Mr. Pizzuto’s state of the water supply letter raises several interesting points for consideration.

When council first proposed spending millions on installing individual household water meters, an astute citizen did the calculations and concluded that spending millions of dollars on water meters instead of investing the money in water delivery infrastructure made no sense economically and concluded the reason council was so gung-ho to put in water meters was as the first step to large increases in what citizens were paying for water.

Of course council was quick to issue assurances and promises that they were installing the water meters only for the purpose of more efficiency in managing the water resources, citing a water leak that had gone undetected for months under the old system that would be caught much sooner with the new water meters in place. Council trotted out their favourite defence: those citizens questioning the installation of water meters were ‘naysayers’, didn’t know what they were talking about and council would not be using the new metering system to change water billing from once a year or using the meters to limit the volume of water citizens could use or to implement large increases in the cost of water to residents.

Given council’s repeated demonstration of its lack of economic sense or consideration of the effect council’s actions have on taxpayer’s pocketbooks the matter has stood unresolved – until now.

Mr Pizzuto’s letter speaks of “over a resident’s average water needs” and “should be able to do so without paying high-use premiums”. Taken together with statements out of city hall about billing changing to several times a year and at least 50% increases in what citizens are billed for water this is yet further proof, for those who needed more demonstrated evidence, as to the worthlessness of assurances and promises made by Abbotsford City Council.

“growth pays for itself” through Development Cost Charges (DCCs); while that is the theory behind the existence of Development Cost Charges, it is only true if a city uses the DCCs for infrastructure. When a city uses its Development Cost Charges as a funding source for day-to-day city operations, as Abbotsford’s city council does, who is paying for what (citizens or developers) becomes a matter of who is doing the accounting and how they do it.

It is the council practice of using Development Cost Charges to pay for day-to-day city operations and not strictly for infrastructure that is behind council’s desperate need to increase DCCs NOW. It is this desperate need that led to borrowing from Abbotsford’s future via the three year future tax holiday for developers who pony up DCCs now.

Given “Hence the watering restrictions that were implemented for July and August this year”; does anyone else finding it a little worrying that the city manager is seemingly unaware that water restrictions were imposed in Abbotsford beginning April 1^st and not simply July and August, that it was the degree of the restrictions that was changed (or imposed) in July and August?

Just out of curiosity, while I agree that designing a water system based on one or two days of peak demand is neither financially or environmentally responsible, if we are speaking of only one or two days why were restrictions in place from April 1^st and then tightened for 2 months. If we are speaking of only 1 or 2 days should not the length of watering restrictions be in terms of days and not months?

On the matter of the 2005 report and Mr. Pizzuto’s (and council’s) assertion that “The review showed that we would need to develop an interim source of water before our new major supply could be brought into service in 2015 – the target date for our new Stave Lake water supply to become active.”

Only if you are spendthrift and improvident.

For prudent and financially responsible managers the report says that the new Stave Lake water needs to be brought on line before the 2015 target date in order to avoid the risk of water shortages and the increased costs to taxpayers through the need to develop expensive interim sources such as the Bevan Wells.

By moving up the date for bringing the new water supply on line, millions of dollars in savings would have been realized by eliminating the need for interim sources of water; the new water supply would be on line well before the city was in danger of running out of water or the need for strict water use rationing occurred; you avoid worries/questions about possible contamination in the Bevan Wells because of Mill Lakes industrial use history or of any possible negative effects on the jewel that is Mill Lake and it’s water table from pumping millions of litres of water out of that water table from under Mill Lake.

For the prudent and financially responsible having this report in hand in 2005 is a reason to focus on new water supply infrastructure.

It is only for the spendthrift and improvident that having this report in hand in 2005 means the need to spend millions on interim band-aid sources of water in order to put off investing in new water supply infrastructure so you can build ego projects with their massive cost overruns, need for millions of dollars in yearly subsidies and council’s final ego project – subsidizing the purchase of a professional hockey team for those privileged citizens favoured by Abbotsford city council.

After all as Mr. Pizzuto writes, Abbotsford has plenty of water – as long as we don’t use more than we have.

Those citizens who had hoped that Mr. Pizzuto’s arrival as city manager would result in more prudent and financially responsible decision making and behaviour must be disappointed by this evidence that council found, not prudence and fiscal acumen buta city manager in tune with ‘Abbotsford city council think’.

Still, while not necessarily helpful, Mr. Pizzuto’s letter – trepidation inducing and disheartening as it may be – is informative

The smile on the face of Shape Properties president John Horton is understandable, but considering what this photo-op cost Abbotsford’s taxpayers what does Abbotsford Mayor George Peary have to smile about?

But then consideration of what effect their actions will have on taxpayers or their pocketbooks has never been a priority for Abbotsford’s mayor, councilors or city staff.

Admittedly this photo-op is costing the taxpayers of Abbotsford less than the photo-ops involving the Abbotsford Entertainment Sports Complex did; but the tax holiday giving rise to this photo-op may well be the council misjudgement that pushes the City of Abbotsford over the edge and sends it freefalling down into the abyss of financial crisis, perhaps even insolvency.

We are talking about a tax holiday (tax break) that works out to three years of $0.00 taxes on what is to be the largest shopping centre built in B.C. over the past 30 years.

We are also talking about a cost that is undoubtedly considered information taxpayers don’t need to know and information to be kept behind closed doors by our current mayor and council. One can hope that the new mayor and council (November 2011) will recognize this type of information as information those who pay the cost of decisions such as making the tax holiday/break that was suppose to attract new development retroactive to development already in the pipeline are entitled to know.

Hmmm; I don’t recall the tax holiday/break being retroactive as part of either the discussion or motion when mayor and council approved Jay Teichroeb’s dubious plan to use three years of $0.00 property taxes (spread over five years) to get developers to develop in Abbotsford by providing compensation to offset the barriers that were preventing their building in Abbotsford.

Although with Highway 1, a border crossing, an international airport and metro Vancouver just a short drive down Highway 1 it would seem that Abbotsford has much to offer developers – outside of its city council’s behaviour.

Still, it was predictable that Shape Properties and other developers who had projects in various stages of development would seek the same freebie that council was using to overcome developers reluctance to locate in Abbotsford and that council would find itself making their tax concessions/holidays/breaks retroactive for any developer that had not already made a significant investment in an Abbotsford development.

After all, leverage is all on the side of any developer with nothing (or close to nothing) invested and at stake in a development in Abbotsford. In those circumstances either developers would get the tax holiday/break or put their development(s) on hold; leaving council either to concede the tax holiday/break or lose those DCCs.

And while developers who have to much invested in a project not to complete the project canbe denied the tax holiday/break – what effect does denying a developer in that position the tax holiday/break have on that developer building any future development in Abbotsford?

The costs of making the tax holiday/breaks retroactive are only one facet of the can of worms council opened with its decision to grant holidays/breaks to satisfy its addiction to Development Cost Charges to finance Abbotsford City Hall’s spendthrift ways.

What the tax holiday/break does is to pull development into a current fiscal year from future years. At some point you simply run out of projects, or have a seriously reduced number of projects, that can be pulled from the future into your current fiscal year; also at some point pulling projects into your current fiscal year from the future will leave you without any projects in some future year (or years) – leaving the city without any Development Cost Charges (or at best significantly reduced DCCs) in that year (or years).

Similarly, when you end the tax holiday/break it leaves you in a vacuum of no, or significantly reduced, DCCs.

Either way the tax holiday/break is only a short term fix which creates longer term financial difficulties.

But the worst facet of city staff and council’s tax holiday/break decision is the extremely negative consequences the tax holiday/break will have on future city property tax revenue flows.

By giving future tax holidays/breaks for DCC cash now, council is borrowing from the future to fund council’s lack of planning and fiscal discipline in the current year. While this may save council from the consequences of its lack of fiscal discipline THIS year, it deals with this year’s problems not by addressing them but by pushing the reckoning into (near) future years.

The major consequences of city staff and council’s tax holiday/break are: forcing the city to grant retroactive tax holidays/breaks for projects that were already on the drawing board; pulling development out of the future into the current year with the result that in a near future year (or years) the city’s DCC revenue will suffer a significant reduction; the property tax reductions used to pull revenue into the current year to permit council to avoid, for this year, the consequences of council’s lack of planning and fiscal discipline will result in a significant reduction of property tax revenue flows in near (and not so near) future years; the developments that occur as a result of the tax breaks will, as they come online over future years require water, sewer and other city infrastructure that are inadequate to service the city’s current needs.

Council’s tax holiday/break ‘solution’ is going to require major infrastructure investments to provide services to the developments while at the same time the tax holiday/break ‘solution’ reduces the revenue flows of the city making it necessary to cut the city’s operating budget to match reduced revenues and raises the question of how much property taxes and debt will have to rise to fund city operations and the required infrastructure investments.

Tax breaks for DCCs now …live for today and ignore the future while digging the financial hole the city is in ever deeper.

Leaving citizens wondering ‘where are we going and why are we in this hand-basket’?

The ongoing business as usual behaviour of Abbotsford’s current crop of politicians and management evidence that, in the name of accuracy, we need to rename city hall Fawlty Tower.

This renaming is needed to reflect that the decisions and behaviour of council have gone well past ‘Comedy of Errors’ into ‘Farcical’ making it appropriate to rename city hall after the John Cleese BBC television series Fawlty Towers – a series where chaos is the fallout from the foolish mistakes of intelligence-challenged characters.

Shouldyou harbor any doubts as to the validity of the use of ‘intelligence-challenged characters’ remember this is the same basic council who thought that awarding the contract for the work on Centennial Pool to a company that had never built/poured a pool of any type was a good idea; in spite of the deadline imposed by the May start of the Abbotsford Whalers season and the fact Abbotsford council did not let the contract until well into the fall rather than during the summer which would have permitted construction to start several months earlier at the time Centennial Pool ceased operations for the season.

When some citizens questioned council as to the wisdom of awarding the contract to a firm that had never built a pool tank council, as is their wont as they stumble from misadventure to debacle to calamity to disaster, claimed they were saving the taxpayers money, while issuing assurances that council knew what it was doing and asserting the ‘naysayers’ knew nothing about the matter and promising there was nothing to worry about.

This total lack of pool construction experience is why no one with any common sense was surprised when there were, and continue to be, problems with Centennial Pool’s construction.

Given council’s historic aversion to giving consideration and/or thought to questions from taxpayers that threaten to inject reality into council’s ‘don’t worry, be happy’ world, the cancellation of question period was always a matter of when not if. Indeed council has made it very clear that their preference would be to conduct all, not just most, of the city’s business behind closed doors and away from public scrutiny and questions. Currently council only conducts the business it has to in public.

It is likely council’s long record of construction boondoggles as well as massive cost overruns, multi-million dollar losses instead of profits, multi-million dollar subsidies to purchase a professional hockey team for favoured citizens, growing water shortages, onerous property tax levels and so on, that gives rise to the need to cite any success.

This would explain Councilor Smith commenting on the matter of ending the public’s time to ask questions at the end of council meetings.

“Ending the public’s right to ask questions at council meetings is, according to Smith, not an attempt to muzzle the public.”

While ending the opportunity for citizens questions after council meetings was not a failed ATTEMPT to muzzle the public but in fact a SUCCESSFUL muzzling of the public, this is not a ‘success’ to be proud of.

Speaking of wondering ‘do Abbotsford’s politicians ever listen to what they are saying’ it was certainly interesting, in a dumbfounding way, listening to George Peary comments.

And no, I am not referring to his switch from “I’d far rather the community tell me what the issues are” during the municipal election to “Council does not have to justify it’s decisions to any one individual. That’s what we have elections for every three years” after being elected and in power.

I was referring to the sight of Abbotsford’s Mayor Peary on the television news informing potential businesses, investors, residents and any other interested parties that Abbotsford’s water supply infrastructure is inadequate to the point that, despite a much rainier spring and a much latter than normal beginning to warm summer weather, that water rationing is required in Abbotsford in order for the Abbotsford Fire Department to have sufficient supplies of water to fight fires.

The fact that Mayor Peary’s revelation Abbotsford lacks the water supply to fight fires without water rationing may deter potential businesses and residents from moving to Abbotsford has both a positive and a negative side.

On the negative side is the reality that with the financial quagmire council has sunk the city into, the loss of the development fees, business and property taxes as a result of the public acknowledgement of Abbotsford’s lack of sufficient capacity to meet the water needs of the city, may well cause the city to run out of money and into bankruptcy.

On the positive side slowing growth will reduce the growing strain on Abbotsford’s inadequate water delivery infrastructure and delay the need to impose restrictions or limits on how much water a household can use period; buying time to do a proper job of bringing Abbotsford’s water delivery infrastructure to a capacity sufficient to meet current and future water demands.

I know council will undoubtedly continue to insist that council knows what it is doing, there is no problem with capacity and there is no water problem, much less crisis, in Abbotsford.

Personally – when you have water rationing because you need to make sure you have enough water to fight fires and you are continuing to add demand to the system (development) you definitely have a problem; when the Abbotsford Mission Water & Sewer Commission is just now starting to consider options for expansion of the water delivery infrastructure, while you are already rationing water to ensure water to fight fires and given the lead times in planning then building infrastructure, you may not be in a crisis yet but that is the direction the city is heading.

What would the water situation currently be if the weather had not been wetter, cloudier and cooler than normal?

At what point does our inadequate water delivery infrastructure become a problem according to council? When it is not just charity car washes that are banned but the use of backyard pools, including children’s blow-up pools? Or is it when there are limits on how much water a household can use for bathing, cooking, cleaning and drinking? Is the reason council is planning the economically unjustifiable expense of installing individual water metering not just to allow them to surreptitiously raise water bills but to be able to monitor the amount of water each household uses when limits on household water usage need to be imposed?

Is the definition of a water crisis for Abbotsford’s current council when a home or business burns because there is not enough water and water pressure to supply sufficient water for the fire department to fight the fire?

The need for increased capacity in Abbotsford’s water infrastructure did not suddenly appear but has been a known issue/need for years. The reason that there are no plans on the table, much less a timetable to address water delivery capacity and avoid severe water rationing is that council’s priorities are council ego projects (international gardens, art galleries, subsidizing professional hockey team ownership for favoured citizens) first rather than the infrastructure needed by the City of Abbotsford to support not only its current population but to support future growth.

Which is in keeping with council’s apparent lack of concern with the effect increases in the city’s debt and the property tax increases associated with capital spending has on Abbotsford taxpayers; after all why would council want to have their planning in place in time to be able to line up the maximum contributions from the federal or provincial governments. Council certainly wouldn’t have wanted to been in position to take advantage of the recent federal government $billions$ for stimulus spending on infrastructure.

What would cause council to exert itself to maximize funding from senior levels of government when they have the opportunity to achieve record levels of debt and property taxes by having Abbotsford’s taxpayers foot the entire bill?

Obviously overpasses to provide better access to council’s ego project, the black hole known as the Entertainment & Sports Centre, are more of a priority than drinking water – at least for council.

While on the subject of council and its lack of leadership, why is it that with a watering ban in effect for others in Abbotsford, the city is wasting thousands of litres of water per day (evaporation) by running city hall fountains and the waterfall at John Smith’s million dollar garden?

But then if leadership and proper priorities existed on council, citizens would not find themselves wondering about why all that money is being spent repairing and repaving the roads around city hall, which are quite driveable (in superior shape by Abbotsford standards) when roads around Abbotsford (but not near city hall, nor I suspect councillor’s homes) that pose a threat to vehicles forced to use them continue to worsen in impassability.

Considering that what we are speaking of here are council’s behaviours over only the past two weeks, such behaviours emphasis the reality that, beyond any shadow of a doubt, city hall is Fawlty Tower.