Mayor Peary is right that Abbotsford faces ‘serious’ financial issues; he is however totally wrong that these ‘serious’ financial issues are limited to 2010 or that these “serious’ financial issues are about revenue and expenditure and completely in error that a gas tax is either necessary or would address these ‘serious’ financial issues.

At its core it is not a matter of dollars and cents that has put the city in its current state of financial and infrastructure problems.

An examination of the evidence makes it clear that Abbotsford has nine serious financial issues.

If you have driven by the Abbotsford Recreation Centre you will have seen council’s latest flashy new toy, the multicoloured new electronic billboard that replaced the old, serviceable plain manual sign at a cost of many tens of thousands of taxpayer’s dollars.

I suppose that after they spent thousands of dollars for four flat, big screen televisions to display the admission rates it was simply to unsophisticated to have the old serviceable, plain manual outdoor billboard clashing with the fancy new big flat-screen TV’s.

Personally I preferred the old wall signs as it made changing admission fees more noticeable; which probably goes a long way to explaining the need to spend thousands of dollars on the televisions.

Obviously with all this flashy, costly new display hardware they had to spend the hundreds of dollars they did on replacing the perfectly serviceable old lane/lesson pool deck signs for signs with better graphics.

After all ARC is part of Parks and Recreation, a department that felt the need to spend over a hundred thousand dollars to purchase a used jungle gym. As a kids structure it is undoubtedly brightly coloured and so impossible for council or management to resist.

After council and management felt the need to splurge for ARC’s expensive but colourful and flashy new billboard it is hardly surprising council felt the needs to spend $1.2 million more than necessary for a score clock.

A few hundred here, a few thousand on this and tens of thousands on that; a hundred thousand on this ‘deal’, a million plus on bells, whistles and flashy bright lights for a scoreboard…

After a while all this unnecessary spending adds up to millions of taxpayer dollars.

Council’s ‘need’ for a gas tax is no different that the ‘need’ for money any shopaholic, addict has.

I ‘need’ a new car, a new computer, a flat screen plasma television … but as a financially responsible person I budget and set priorities.

It is council that has taken the city from being debt free a short two and a half years ago to being burdened with debt, still facing the need for major spending investments in infrastructure and with the mayor and council mounting a campaign to convince taxpayers that there is no choice but to raise taxes by $10 million a year – or more.

No it is not revenue and expenses that are the ‘serious’ financial issues that the City of Abbotsford  must deal with. Prudent budgeting and spending will resolve the city’s budget challenges.

The nine ‘serious’ financial issues that threaten Abbotsford are the mayor and council. Taxpayers really cannot do much about whether this state of affairs is a result of the mayor and council only caring about re-election or lack the ability for budgeting and fiscal discipline.

What we can do is demand council do more than pay lip service to the budgeting process. It is time taxpayers and council took a hard look at what money truly needs to be spent on and items that can be postponed or even forgone.

Any reasonable, responsible and prudent person looking over the numbers published by the city as justification for the need for large revenue increases in 2010 can easily find millions of dollars that do not ‘have’ to be spent.

It is clear that as part of ‘encouraging’ council to discharge its fiduciary duties in a responsible manner it is necessary to cut off what council and city management consider a bottomless well of money.

Taxpayers need to make it clear to Gordon Campbell, Bill Bennett and our local MLA’s that it is unacceptable for them to encourage Abbotsford’s councils spendthrift ways by granting them a gas tax.

Taxpayers also need to make clear to council, via e-mail or attending the budget meetings, the need for council to stop spend, spend, spend and exercise fiscal discipline as do taxpayers and other municipalities.