A Stairway to Nowhere; how fitting as a symbol for Abbotsford.

Over the winter, on the corner of George Ferguson Way and the Mission Highway a mysterious structure has slowly been rising. Once it became obvious that it was a stairway people began to wonder: 1) why build the stairs first? 2) when does the foundation and structure get built and what is it to be?

When the dirt was mounded around the stairway and covered with sod and the fence moved tightly around the stairway it became obvious that what it was in fact a Stairway to Nowhere. The addition of the sign giving this monument the appearance of being the entrance to a housing development made clear its association with Abbotsford.

I find it unbelievably ironic just how appropriate this stairway is as a symbol of Abbotsford.

A fence surrounds it to exclude people, to have them pass by to somewhere more friendly and welcoming. A fence lest those in need of rest and respite should choose to stop and seek refuge rather than moving along.

No foundation, no structure just the empty promise of a stairway going nowhere. One could not describe Abbotsford more succinctly.

No structure of thought or planning to provide leadership to effectively and efficiently govern Abbotsford. No foundation of common sense, compassion and the consideration of citizen’s needs and priorities. Just an endless rise built of empty promises.

A Stairway to Nowhere: one would be hard pressed to better sum up the current state of affairs in Abbotsford. This Stairway to Nowhere is truly Irony personified.

The little ditty they sing on that commercial about bankers always having their hands in your pocket came to mind as I read the sign at Abbotsford Recreation Center about fee increases.

And no, it was not the fact that they were charging we citizens more to use the facility on the same day they were cancelling or cutting back access and services.It is that I have lived in Abbotsford for nigh on two decades, lived through and paid many fee increases, which in all those prior years took effect on September 1.

Why was the effective date moved up this year?

The only explanation I can think of is that the city coffers have been drained so empty by Plan A, that even the modest extra cash flow from this early fee increase is desperately needed by the city.I am afraid to ask how long it will be before we face quarterly fee increases or inventive new fees.

With quarterly increases the city can claim: “See, we only put your fees up 2.5%!” or disingenuously ask “What are you implying, what do you mean that is over 10% increase for the entire year?

”Just think, if council was to do tax increases on a quarterly basis they could claim taxes only went up 4% this quarter year.And this is why that little ditty is running through my head.

♪♪ …hands in your pockets …♪♪♪♪

Why is the City of Abbotsford dragging its heels over giving support to an initiative to help some of the homeless through a card program modelled on Mission’s successful Red/Gold card programs?

Is it not disgraceful enough that once again an initiative to supply basic humanitarian aid in meeting fraction of the life sustaining needs of the homeless and poor in Abbotsford has to be carried forward by so very few caring citizens?

Through the hard work and inspiration of the few involved with gathering the support and resources to launch even this limited, but so badly needed program, a hundred meals a month will be added to the battle against hunger in our city. The program will also provides some other acutely needed items, but will not at this time be able to provide showers.

A proposal, a request, that the city support this program by providing a hundred showers a month has apparently fallen on deaf ears. Not only has the city failed to grant this request, they have failed to grant the courtesy of a reply on the matter to the hard working citizens who are seeking to contribute to the spirit and well being of Abbotsford.

With two recreation centres in the city it would cost the city… nothing but the political will to act in providing showers to the homeless.

A simple, effective action and yet the city does nothing.

Why?

Does anyone understand why we are building basketball courts at Abbotsford Recreation Centre? This when the debacle with Centennial Pool has clearly highlighted the fact that what the Abbotsford sports and recreation scene really needs is another pool.

I do know the reasoning of the city on the matter – I just cannot understand it.
I suppose I am just to rooted in reality as opposed to the strange dimension existing within the walls of Abbotsford City Hall.

Their “reasoning” goes something like this: pool operations lose money while basketball courts generally make money.

In the real world this “Abbotsford speak” translates to: pool operations have a negative cash flow while basketball courts generally have a positive cash flow.

That is to say you spend more to operate a pool than you collect from user fees (negative cash outflow). Operating costs for courts tend to be much lower and therefore user fees exceed operating costs (positive cash inflow).

That assumes certain levels of court usage to meet projected fee income. Costs can be fairly accurately projected based on operating costs at similar facilities in other cities, although ARC will incur the unusual additional cost of needing a second front desk to control and collect for the new facilities added. Not having access to all the current operating costs of ARC, the cost projection assumptions and calculations and the projected usage and user fees I cannot comment on the city’s calculations.

For the purposes of this commentary it is unnecessary to be able to ascertain the reasonableness of the city’s assumptions and projections. I am willing to assume a positive cash flow from the new facilities in the neighbourhood of their $100,000 per year.

In the real world, outside of Abbotsford City Hall any accountant, anyone with business or common sense can tell you that it is not cash flow from operations that determines whether you are making money or losing money. It is total income minus TOTAL COSTS.

When you ask City Hall why they are building a basketball court instead of the obviously and demonstrably needed new pool facility they say that pools lose money and basketball courts make money and that they will be looking at building the badly needed pool in the future – after securing the “positive cash flow” of the court facilities.

If Abbotsford City Hall wants to determine which recreation facility it will build or what order it will build in based on positive or negative cash flows rather than the basis of what facilities the City most needs, that is their call … but in the real world you do not ignore the costs of the new facility (plant) you are building in determining cash flow and income/operating expenses. Even in the oxygen starved air of Abbotsford City Hall it should have been obvious that if your reason for building a facility is its cash flow you then need to consider the cash flow associated with paying for the facility you are building.

So in order to be able to show a $100,000 a year “profit” from the court facility operations the city, thus the taxpayers, will payout $150,000+ per month or $1,800,000+ a year. Only in Abbotsford City Hall could spending $1,800,000+ to “earn” $100,000 seem rational. In the real world this would not be thought stupid, rather it would be considered totally insane behaviour. Perhaps what we need in accounting for Abbotsford City Hall’s financial practices is a budget item and expense category to record the costs of their lack of logic and any financial sense.

Has Abbotsford City Hall become so habituated to their own smoke and mirror shows, selling taxpayers a mirage, that they themselves no longer see reality but the fantasy world they have constructed?

Never having raised the false promise of profit with the arts and museum building the cost of the building only enters into the equation as a question of are we getting good value for our investment? The important, and still unanswered question, is whether we have a design appropriate for meeting the needs of Abbotsford not when the doors open but a decade, two decades in the future?

They have raised the promise of “profit” for the arena complex. However in light of the reports on the cost of Vancouver’s Convention Centre, another public/ PCL contract, it would not be prudent to make any estimate at this time. But profit anywhere but in the minds (and sales pitch) of City Hall?

I saw on the news that Microsoft is looking for a location to house the 200 people it is planning to initially move into the lower mainland. What I did not see or hear is any mention of Abbotsford being one of the municipalities seeking to advantage of the this business development opportunity, secure 200 high paying high-tech jobs, the potential future job growth they represent and the opportunities that would arise from being the city that lands Microsoft.

No doubt Abbotsford City Hall will have a laundry list of why they did not bother to seek these jobs and the possibilities these jobs and Microsoft would open for further business development.

Why was it when a growing high tech firm is seeking to open an office here is the city trying to, literally, flush this business down the toilets. The firm is moving into an existing building that had housed a similar number of people, but this firm suddenly faces the challenge of “the toilets flush two slowly”. Is the city trying to drive the potential of this high tech firm to another city? What secrets lie behind the toilet being fine for the previous occupant of these premises, but not for these new boys in town? What does city have against high-tech development?

I am also sure they will have a long list of excuses for why they are not working to develop office towers to lure business (and their taxes) from Vancouver to Abbotsford. It is a perfect time to promote building office towers/space in Abbotsford, a time when Vancouver council is consider action to rein in condo development in the downtown area because they need to act to ensure the development of more office space, .

Of course there is the barrier, erected by City Hall, of the exorbitant raises in DCC costs. These raises have already affected a business proposal in downtown old Abbotsford. What had been planned as a hotel development, with its taxes and jobs, will now be build as a condo development to save on the DCC costs.

Speaking of hotels: Why is the Sandman Hotel still un-built? Don’t tell me it is still over that $40,000 that the developer has quite correctly stated he should be exempt from. I do concede the city is legally correct that he failed to file the correct papers on time.

But the city position on the matter concedes the developer was entitled to an exemption. So in their greed for the $40,000, Abbotsford loses not only the considerably more than $40,000 in taxes it would collect but forgoes all the employment and tourism that would flow from the Sandman Hotel. But Abbotsford City Hall does put another notch in its reputation as an unfriendly, anti-business city – the kind of place you want to drive past on your way to business friendly Chilliwack.

Chilliwack, were the city’s proposal to turn the entire city into a wireless access area is attracting universities to build campus space in Chilliwack. The proposal by Chilliwack to become such an access zone has Universities from Vancouver opening campuses in Chilliwack and UCFV looking at new development in Chilliwack. Locally UCFV considered wireless access to be important enough that they paid to turn their campus into a wireless access area. Imagine the advantage wireless access would prove in attracting Microsoft and other high tech firms.

In Abbotsford the city just shrugged off a proposal that would not only have given the entire city wireless access, but would have earned the city income from the use of city infrastructure for installing the wireless system. Any other city in the area would have been more than happy to pursue this wireless proposal, but not Abbotsford who would rather stand in the way of progress for the city and citizens.

Why do we have a large well paid business development department when the evidence shows they are either doing nothing or lack any ability for business development? Just what does the city have against business development helping develop a balanced community as opposed to a community where most must travel elsewhere for work, especially in light of rising gas prices? Why are we spending all those millions of dollars of new facilities City Hall claims are needed to attract people and development when clearly the obstacle to developing and attracting business and people to Abbotsford is in fact Abbotsford City Hall?