Monthly Archives: February 2014

behaviour, Consider, Issues, Municipal, Politics

This is Abbotsford: Common Sense Overrated

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At the Abbotsford City Council meeting on Monday February 17, 2014 Bruce Banman stepped up and delivered yet another blow to democracy in Abbotsford.

When Simon Gibson was elected as a Liberal MLA in the provincial election of May 14, 2013 Mr. Gibson, mayor and council decided democracy for the citizens of Abbotsford was not worth the cost of a by-election.

If Mr. Gibson, mayor and council had not decided that saving a few thousand dollars was more important than the democratic rights of the citizens of Abbotsford, the citizens of Abbotsford would have been going to the polls to elect a new member of council last Fall [2013] as did every city where a city councillor had been elected a provincial MLA.

Every city except Abbotsford, where it was decided the cost of a by-election was to high a price to pay for democracy.

A by-election in the Fall of 2013, when the details of the Abbotsford Community Services housing proposal were before the public for their consideration; a by-election that would have permitted the citizens of Abbotsford to express their opinion on the housing proposal. But no, the cost of a by-election was to high a cost to allow the citizens of Abbotsford to express their will on the ACS housing proposal – or was it the cost to council and special interests that was to high to permit the citizens of Abbotsford to democratically express their views?

Keep in mind Abbotsford City Council was aware of the proposal and of the proposal being made public once all the Ts were crossed and all the Is dotted. Council knew that not holding a by-election would deny the citizens of Abbotsford the right to democratically express, through the ballot box, the citizen’s position on the ACS housing proposal. Council robbed voters of their right to vote, but hey – they saved taxpayers the cost of a by-election.

Ironic, coming from a council that willingly spends millions of dollars of taxpayer dollars every year to subsidize the ownership, by a few privileged business people,  of a professional hockey team.

A few thousand of taxpayer dollars? Far to high a price to grant taxpayers a democratic say in the actions, the governance, of city government.

Spend millions of taxpayer dollars to protect council’s ego by buying a tenant so council’s Great Folly [aka the Great White Elephant] did not sit there empty – no matter how many millions of dollars an empty Folly would have saved taxpayers? Council has no problem squandering however many millions of taxpayer dollars are required.

“It may be irrational, but that doesn’t matter,” said Councillor Smith. A statement that, while warped, makes perfect sense when you consider all the other irrational decisions made and/or supported by Councillors Smith, Barkman, MacGregor and Mr. Banman.

With a municipal election this November 2014, having run twice for council and lost one begins to wonder if the citizens, as mind-boggling as one may find it, want a council that is financially reckless and irresponsible.

What else would you call it when, after years of calling on BC housing for funding  and BC housing steps up with $2,5 million, plus hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for support programs for residents, council tells them to take their housing and their money and shove it?

When council tells the Finance Minister to take his $$millions$$ to a community that wants to do something – besides whining – about homelessness in their community?

When the mayor, with visions of sugar–plums [or something] dancing in his head, expects Fraser Health to step up with millions of dollars to fund housing in Abbotsford; the same Fraser Health that is under scrutiny for its inability not to go $50 million over budget every year. Fraser Health, when Fraser Mental Health must make a special funding proposal to the provincial government for funding to undertake new, and needed, services.

Only reckless and irrational dreaming would have anyone thinking that the Finance Minister is going to give Fraser Health extra funds to spend on housing in Abbotsford after the mayor and council told BC Housing, the Finance Minister and the government to take their money and give it to a community that cares.

One begins to wonder if the citizens want a council that ignores reality, facts and experience and behaves irrationally when dealing with social issues such as homelessness.

A council that deployed chicken manure  in its war on the homeless. An action one Abbotsford citizen heard about when surrendering their passport as they checked into a hotel in Scandinavia where the front desk staff, upon seeing they were from Abbotsford BC informed them they were from the city that dumps chicken shit on its homeless citizens.

A council that chases the homeless around the city never answering the question “where are the homeless suppose to go?” A council that, as it pointlessly chases the homeless around Abbotsford, ensures there is no place for the homeless to go by voting not to permit ACS to use the housing first model to build housing to help the homeless transition off the streets.

A council whose action in rejecting homeless housing provide proof to the courts, for the ongoing homeless related litigation, that not only is the City of Abbotsford not doing anything about affordable housing and housing for the homeless, but that the City is actively preventing the building of homeless related housing projects.

But then Mr Banman stated “Council has to ensure that any changes made to our bylaws are made for the greater benefit of the entire community……. we also need to make sure the interests of all residents are considered in our decisions.”

A statement which brings to mind a notable prior assault on Abbotsford citizens by Mr. Banman and Councillor Smith when, after council voted not to approve the rezoning of the Mahogany at Mill Lake, Mr. Banman ambushed council and citizens by sneaking Mahogany at Mill Lake back before council at a time when one of the council members who had voted against the project could not attend the council meeting, allowing Mr. Banman and councillor Smith to have the project approved against the wishes and interests of the citizens living in the area.

An assault on democracy made worse as both Mr. Banman and Mr. Smith had accepted campaign contributions from the developer.

Mr. Banman is right, the citizens of Abbotsford need people on council who are concerned about building a community, people concerned about considering the interests of all residents not just the well connected and moneyed, in decisions; people who don’t make reckless, irresponsible, fear based or irrational decisions.

It is clear that the majority of the citizens of Abbotsford, those who are not among the well connected and/or the moneyed, need new blood on council to protect their interests from irrational, irresponsible actions such as Mr. Banman, councillors Smith, Barkman and McGregor rejecting the desperately needed housing proposed by ACS.

Homeless, Issues, Municipal

Homeless Left Wondering

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Considering that City Council’s answer to the questions “If not Now, When? If not Here, Where?” posed to Council at the public hearing on the ACS 20 bed Housing First proposal was, stripped to its bare bones, “Never, unless forced! Then – ADBA! [Any District But Abbotsford] it is no surprise the homeless find themselves wondering:

 

Having 1) ensured there is nowhere for the homeless to go, other than somewhere else on the streets of Abbotsford; 2) ensured their prey cannot escape them by transitioning off the streets using the proven housing first approach; 3) confirmed their willingness to act with total irrationality with respect to the homeless and the issue of homelessness……..

……..how long can it be before City Council returns to chasing the homeless around Abbotsford, ignoring the fact that more than a decade of experience demonstrates that this approach accomplishes nothing other than allowing the problem to worsen…….

……. and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around…….

…….Abbotsford. Ad nauseam.

Pool betting is that the City will welcome the return of the Wild Hunt before March 1, 2014.

Pool betting also favours the gentleman who relocated his camp in order to secure first in line status in case Council decided to pursue services and housing based on best practices that have been demonstrated to be effective and financially prudent being the first victim of a renewed Hunt.

Hmm? You don’t suppose that those squandering spendthrifts who voted NO did so because they were unable to vote for a course of action that was ‘financially prudent’?

Be that as it may, pool betting is that this individual is at the top of council’s new hit list since the location of his camp is a pointed reminder of yet another ‘Folly’ by Abbotsford civic misgovernment.

Are the homeless correct? Is the course indicated by the betting in the Pool correct? Will Abbotsford’s Mayor and City Council add to Abbotsford national and international reputation for pointless, reprobate, simpleminded behaviour by resuming the City’s Crusade against the homeless?

 

 

 

Of course the question may well become moot, should Pivot seek and secure an injunction against the City starting a new Crusade against the homeless until the court rules on the question as to whether the 2009 ruling by the BC Court of Appeals, that the homeless have a right to camp in a City’s parks if the City is not  making sufficient effort to provide affordable housing the homeless can access, applies to the current state of affairs – vis-à-vis the homeless – in Abbotsford.

Given City Council’s demonstration at the February 17, 2014 council meeting that, not only is the City not acting to provide affordable, accessible housing but, the city is actively preventing such housing from being built…….

…….none should be surprised if the court issues an injunction preventing the city putting the health and lives of the homeless at risk by chasing them around Abbotsford. Nor should anyone be surprised if the court, in light of council’s behaviour, upholds the right of the homeless to camp in any of Abbotsford’s parks and not be harassed by the City or its APD.

So that, while there may be no homeless housed in their Backyards, there may well be homeless housed in camps in City Parks.

A situation that potentially will motivate mayor and council to abandon their irrational behaviour.

Media, Politics, The Economy

Border Services Death – Part Two

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What if, as discussed in Part One, the broadcast Media does not want to re-label as “Pseudo News” or attach a content warning label to what is currently labelled ‘News’; changes needed to provide warning to those watching the broadcast that the material being broadcast does not meet even the most minimal of standards required to inform, reveal or contribute to the understanding of issues?

Then there should be consequences for misleading the public as to the nature of the material being broadcast.

Take, for example, Global Vancouver’s support of those calling for an inquiry into the in custody death of a woman being held for deportation by Canadian Border Services.

The report aired on Global Vancouver suggested [certainly appeared to suggest] that Canadian Border Services is covering something up because they have made only limited information on what happened available.

Canadian Border Services has stated that they will be releasing more details as soon as the Coroner completes his investigation and that – as is usual with matters under investigation – Border Services cannot comment until the Coroner is finished investigating.

I think it would be very beneficial to any decision on what course of action to follow, to know if the Coroner rules the death suicide.

I am not suggesting that the death be ignored should the woman have died as a result of attempting, ultimately succeeding, suicide. We need to understand what happened and what, if anything, we can REASONABLY do to prevent such a death from happening in the future.

We seemed to have gone inquiry mad as a society, demanding an Inquiry for anything that upsets someone or where someone [or somones] don’t like the answer[s] they are given.

Let us remember that inquiries are not free, that there is no such budget item as ‘Inquiry’, which means the cost of inquiries comes from an item included in the provincial budget – such as healthcare. The more inquiries you have, the less healthcare the government can purchase for citizens.

If a group of people want an inquiry, let them pay for it; if the actions of the media force and inquiry, let those in media whose actions forced/led to the inquiry pay for it. Should something important, something that would have been found only through an inquiry, be found whoever paid for the inquiry can be reimbursed.

Should the inquiry find nothing that would not have been found, or nothing  significant and important, then the group of people or the media bear the cost – not the taxpayers.

If media chooses to act irresponsibly by calling reports broadcast ‘News’ when those reports fail to meet even minimal standards required to inform, reveal or contribute to the understanding of issues, when in fact the reports broadcast misinform, obscure or prevent the understanding of issues, there must be consequences. The same way the Supreme Court has said there are consequences of standing up and shouting “FIRE!’” in a crowded theater when there is no fire.

‘News’ has become a profit center for the corporate media conglomerates.

Given the focus on profits, the demonstrated lack of ability to manage operations efficiently, effectively and for the long term health and viability of the business, the abandonment of being good corporate citizens, the lack of understanding of the reality and complexity of the economy and the effect the financial health of the entire society has on the viability of a corporation in a timeframe of 1+ years [a state of affairs that applies to politicians, experts and pundits as well as corporate executives]………

……corporations increase profits by cutting costs. Worse, in market conditions such as exist today, with no easy, almost automatic increases in revenue, a market where there is a need to add value in order to increase revenue, corporations and their current inadequate for the task executives the corporations simply cut more costs.

The broadcast hours filled with content created by the station [or network] are the hours where corporate media conglomerates can maximize their profit, making the ‘News’ department a major contributor to the bottom line.

A change in mission, from informing to maximizing profit, that has had a profound effect on the ability to inform, reveal and contribute to understanding as well as the quality of the material generated by ‘News’ departments, as Media conglomerates fill the hours where the station creates the content as cheaply as possible.

Corporations and their executives have a right to choose to race for the bottom and ignore the long term viability of the corporation if that behavior is acceptable to stockholders.

They do not have the right to mislead the public, to fail to inform the public that ‘News’ is no longer what it once was and that the public needs to search out information from multiple sources in order to be able to make informed decisions about how the government manages the health and viability of the economy; about the costs, outcomes and consequences of decisions on social, societal issues.

As stated, where media will not re-label programming, or attach viewer advisors, where the change in standards and practices will mislead the public as to the public’s ability to make informed decisions and choices based on the programming provided by the Media – financial penalties [incentives] must be used to provide incentive for media to either invest the money to provide ‘News’ that meets at least the minimum standards require for reporting to qualify as ‘News’ OR for media to label or use viewer advisories to ensure people understand the purpose [maximize profit] of the broadcasting they are viewing.

Broadcast media today has demonstrated that as a corporation their profit drive is the same as the corporations that dump toxic waste down storm drains or into creeks to reduce the costs of disposal and maximize profit.

In the same manner that it is necessary to impose punitive fines to encourage those who need to dispose of toxic waste to dispose of it in a manner that does not penalize society, financial incentives need to be imposed on  media to encourage media to be responsible, providing either accurate labeling, viewer advisories or programming that meets the standards set out for ‘News’ for programming media labels as ‘News’.

Next: Part 3 – The Conclusion

I’m not going to listen; don’t want to hear it.