Consider, Provincial

Election Reform

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While I agree with the essence of Mr. Bucholtz’s assertion that election reform is needed; I must dispute his premise that Single Transferable Vote is the reform the electorate should be demanding in making their votes count.

Mr. Bucholtz’s statement: “I am a strong believer in improving democracy, as opposed to just taking an apathetic approach to it” includes two problematic assumptions.

That STV is an improvement to democracy is debatable since STV and alternative reform proposals add complexity to elections. I am also uncomfortable with the assumption that nonparticipation and nonvoting are the result of apathy. It may well be that people currently feel no cadidate represents their views and positions.

I heard and hear far to may people who are not voting for policies but are holding their noses voting for “the least objectionable” outcome.

We should be pursuing a course of electoral reform to put the power back into the hands of the people, keeping reform simple. Thus I advocate adding one simple choice to every ballot cast at every level of governance in Canada – NONE OF THE ABOVE.

Democracy is defined as: government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.

Power is only vested in the people in an electoral system that offers them a choice to exercise their vote for agents of their choosing. One could well argue that currently we are not a democracy since we are offered a limited number of bad choices made by others from which to choose our agents.

With one simple bold reform we can return the power back to the people, reclaiming it from politicians, political parties and the “powers that be”. In any electoral area where “none of the above” receives the most votes none of the candidates or parties are permitted to run in the next round of election.

The election process is repeated until such time as a candidate is judged and found to be worthy of exercising the voters will and power.

I will not claim this will be a neat process. In fact I truly hope that the votes held under this reform are incredibly messy and require several rounds of voting.

Fundamentally voters will be able to insist on being offered good candidates. The second (and any other needed) round should, with the elimination of party politics and politicians, be extremely lively offering opportunities and choices for a most eclectic offering of candidates.

We should also get the re-introduction of debate on issues, problem solving, policies, leadership and other positive outcomes. The new system should ensure the opportunity for many, if not a majority, of independents, new faces, new ideas, the evolution of new alliances and parties.

Yes it will be a little chaotic at first but as the author Alan Dean Foster wrote: “Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting.”

BE BOLD, embrace change, Carpe Diem.

Municipal

Will someone please get them a Dictionary

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A new notice posted at ARC: Attention Customers, the Parks, Recreation and Culture annual fee increase will take place September 1st 2007.

It is no wonder that with Parks, Recreation and Culture involved Plan A is such a bungled tragedy in progress for the taxpayers of Abbotsford, where the only sure results are that the taxpayers will be saddled with a ruinous burden of debt, the costs will keep rising, and should the City irresponsibly rush headlong into starting the arena construction – they will run out of funds before it is completed.

But then what can you expect from a department where management does not even comprehend a concept as simple as annual – happening once a year.

Or have management already forgotten the fee increases put into effect on July 1 of 2007? Is it that in their focus on squeezing every penny of cash flow possible out of taxpayer’s pockets that what was imposed just two short months ago was a “Plan A surcharge”? Perhaps it is just that city management is so use to misleading the public they “cannot help themselves prevaricating”?

Whatever the pretext, patrons will be forced to pay this second “annual” increase of the year, be left wondering when the next “annual” fee increase will occur or awaiting imposition of another “surcharge” and wistfully yearning for competent management at Parks Recreation and Culture.

Municipal

A Picture is worth a thousand words.

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Explaining to people the differences I have with the manner in which Abbotsford City Hall runs and behaves can be time consuming since the list of behaviours and actions that demonstrate City Hall’s mastery of mishandling the city’s business, finances, service delivery, citizen’s interests etc is mind numbingly long and wordy.

So I always keep an eye out for some way to illustrate, in a short and snappy manner, that Abbotsford City Hall sees a completely different reality from that its citizens live in and just how devoid of common sense Abbotsford City Hall is.

When I came across the city sign in the picture I knew I had found that concise piece of evidence. I did wonder if perhaps City Hall’s cognitive difficulties arise from mind altering substances rather than problems with the oxygen levels within city hall.

This sign, posted on a signpost carefully set in a big cement footing in Mill Lake Park, bears irrefutable testimony to the twisted, confused reality Abbotsford City Hall sees and inhabits. The sign’s existence providing the viewer clear evidence of the absence of common sense.

It also leaves the viewer tp ponder the question: Ice? What Ice??