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’?