The truly damning thing is that Abbotsford city council does not even see what is wrong with their behaviour. Indeed, given their comments on having a supporting legal opinion council is busy congratulating themselves on their cleverness in having circumvented the provisions of the Community Charter in signing their ethically challenged pact with the Abbotsford Heat ownership.

Among the purposes of the Community Charter, the BC law setting out how municipalities are governed, is preventing municipal politicians from the type of financial misconduct Abbotsford council has entered into with the ownership of the Abbotsford Heat.

The Community Charter seeks to prevent local politicians from saddling/committing taxpayers with/to responsibility for large liabilities as Abbotsford’s council has done with its agreement with the Heat.

Taxpayers are on the hook for $200,000 to $300,000 for the first year of operations. While it is unlikely that taxpayers will be stuck paying the entire remaining $51,300.000.00 liability council has made taxpayers responsible for, with an agreement that spans ten years and is tied to the fortunes of a hockey team there is an unacceptable potential for the taxpayers of Abbotsford to be stuck with a $multi-million$ dollar bill.

The Charter also seeks to prevent sweetheart deals between municipal councils and businesses, groups or organizations within the community at the expense of other businesses, groups, organizations or the community as a whole.

If local amateur hockey teams, or other local groups, wanted to use the Entertainment and Sports Centre they would be paying hefty fees for the privilege. A privilege that the professional hockey Heat receive for free, while city taxpayers are out of pocket for the cost to operate the arena for the Heat. A cost responsible for a significant portion, if not all, of the $2,000,000 arena operating loss taxpayers are also digging deeper into their pockets to pay.

And although I doubt those who crafted the Community Charter ever thought of the particular transgression Abbotsford’s council is engaged in, buying a favoured ownership group a hockey team, I think it a safe bet that the Community Charter was written to prevent violation of the taxpayers in this manner.

Make no mistake; Abbotsford’s council has effectively bought the team for the Heat’s ownership group. Council has assumed a huge liability in guaranteeing the Heat $5,700,000 as a minimum yearly income; council has made citizens responsible for paying the multi-million dollar costs of operating the arena for the benefit of the Heat who get use of the arena for free; despite promises by council the city, in guaranteeing the Heat’s minimum revenue part of which is designated to cover the cost of travel for teams coming to Abbotsford to play the Heat, taxpayers are paying the travel expenses of professional hockey teams to and from Abbotsford.

As a result of the actions of city council the taxpayers of Abbotsford have assumed a large liability, are contributing millions of dollars to the Heat and their ownership by absorbing the operating costs of the arena while not charging rental and contribute further taxpayer dollars to the Heat’s ownership to top up revenue to $5.7 million yearly.

City council, on behalf of taxpayers, has assumed all the risk associated with the hockey team and is pouring millions of taxpayer dollars into the Heat.

If the Heat fail be profitable the taxpayers pay. If the Heat are successful the taxpayers still are paying but it is the Heat ownership group that reaps the financial rewards of owning a successful hockey team.

Given the actions of Abbotsford city council, the question of the legality of council’s attempt to use Global Spectrum to evade the Community Charter must be determined and any needed amends made to the Community Charter to close the loophole Abbotsford’s council slithered through.

Given the pride council evidences at having circumvented the purpose of the Community Charter it is clear that there is no hope council will resign. Instead it is probable council will simply continue to do as it wants to do while ignoring the consequences of its actions on the City of Abbotsford, the citizens of Abbotsford and Abbotsford’s future.

Leaving Abbotsford’s besieged citizens forced to wait, counting down the 19 long months until the next municipal election, to replace the current councilors with a council with councilors possessing common sense, financial responsibility, ethics, honour and integrity.

And Praying that the additional damage this council and these councilors do to the City’s finances, facilities, infrastructure and citizens is not so great as to be irreparable.

“Pizzuto said city staff were capable of dealing with hockey operations.”

My ten year old niece is capable of dealing with hockey operations – as long as she too is given a blank cheque by the city.

The question is not whether council and staff are capable of dealing with hockey operations but whether they are capable of doing so with competence.

Pizzuto said funding the hockey team is different than coming up with money for roads or the Matsqui pool. “Closing Matsqui would save an operational expense every year,” he (Pizzuto) said.

Let me get this straight, we close Matsqui pool to save a $100,000 operational expense every year but we pay $275,000 of the Heat’s operating expenses plus however many additional hundreds of thousands of dollars it costs to operate the arena for the Heat every year.

Matsqui pool yearly operational expenses Bad; the considerably higher Heat/Complex yearly operation expenses Good.

City council and staff’s attempts/threats to close Matsqui pool have become a yearly ritual with never a whisper about the plus side for the community of the pool and “it is in the City’s best interest not to fund those operational expenses”; on the other hand council and staff have demonstrated the determination of lemmings to have the Arena open for business with a hockey team as a tenant – so one hears a mighty chorus from city hall about all the wonderful benefits for the city of the arena operations and it does not matter how many $millions$ operational expenses cost the taxpayers.

The truth, the reality, of the agreement between the City and the Heat lies in Mr. Pizzuto’s statement “This is what it took to have a team in Abbotsford,”

As beleaguered taxpayers recall, at the time Abbotsford’s city council began its mad scramble to put a hockey team into the arena citizens with an understanding of basic financial reality raised the point that Abbotsford City Council had to have the discipline and willpower to leave the arena without a hockey team, if the financial numbers said that was the action in the best financial interest of Abbotsford’s impoverished taxpayers.

Given city council and staff’s demonstrated reckless adventurism when it comes to the finances of Abbotsford any reasonably astute taxpayer has reason to be concerned on that point.

Council was urged to make the decision on whether to sign an agreement with any hockey team (or to leave the arena totally dark) on the basis of the financial numbers – not on the basis of saving council from embarrassment by signing an agreement based on ‘a team at any cost’.

And what kind of agreement did the Abbotsford enter into with the Heat?

“This is what it took to have a team in Abbotsford”

An agreement that will have the taxpayers of Abbotsford out of pocket a city estimated $275,000 this year plus the additional $hundreds of thousands$ of dollars spent to operate the Complex for the Heat to use.

An agreement where it is the taxpayers of Abbotsford that have assumed all the financial risks involved with the operation of the Heat while it is the Heat ownership that will reap all the rewards if the team is successful.

With the agreement the City entered into with the Heat, the City would have been better off to purchase the Heat themselves. Taxpayers are already on the hook to pay for the team if it fails and ownership would have allowed the City to reap the rewards for this risky venture should the team somehow succeed.

“This is what it took to have a team in Abbotsford”

The agreement that city councillors have committed the taxpayers of Abbotsford to, with all the financial risk taxpayers are now on the hook for, was not about sound financial decision making or about the best interests of the citizens of Abbotsford.

It was and is about having a team in the arena to permit council to save face by offering more false promises of profit, at some point in the future if everything goes unrealistically well.

Unlike council I do not favour decision making based on vague promises, although there is always the chance that with the Heat in the building something could go wrong with the ice surface and in making repairs city workers could hit oil and the arena cease to be an millstone dragging taxpayers down into poverty.

As the front page of The Province screamed this agreement is a Hockey Nightmare in Abbotsford because the agreement was signed not because it was good for Abbotsford, but because council was determined to have a hockey team at any cost and

“This is what it took to have a team in Abbotsford.”