comparisons to other cities BUT when council and management wanted to close Matsqui pool there was no comparison to other communities; a comparison that would highlight Abbotsford’s severe shortage of public pool space?
Council claims it would cost too much to repair Matsqui pool and they cannot afford the $70,000 annual operating costs – yet council has $500,000 (or more) for yearly subsidies to purchase of a profession al hockey team for wealthy Abbotsford citizens; $600,000+ to subsidize the Museum/Art Gallery; multi-millions of dollars to subsidize the operation of the arena for the Heat to play in.
And council has $250,000 to demolish the pool.
I do not want to get mired down in an argument about whether the city’s estimate of $1 – 2 million to repair the pool is accurate (but given city management and council’s record of grossly underestimating the costs for projects they wish to do and exaggerating the costs of projects or things they don’t want to do……) or whether competent management could accomplish this task for considerably less. Nor mired down in the fact that when a neighbour of mine had a leak in his pool tank he had no problem finding and repairing the leak. But then he was a competent individual who hired competent help to find (and repair) the leak.
No the real point is that the current decrepit state Matsqui Pool is the result of the failure to perform prudent and needed maintenance. A failure council and management will no doubt claim had nothing to do with their desire to close Matsqui Pool.
Which makes it clear that 1) “Getting good value for money [for taxpayers] is our number one priority.” is of concern only where it can be used to justify taking an action council wishes to take (leaving the FVRD) and 2) that council is quite content destroying value if that will justify taking an action (closing Matsqui Pool) council wishes to take.
That council’s decisions and failure to act as a steward of a valuable and treasured taxpayer asset brought Matsqui Pool to its current state of disrepair evidences not only that 1) council should not have gotten a raise, but that 2) a garnishee of council wages was in order. Oh, and 3) Mark Taylor should be fired before he can inflict further damage to taxpayer’s parks and recreation assets.