The nickel-and-diming to death of citizens by Abbotsford’s city council has moved from finding as many new ways (new fees, increased fees, zealous bylaw ticketing, etc.) to shake citizens down for as much of their cash as possible – to trying to save money by applying the same principles of nickel-and-diming to expense reduction.

This expansion of city council’s nickel-and-dime behaviour was predictable given the financial bind council has put the City in and their refusal or inability to make prudent spending and spending reduction decisions.

Instead of council making sound, financially responsible decisions, council has chosen the nickel-and-dime the public to death approach.

As if closing the Abbotsford Recreation Center pool four hours early on BC Day to save four hours of staff wages was not penny-ante enough, the City compounded this conduct by failing to adequately warn people that ARC would be closing at 6 PM.

I have been swimming at the pools in Abbotsford for nigh on 20 years and the pools have always opened late on long-weekend Mondays and stayed open to their regular closing time.

Sometime between Saturday 10 PM and Monday 4 PM a small notice, hard to notice because it was tucked out of the way, appeared setting out the change in hours. I know that this notice was not there Saturday at 10 PM because several of the regulars I had warned about this change scoured the admission desk and could find no notice.

I could warn them only because staff had asked me if I was aware they were closing at six on Monday.

This lack of notice leaves those returning from long weekend travel (and Monday evenings on long weekends travellers fill the pool) or who attended agri-fair and who want to go to the pool to cool off and relax – to arrive at ARC to find the doors locked and the pool closed. Let us not forget (as the City did) the regulars who, not having been warned, will arrive and find the doors closed.

To save four hours of salaries. Well, four hours of salaries less the admission fees forgone; which on the last night of a hot summer long weekend are likely to exceed the salaries saved. Resulting in it having cost the City money (income) to “save” paying wages. A rather pyrrhic victory on the “saving money” front; but then pyrrhic victories on saving money are all too often business as usual for Abbotsford’s city council.

Council’s inadequacies have placed Abbotsford in a financial bind at a time when it is facing the need to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure to maintain the city’s liveability.

Citizens are not asking for brilliance, merely for competency.

Because unless we can manage to create a culture of competence at City Hall and on City Council we are in real danger of having Abbotsford become unliveable and/or the first Canadian city to go bankrupt.

I was reading the new Science Fiction novel by a favourite author of mine in which media could be sued over misinformation in their reports and any consequences arising from less than complete and balanced information in reporting events.

It was only a minor point in the world and culture built by the author but it set in motion a train of thought when I saw the television news coverage of the death of Alberto Morgadinho.

Flash back to the story of the Canadian Tire store clerk who was fired for not letting the thief get away with stealing items from the store. The tone and tenor of the reports was that the clerk was a hero and should be rewarded not fired. News reporters went so far as to harass the store owner seeking a statement about why the store has a policy that resulting in firing the heroic (media tone/spin) clerk.

When the owner refused to comment, media “proved” the policy existed by interviewing other store clerks who knew that they were to let thieves getaway and call the police.

Not once did I see any reports that examined the whys of such a policy and whether, in light of the whys, this was a reasonable and intelligent policy. Even when they were glossing over the fact that this was not the first time this clerk had confronted a thief.

Flash forward to the tragic events surrounding the death of Alberto Morgadinho who, in attempting to interfere with thieves at his place of business, was run down and killed.

One report had his daughter stating how stupid it was that the thieves had killed Mr. Morgadinho over a few dollars worth of stolen items. A statement which contains a great deal of truth, but a statement that also fails to acknowledge a very important truth.

Yes killing someone over a few dollars of stolen merchandise is stupid.

However, it is also less than intelligent for a man such as Mr. Morgadinho to get himself killed over those few dollars of stolen merchandise. I wonder what Mr. Morgadinho’s reply would have been if you poised the scenario of his death to him, asking if dying under these circumstances and for simple goods that could be replaced was a good decision.

I found myself pondering the question of whether Mr. Mr. Morgadinho had seen the earlier television reports on the actions of the “heroic” Canadian Tire clerk. Wondering if seeing those reports had influenced Mr. Mr. Morgadinho’s actions on the day he died.

It is only stuff and can be replaced. The only rational, intelligent policy is a policy of doing nothing to interfere with thieves taking merchandise, instead protecting the lives of people – lives which cannot be replaced.

Careless, unbalanced and not thought out reporting can kill. Unfortunately, unlike the world created by my favoured author, media is not held accountable in anyway for the consequences of their poor reporting.

Bit of a sticky wicket, eh what?