“Getting good value for money [for taxpayers] is our number one priority.”

When Abbotsford’s city council is looking for an excuse to do something it wants (close Matsqui pool, leave the FVRD) council is all about saving or getting value for taxpayer’s money BUT when it is an expensive boondoggle they want to squander taxpayer’s money on (buy wealthy, well-connected businessmen a professional hockey team, provide multi-million dollar operating subsidies for an arena for the team to play in, build an (practically) unused $1.4+ million dollar scraggly garden) value for money or saving taxpayers money is not a consideration.

Given the mayor and councillors comments on leaving the FVRD and their decisions over recent years that led up to this year’s decision to close Matsqui pool, one is led to suspect they don’t have a solid grasp of the concept of value. Whether that is true or not, it is clear from councils decisions on Matsqui pool that council’s concept of value is quite different from that of the taxpayers of Abbotsford.

Value is not strictly a dollars in equals a dollars out thing. One of the reasons for being in the FVRD is to stay out of the clutches of Translink and its gas and parking stall taxes. I suspect most taxpayers would consider this a very valuable benefit of FVRD membership. There are numerous other ‘values’ I can think of that Abbotsford receives for being a member of the FVRD, not the least of which is good relations with the neighbours.

But the real reason that wise municipal politicians do not want to open the can of worms that comes with dollars in must equal dollars out is that, while at a municipal property tax level the rural areas (and smaller communities) put in less dollars that the larger municipalities, at provincial and federal tax levels the rural (and smaller communities) put in far more dollars than they receive back – dollars that flow to the larger municipalities.

Following councils dollars in must equal dollars out philosophy you would end up with decisions that, while typical of Abbotsford councils decision making, are not astute, wise or necessarily rational.

Under dollars in equal dollars out our new REGIONAL hospital could have been built in Yarrow because it is far easier to balance dollars in with dollars out using large cost projects.

Or a more likely scenario is the hospital gets built in Abbotsford but the city gets no federal or provincial dollars for the new highway interchanges or other projects until it has put enough dollars in to get any dollars out. Although given the interchanges Abbotsford ended up with……not having money from the province and federal governments to build the new interchanges and being left with the old interchanges may not have been a bad thing.

Be that as it may, the funding mayhem that would arise from following councils dollars in must equal dollars out philosophy is why politicians with any common sense wisely avoid opening the can of worms that comes with dollars in must equal dollars out.

That is the problem with focusing on narrow wants – you fail to see the overarching reality. Like a mouse focused on the cheese you miss the presence of the trap until it delivers a painful, or fatal, reminder of its presence.

And while there is nothing wrong with the municipalities in the FVRD wanting their taxpayers money spent wisely and efficiently, it is highly ironic – nay, the height of hypocrisy – for Abbotsford’s council to be complaining about the way Abbotsford taxpayer dollars are being spent by the FVRD in light of their profligate spending of Abbotsford taxpayer’s dollars.