Whatever else you may accuse Abbotsford City Council of, and over the years Abbotsford’s councils have provided a multitude of injudicious actions and behaviours to choose among, you cannot accuse council of being cheap. Not with the millions of taxpayer dollars $$$$$ Council’s unwise actions and behaviours have wasted.

In addition to spendthrift ways, this council also follows the tradition that council never makes a bad decision [or more accurately refuses to acknowledge that the consequences of a decision were less that favourable]. Since council is never wrong there is no lesson to be learned, no gain of wisdom or knowledge from the negative consequences of their actions.

Never learning leaves council free to continue the same actions and behaviours, garnering the same negative consequences and continuing to pour taxpayer dollars down a black hole – year after year, council after council.

When voters ask why money was wasted – it is always somebody else’s fault that council had to waste the money or that the consequences were negative.

Council spends millions of dollars on a court case, loses, states that the outcome – losing – was what they expected [losing was a given in light of the BC Supreme Court decision on the same question in 2008 – upheld by the BC Court of Appeal in 2009 – concerning the homeless in Victoria] and council bears NO responsibility for spending taxpayer money on pointless court costs …….

……. because, according to Abbotsford Council, it is all the fault of the Homeless in Abbotsford for asking the court to direct the City of Abbotsford to stop violating the Charter Rights and Freedoms of the homeless and to obey the 2008 BC Supreme Court ruling on the rights of the homeless.

According to Abbotsford’s City Council they are blameless for the millions of taxpayer dollars spent pointlessly on legal costs because they had no choice but to go to court to avoid chaos and anarchy on the streets of Abbotsford.

Apparently I somehow managed to miss the chaos and anarchy that raged on the streets of Victoria as a result of the court ruling the homeless could camp in public parks when there was no other housing option open to them.

The truth is that considering the use of chicken manure and other assorted misbehaviours against the homeless by the City of Abbotsford, coupled with the slashing and bear spraying of tents of the homeless by the Abbotsford Police Department – it was [and remains] Abbotsford’s mayor and council who pose the biggest risk of chaos and anarchy breaking out on Abbotsford’s streets.

When asked how much had been spent on council’s denial of reality and insistence on having their own way, Mayor Braun stated he did not know what had been spent on lawyers fees.

Why would the mayor and council be expected to be aware of how many taxpayer dollars are flowing into lawyer’s pockets?

Why would mayor and council suddenly begin to spend taxpayers money wisely, carefully or effectively? If you are not spending money wisely, carefully or effectively, why would you have any interest in how many dollars you are wasting?

Or why would you care how much $750,000+ [+ because council’s reported ‘cost’ never includes all the dollars actually laid out] you burn scrambling to get a ‘shelter’ open to do an end run around the judges ruling?

And when the shelter fills up before council could close the Gladys camp and other assorted camps around the city, why should the city care if its self serving interpretation of the judge’s decision lands them back in court and wastes hundreds of thousands more taxpayer dollars?

Why would the mayor or council consider the negative effects of their arrogant behaviour on the judge, Abbotsford’s reputation and ability to attract the business it needs for its economy.

Why would mayor or council consider or think about anything other than getting their own way?

Over the years council has repeated denied or ignored both reality and the evidence in its actions and behaviours; worked at mastering excuse mongering created a multitude of excuses; claimed it could do nothing because it lacked the resources to address homelessness – although clearly the city has all the resources they want available to waste on actions that the evidence clearly shows – has shown in Abbotsford year after year – will do nothing to address homeless, will in fact allow the problem to worsen.

The mayor, members of council and city staff are in danger of breaking their arms patting themselves on the back for how fast they moved to waste taxpayers money opening a shelter, an action that decades of outcomes and data make clear will result in an increase in homelessness.

Yet the Abbotsford Community Services housing project, a project designed – a designed based on actual outcomes – to reduce homelessness in Abbotsford by enabling the homeless to become capable of moving forward on their own, keeps retreating into the future. A fate that threatens to toss the project onto the scrapheap council has tossed other projects based on actual studies, analysis and actual outcomes.

That council would pay lip service to the judges decision while doing what they want to do and continuing to pursue actions and behaviours that have  – year after year – demonstrated their total ineffectiveness was no surprise, was sadly predictable.

In answer to a voter’s question in the November 2014 municipal election: the reason you want to remember council’s financially costly gaffs and failure to address issues is so taxpayers do not have to continually shell out millions of wasted dollars, watch as the issues are ignored or mishandled and the problems arising from homelessness worsen instead of being addressed as a consequence of council’s failure to learn from the negative consequences that arose from council’s actions and behaviours – because some phantom ‘Not Me’ is responsible for any negative consequences.