Not really surprising that with an election only a few months away the mayor and council felt the need for an economic impact study on the AESC.

After all, with the AESC’s appetite for consuming taxpayer dollars, its multi-million dollar subsidy to a professional hockey team, its multi-million dollars subsidy for well connected local citizens to buy themselves said professional hockey team and the consequences of council’s decisions driving property taxes, facility admission costs, field rentals and other city fees and charges into the stratosphere – mayor and council were desperate for something – anything – that would allow them to claim the AESC was in some way good for the community.

In exchange for pouring tens of thousands more taxpayer dollars into the AESC’s black hole, mayor and council got a report with numbers they could point to and claim the AESC was positive for the community.

Of course……given that the methodology used to calculate the economic impact made it impossible not to get numbers that could be claimed to be positive, while ensuring no negative impacts would be recognized……means the report is meaningless in terms of assessing the impact of the AESC on Abbotsford.

Not much of a surprise that paying big bucks for an impact report resulted in the use of methodology that served mayor and council’s need for numbers that obscure and/or ignore actual impacts.

Methodology that resulted in an increase in economic impact in this second impact report on the AESC, over the first report prepared before the AESC opened.

Despite the fact that none of the promises made by council as to the financial performance of the AESC has materialized economic impact increased. Which is what happens when you use ‘multipliers’ to calculate economic impact – the higher the expenditure you apply the multiplier to, the larger the economic impact becomes.

In other words – the bigger a disaster, the more of a money sucking black hole the AESC becomes, the higher the number for economic impact becomes.

As to the report’s claim of the creation of 305 FTE jobs, the report did include the information that FTE jobs meant full time equivalent jobs.

What the report did not include was information on how the number 305 was arrived at. From the information contained in the report the number 305 appears to have been plucked out of thin air.

Even if 305 could be supported, what full time equivalent jobs means if that a lot of different people got a few hours of work here and a few hours of work there. As anyone who is looking for work or trying to survive in Abbotsford can tell you what is needed in Abbotsford is not full time equivalent jobs but full time jobs paying wages sufficient to live on.

Another non-surprise concerning the report is that the City’s news release as well as Mayor Peary’s comments omitted to note or draw the attention of taxpayers to the $15,208,000 Abbotsford portion of total AESC expenditures.

Or that – since if you read the report on economic impact you would discover the methodology used, the lack of any support for the claimed 305 FTE jobs and the $15,208,000 Abbotsford portion of total AESC expenditures – if you wanted to read the report it was not easily available on the City’s web site but required on to request a copy of the report from city hall.

Finally concerning mayor Peary’s statement “The critics of the sports centre either don’t understand, or choose not to understand, that there are some benefits.”

The question is not whether there are some benefits to the centre, obviously the ownership group and their businesses derive substantial benefits from the centre and from the pocketbooks of Abbotsford’s beleaguered taxpayers.

The question is about a) the benefits that the taxpayers should receive for their $15,208,000 portion of total AESC expenditures and b) how anyone with common sense, an understanding of fiscal reality and who behaves in a fiscally responsible manner could or would be expected to place any value on the expensive drivel contained in this new report on the economic impact of the AESC.

I want to salute local First Nations artist Raphael Silver for his sculpture. Elegant. It left me interested in seeing other works by Mr. Silver.

I also offer Mr. Silver my condolences as had his art been purchased by a fiscally sound and well managed city, or even an adequately managed city, the $64,000 would be considered to have been well spent.

Unfortunately for Mr. Silver he is dealing with the City of Abbotsford which, under its current mayor and council, does not meet even minimal standards of fiscal and management adequacy.

Leaving Mr. Silver’s artistry overshadowed by yet another demonstration by mayor and council of how out of touch with any sense of thrift, restraint, fiscally responsible behaviour or taxpayer’s wants/needs council is.

Council may consider $64,000 to be chump change, but $64,000 here, $64,000 there and before long it adds up to real money. The kind of money that the mayor, council and city management should have been setting aside to cover the $230 million cost of the needed new water supply.

In addition Mr. Silver’s art deserves a location where it can be savoured, rather than glimpsed – the case with its location at the center of one of Abbotsford’s new safe transit challenged roundabouts.

I wonder how many accidents will be caused, or claimed to have been caused, by drivers distracted by the sculpture. How many drivers will not see or have a chance to appreciate Mr. Silver’s art because they are focused on surviving their encounter with the roundabout?

Might I suggest that, rather than straining their arms patting themselves on the back for the $5 million ‘saved’, it would have been better to have invested the ‘savings’ making the roundabouts more travelable rather than leaving them in their current ‘accidents waiting to happen’ state.

But then making sensible investments in the basic operating infrastructure (roads, water etc.) of Abbotsford has never been of interest to council. Vanity projects – Yes. Nuts and bolts infrastructure and maintenance – No.

“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.

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.