Editor, The News:

In your Sept. 4th edition, you ran a letter from Wendy Gorner, who is so impressed with Abbotsford’s foresight in its Plan A projects, but she wanted to caution council to be careful not to have the same cost overruns as Mission Leisure Centre.

I was just wondering what planet she is from. Mission Leisure Centre had cost overruns that were in the neighbourhood of $4 million, mostly due to rising construction costs and typical things that can happen during construction of a project of that duration. The total costs were in the $8 million range, and Mission taxpayers were screaming.

In comparison, the latest estimates for Abbotsford’s Plan A have gone from $85 million to over $120 million, and these projects are not even into the building stage yet.

There are many unseen costs, like a $7,000 per month retainer that we have been paying Global Spectrum, and things like business meetings, junkets and propaganda have been phenomenal.
I am amazed when we get a newspaper report that says excavation will cost an extra $100,000 for a toxic spill. Then, it’s $200,000. Well, now it’s $1.2 million – this on property that the city bought for over $10 million when it already owned other sites that were debatably better locations.
Abbotsford has depleted its reserves and is making many cutbacks in services, which shows more and more in our very meagre parks system and roads.

If there is a higher tax rate in any city in British Columbia, I can’t find it, and certainly that’s not what Bruce Beck told us when he, John Smith and Jay Teichroeb were ramming this down our throats last year, with the whirlwind blitz that we all paid for.

If this project does have similar problems to Mission (and cross your fingers it doesn’t), there will be another tax increase that will put us into the ultra-ridiculous category for tax brackets. The way our council is throwing money around makes me think they are very out of touch with everything.

While I am the first person to see something other than residential development in this land of sold farms, I wonder at the reasons for building the very controversial “entertainment complex,” which still has no anchor tenant.

So please excuse some of us “naysayers,” Wendy. We can’t all share your admiration of council’s “foresight.”

Anne Graham, Abbotsford