Category Archives: Municipal

Issues, Municipal

Numbers of Hungry grow in Abbotsford.

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I allow myself one lotto 6/46 ticket whenever the pot gets over $10 million. An inexpensive chance to dream … and you never know – somebody has to win it. But even though the pot was $15 million I did not by a lottery ticket, instead spending my $2 on purchasing a $2 food bank donation coupon at Safeway.

It just seem a wiser way to spend my ‘mad money’ considering how demand for meals and food have soared over past weeks.

Disturbing is not a strong enough word to describe the flood of new faces, new people, looking for food and a place to sleep at night that has been occurring. When you stop to consider this trend, frightening is a more accurate word to describe the implications.

The new people have swollen the numbers of people in need to the point that those who provide meals have literally run out and had to scramble to find something to serve in order that everyone got fed at least something.

Those serving meals find themselves needing to provide more meals, but facing the reality of less donations and generosity from the public.

The Abbotsford Food Bank, facing the reality of more hungry people and the effect the economy has had on donations, has had to reduce the amount of food it gives to individual clients. Help is needed to fill the shelves as we head into summer when traditionally donations to the food bank go down. Going into this summer the shelves are looking bare at a time demand is quickly climbing. Abbotsford’s Food Bank could use a drive such as that being undertaken in Vancouver to restock the Food Bank’s shelves.

As a community we all should look at how we are spending our money to see if we cannot find a few dollars we could spend being generous to the growing numbers of people in our community in need of generosity simply to eat.

Issues, Municipal, Snafu

Why not in Abbotsford also? Part 2

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The quote Ms. Lila Rauh used from my letter of June 12, 2009 in her Abbotsford Times letter of June 16th (see Below) was taken out of context, not only losing the point being made but implying a different meaning entirely.

“While Abbotsford City Council has been paying lip service to the lamentable lack of affordable housing, hiring social planners and forming advisory committees – City Councils in Chilliwack and Mission have been supporting and standing behind supportive affordable housing projects in their cities.”

Nowhere is mention made of Abbotsford City Council paying for affordable housing. The affordable housing being built in Mission and Chilliwack is not being paid for by those Councils. The contribution of the Councils of Mission and Chilliwack is not money but supporting and voting for projects. Contrast this with Abbotsford where Council is saying the right things but not acting to support affordable housing initiatives.

It does no good for senior governments to provide funds for housing when Abbotsford City Council is not prepared to hold up its end of the affordable housing equation.

The provincial government brought $22 million to the table to cover the costs for building 2 housing projects, with an additional yearly funding stream to provide funding for 35 years of supportive services.

The Clearbrook housing project depends upon City Council passing the rezoning over what is sure to be loud opposition by area residents since Council has shown that if people scream loud enough council will cut and run.

On the other project the City backed away from the $11 million in construction funding plus 35 years worth of funding ($22,750,000) that the provincial government brought to the table.

If we say to the provincial government they should provide funding for affordable housing in Abbotsford, are they not entitled to say ‘we offered $11 million plus yearly funding for 35 years ($22,750,000) and Abbotsford City Cuncil passed on the funding’?

Further if Council fails to pass the rezoning for the Clearbrook Road project why would anyone, provincial government or charitable organization, want to invest (and potentially waste) resources, time and money in any project that depends on leadership from Abbotsford City Council?

Affordable housing has been built with the support of Mission’s Council, built with the support of Chilliwack’s Council and modular housing units from the Olympic athletes housing will be trucked through Abbotsford to add to the affordable housing stocks in Chilliwack.

Abbotsford City Council’s recent actions say that affordable housing has no future in our city until we get a council that is able to provide leadership, not money, on affordable housing.

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In reference to James Breckenridge of Abbotsford, and his June 12 letter in which he berates Abbotsford council for not doing enough to create low-cost housing, and laments the “lack of affordable housing, hiring social planners and forming of advisory committees” which he thinks can rectify the situation.

Many citizens feel that this is exactly the wrong way to go since it removes the responsibility of the other levels of government who are financially responsible for those tasks.

Please, please, look into the facts of what is a provincial or federal jurisdiction for funding and what is municipal in various areas of low-cost housing.

What we definitely do not need is more ways to spend money on duplicate efforts, and becoming enablers for those who shirk their responsibilities.

It is certainly easy for local governments to dip into the endless pot of funds provided by local taxes and do the job in order to gain brownie points, but it is not the right thing to do – either in these tight financial times or otherwise.

For those interested, phone the provincial government and ask for their B.C. Housing financial booklet for 2008 and it will show you exactly who is primarily responsible for the various areas of low-cost housing.

Then put all your energies to apply pressure through your government representatives to fulfil their responsibilities.

Lila Rauh,

Mission

Municipal, The Issues

Mutually eclusive: Common Sense & Abbotsford City Council

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As frustrating as it was, it was no surprise to read that the taxpayers of Abbotsford are on the hook for an additional and unknown amount of money (?$million$?) for further construction at the Abbotsford Entertainment and Sports Centre.

After all, the worth of council promises on costs were made clear as Plan A costs spiralled higher and higher, well beyond the promised “fixed” costs. Then there is the fact that the statement most appropriate for council’s behaviour on Plan A and financial matters is “They did not even have enough common sense to …”

As in: “They did not even have enough common sense to hustle up provincial and federal funds before funding the entire project themselves” or “They did not even have enough common sense to realize that 400 parking spots were totally inadequate for a 6,500 seat complex”.

So it is no surprise that, even though council is on record from their very first statements that the Arena would be home to a hockey team, they did not even have enough common sense to ensure that the dressing rooms were up to the standards required by any possible league an arena tenant could play in.

No, if you used common sense and ensured the dressing rooms were up to any potential league standards, you would not able to be jack hammering apart the Sports and Entertainment complex within a month of opening.

And why would anyone expect Mayor George Ferguson, council or city staff to have any idea of what this destruction/construction will cost? After all nobody ever accused them of having enough common sense to have an idea what things will cost before they start spending taxpayer’s money.