Category Archives: Municipal

Caveat emptor, Municipal

I missed Olympic bribery in Abbotsford’s Budget.

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No Mayor Peary, most emphatically NO – spending $50,000 of taxpayer’s money was neither well done nor worthwhile.

However it was typical profligate spending behaviour by Abbotsford city staff and city councillors.

Fortunately I take my shoes off at the door when I first step inside and so had no shoe to throw at the television as Mayor Peary stood there on the news proudly boasting of successfully bribing the Japanese speed skaters and the Russian figure skaters to practice at Abbotsford Recreation Centre prior to the Olympics with $50,000 of taxpayer’s money.

As much as I need to swim to maintain mobility and minimize the pain and mobility problems my back causes, I can no long afford a monthly pass because Abbotsford city council has chosen to make city facilities the most expensive places to exercise and recreate in Abbotsford.

It is not just me. Many men, woman, children and families cannot afford to swim or skate at city pools and rinks. Increasing numbers of families cannot afford to have their kids participate in sports activities such as soccer, swim teams etc because of the usury level of fees the city charges for the use of playing fields and facilities.

At a time when health professionals are stressing the need for participation in sports and recreation to exercise for health, the City of Abbotsford is pursuing fee structures, behaviours and policies that not just discourage exercise but out and out deny or severely limit access to city recreation and exercise facilities for the poor.

Ironic is it not? The city is paying the Japanese speed skaters and the Russian figure skaters to use a rink that many of its citizens cannot afford to, using exorbitant taxes and fees charged citizens to pay for this latest council superfluous and spendthrift frittering away of taxpayer dollars.

This type of spending is why Abbotsford is the third most expensive city in Canada to live in.

If this expenditure was such a benefit to business in Abbotsford, as the Mayor implies with his claim of a $150,000 economic benefit, why did council not raise the money from the business community?

Could it be because as businessmen the usual financial and/or economic sophistry used by governments to justify this class of wasteful spending does not impress, nor mislead them?

As if it was not bad enough that I cannot afford more than minimal access to city facilities because of the need for excessive fees to subsidize a professional hockey team, now users of city facilities are subsidizing nations (Japan, Russia) and their nation sports teams?

Let city staff, council and anyone else who thinks spending $50,000 to induce the Japanese speed skaters and the Russian figure skaters to ARC is a good use of the Abbotsford’s limited funds ante up the $50,000.

Then lower the fees for ARC to reflect that $50,000 so that the increasing numbers of those who are not well off can afford to use ARC’s facilities for exercise and enjoyment.

Caveat emptor, Consider, Municipal

I cannot afford to subsidize Heat ownersip

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The first item I got when I moved to Abbotsford was a Library Card.

The second item was a pool pass as I have a bad back and it is either swim regularly or endure periods of crippling pain, an inability to walk and being bed ridden. Needless to say I am highly motivated to swim five or six times a week. It was seven but my old joints need at least one day a week to recuperate.

During the following two decades I have always held a pool pass. A string that will end when my current pass expires because Abbotsford city council has chosen to push the cost of using city recreational amenities beyond what many citizens can afford.

My back requires me to swim if I want to remain mobile and at a pain level that does not require the use of addictive medications such as morphine to manage the pain. So I will be swimming.

My swimming also significantly benefits the taxpayer’s pocketbook by avoiding the costs of the expensive medical services that would result from the back problems associated with the physical consequences of not swimming.

There are two courses of action I can take and will be exploring.

The first is to swim only during the times, the very limited times, of ‘cheap swims’ when the admission price is much more affordable. That limits me to a maximum of four one hour long swims a week, the minimum I need to swim to benefit from swimming. It also means that swimming becomes a ‘cannot miss’ item on my schedule as opposed to the timing flexibility of a pass.

The other option is to check out the private facilities that have pools to see if their pools will meet my needs vis-à-vis swimming lengths. Private facilities because under Abbotsford’s current council’s mismanagement the city’s public facilities are the most expensive facilities in town.

I am sure that someone from city council or management will state that the city gives a credit to those citizens who living (well) below the poverty line; that the city raised the credit by 50% this year. Ignoring or obscuring the fact that it would have taken a 120% increase just to cover the 20% increase in ARC admission fees this year.

Actually, if you factor in the double digit increase that resulted from the two price increases the year before, the cost to use ARC has gone up 35% over the past 18 months.

In order to merely stay even the recreation credit needed to increase by 195%, four times the actual 50% increase. Leaving those who can least afford to pay increased fees significantly worse off than they were just 18 months ago.

Now if I could afford to go to UFV my UFV U-PASS would get me unlimited access to Abbotsford recreational facilities. What does the city collect for this access? $5 per term!

For the same four month period that the city collects $5 per student they charge me $200 – 4000% more. Where is Mayor Peary’s ‘user pay’ or fairness here?

As if having those living in poverty subsidize UFV students was not insulting or outrageous enough, there is the matter of subsidizing a professional hockey team and ownership – the Heat.

It is not only those who struggle to survive living in poverty who cannot afford to attend events at AESC. The working poor, indeed many working families period, cannot afford to attend events at AESC.

Yet we all pay to subsidize ever posterior in a seat at AESC when we use city facilities.

Council constantly cites the need to provide public amenities to attract people to Abbotsford.

Yet, while the city has added the Plan A amenities for those wealthy enough to afford them, it has imposed fee increases across the board at public facilities that deny and/or significantly reduce access to ALL facilities for a substantial percentage of Abbotsford’s citizens.

The purpose of public facilities is to provide public amenities and access to those facilities for ALL citizens, particularly families and children, not just a privileged few. The purpose is NOT to provide cash flow to pay for council’s lack of fiscal acumen and common sense.

Public facilities fees should be the lowest (or at worst among the lowest) in the city in order to maximize public access to and use of facilities. Public facilities fees should not be the highest, thus minimizing public access to facilities and participation in recreational activities.

Municipal, Snafu

Abbotsford council votes to turn Essendene into virtual parking lot.

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Bob Bos was correct about one point concerning the proposed changes to Essendene Avenue – it is a “no-brainer”.

Any city councillor who would and did vote for this has no brain. Or alternatively has a brain but is brain-dead.

Essendene is the major connector for traffic travelling from the west side of Abbotsford to the east side of Abbotsford accessed via Old Yale Road for the simple reason there is no other even semi-convenient route from between west and east.

Say what you will about city staff, at least they had the common sense to recognize that with approximately 16,000 vehicles a day using Essendene cutting the number of lanes in half (from two in each direction to one each way) is a recipe for monumental daily day long traffic jam.

Not to mention the problems and congestion it cause on other streets and at other intersections as people seek routes to avoid a 30 plus minute traffic crawl through downtown old Abbotsford.

Bos stated “It looks busy with four lanes. Three lanes gives the impression of less traffic and will create a change in atmosphere.”

It does not just look busy it is busy. And that is with two lanes in each direction. Reducing traffic to one lane in each direction is not going to give the impression of less traffic – it is going to give the impression of a parking lot,

I do concede it will create a change in atmosphere. Although why Mr. Bos and city council feel the need to provoke road rage in downtown old Abbotsford …

“The two-block area of Essendene has more than a half-dozen vacancies and Bos said the lane alteration will change that.”

It will definitely change that. I am just not sure why city council or Mr. Bos think increasing the vacancy rate in the downtown core by driving the customers downtown businesses depend on to stay in business away from the downtown is a good idea?

Creating the planned traffic nightmare will cause those who absolutely do not have to go downtown to avoid downtown and cause those who have to pass through the downtown area to be focused on getting through the traffic jam ASAP, not on spending more time in backed up traffic by stopping downtown.

Apparently council feels they have not created enough fiscal problems for the city and feel compelled to waste $533,000.00 turning downtown into a disaster area.

Given the ruination council has brought about in city finances this is not only fiscally irresponsible behaviour, it is reckless and reprehensible behaviour.

Council does not have the money to do needed road maintenance but can find funds for this? Just what is council planning to cut from the budget to pay for this fecklessness? More fireman?

I would suggest that the salaries of those councillors who voted to turn Essendene into a virtual parking lot be used to pay for this debacle.

It is well past time council be held responsible for their irresponsible behaviours.