All posts by James W. Breckenridge

Caveat emptor, Municipal, Snafu

Another Abbotsford Fudge-a-Budget

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Fudge: to avoid coming to grips with something

One has to wonder why city council bothers with a budget or if they would bother with a ‘budget’ if it were not required by the province of BC’s Local Government Act.

While council pays lip service to creating a ‘budget’ this year’s fudget (council’s fudge-a-budget) process has made it unequivocally clear that the needs of the city, Reality, fiscally responsibility and common sense were of minimal (if any) concern to council in arriving at 2010’s fudget-it-budget.

Council’s behaviour, directions to staff and staff’s report highlight that council’s focus is on creating a fudge-it-budget that isn’t going to jeopardize their chances of re-election.

Financial staff’s original draft for 2010 was for a 6% increase but council directed financial staff to come up with an increase closer to 3.9% which led to the 4.4% proposal accepted by council, excerpted below.

“The capital budget (which they describe in their report as “already significantly underfunded”) did not increase in 2009 and the roads and facility infrastructure continue to deteriorate. A one per cent increase is not significant, but acknowledges the growing gap in infrastructure funding,” they wrote.

The authors noted several challenges in trying to meet the council’s directive: the fragility of the roads and capital projects program; an underfunded reserve fund.

Fire services would take a significant hit of $350,000 in 2010. 2010 marks the fifth year in a row where increase will be below city costs, they said.

Continue to deteriorate, as in this is not the first year that council has made the decision to allow roads and facility infrastructure to deteriorate.

At what point would council find it necessary to stop allowing roads and facilities to deteriorate and begin proper maintenance? When cars start disappearing into potholes? When we get a head-on collision because drivers cannot see the road marking lines in the dark or rain? When facilities have to be closed because they are unsafe or buildings start falling down.

Council happily spends money on plasma flat screen televisions and on an unnecessarily, expensive large, colour electronic outdoor sign for ARC but won’t spend to do the maintenance necessary to maintain ARC and other facilities.

Money isn’t spent until the lack of maintenance causes a breakdown, such as an ice-plant, where it costs many times more to do repairs than it would have cost to do maintenance; standard operating procedure under Abbotsford’s council.

Fragile is not a word one wants used in describing roads and capital projects. Still that is better than underfunded in reference to the city’s reserve fund; which is preferable to hearing about the growing gap in infrastructure funding.

Council opted for a significant hit to Fire services despite the danger of lengthened response times and increased property losses. Given the gamble with lives and property in that decision one wonders why councillors are opposed to a casino. Or is it just taxpayers money, property and lives council likes to gamble with?

Sneaky – an increased turnaround time for development applications will have developers going to other cities and council won’t have to add any meetings to handle increased city business.

The need for early closure of some recreation facilities and/or reductions in programming will cause less wear and tear on buildings so the lack of maintenance won’t be as noticeable or potentially costly.

Reduced responsiveness to citizens as a result of reduced staff means council and senior staff won’t be bothered by citizens as much and provides an excuse for avoiding/not answering citizen’s questions.

With the existing poor levels of park maintenance who will notice increased litter or grass several inches longer?

A reduced ability to repair potholes and intersection rutting should serve to provide a distraction to divert driver’s attention from the inexcusable deteriorating roads to the “we’re keeping taxes down” potholes and rutting. Of course this policy could prove costly if citizen’s start billing city hall for the cost of tires and suspensions ‘deteriorated’ by the city’s deteriorated roads.

Even the most cursory examination of the 2010 ‘budget’ process/proposal makes it abundantly clear that council is aware of numerous failings of their so-called ‘budget’ – and chooses to avoid dealing with the many financial, operating and capital problems that have come to plague the City of Abbotsford precisely because of councils repeated refusal to behave with fiscal responsibility, make tough decisions and/or deal with the fallout from their poor financial decision making and priorities.

Phone council, write them, talk to them prior to their secret budget meeting on January 4, 2010 and ask councillors where the city’s portion of the McCallum ($8.3 million) and Clearbrook ($8.3 million) interchanges ($16.6 million in total) is going to come from since it was not included in the budget.

Tell council to stop digging Abbotsford into an ever deeper financial hole and demand council act responsibility in beginning to address the chaos council has caused the city, its finances and its taxpayers.

Hmmm

Season’s Greetings**

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Season's Greetings

**This statement of good wishes (”Greeting”) from me (”Sender”) is intended to be generic in nature. “Holiday” is intentionally left an undefined term. This holiday may include, but not be limited to, Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, New Year’s Day, Saturnalia, or even Elvis’ Birthday (”Elvis” is a registered trademark of Elvis Presley Enterprises, Memphis, TN). Further, the recipient of this greeting (”Receiver”), may insert his or her own holiday into this Greeting, either explicitly or implicitly, or no holiday at all, if he or she chooses. If Receiver celebrates no holidays during the intended period of Greeting, assumed to be roughly mid-December, 2007 through the first week in January, 2008 (”Greeting Period”), he or she may consider Greeting to be merely general, and a simple wish of good feelings and joy, suitable for any time of year, or no time at all.

Greeting should in no way be construed to guarantee or warrant happiness or other good feelings during Greeting Period, or warrant or guarantee an acceptable holiday. By accepting Greeting, Receiver expressly agrees that he or she assumes the risk for his or her own holiday. Receiver will hold Sender harmless should Receiver’s expectations for Greeting Period and wishes contained herein not coincide.

Greeting is at all times subject to withdrawal by Sender, and it may be cancelled or modified at any time, without notice to Receiver. In the event of cancellation, Receiver shall receive no credit or proration for any time left in Greeting Period.

Greeting is not intended to be transferable, and has no cash value. Under no circumstances may Receiver in any way alter Greeting, or publish Greeting directly or indirectly without express written permission of Sender. Permission may be withheld for any reason within the sole discretion of Sender, with no rule of reasonableness.

Should Receiver not accept the terms of Greeting listed above, no rights or benefits related to Greeting will accrue.

Should a dispute arise from Greeting, Receiver agrees that jurisdiction and venue will be in the courts of the BRECKENRIDGE ZONE Sender and Receiver agree that personal jurisdiction will lie in those courts, regardless of the location of either party. Greeting will be construed under the laws of the BRECKENRIDGE ZONE without regard to Choice of Law or Renvoy.

Caveat emptor, Municipal

‘big time’ is Earned not Bought.

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“Ask the people in Chilliwack the last time they had a Tragically Hip concert,” he (Mayor Peary) said.

Why would any Chilliwack council, councillor or taxpayer want to be so financially irresponsible and foolish?

Particularly when just an easy twenty minute drive down Highway 1 in Abbotsford is a council and councillors willing not only to burden their taxpayers with the highest per-household debt load in the lower mainland but to subsidise tickets to the tune of $100 per posterior in a seat.

Any resident of Chilliwack with any common sense would be happy to keep their city’s debt at $0, leave Abbotsford groaning under the burden of the highest per-household debt in the lower mainland, take the $100 per person seat subsidy paid for by Abbotsford’s beleaguered taxpayers and drive to Abbotsford to see the Hip.

Tragically, being fiscally responsible is behaviour that Abbotsford’s council and councillors seem unable to grasp.

While there is a certain truth in the mayors statement “If you’re going to borrow money, the time to do that is when rates are low” common sense should tell you that it does not matter how good the interest rate is, if you borrow an amount large enough debt repayment will have a significant negative effect on finances and financial health.

Borrow an amount sufficiently large to negatively impact finances and financial health and you have to raise taxes, levies and fees and/or cut costs by reducing services.

If you are going to borrow money, whatever the interest rate, you need to understand and consider what effect repayment will have on cash flow and finances.

And just what is the point of speaking of previous councils borrowing money at 8% or even 10% when that debt was paid off?

“said Peary, adding that previous councils had aggressively paid off debt at the expense of updating services”

Previous councils did not update services in order to pay off debt. As opposed to this council which, to pay off debt, is cutting services. And Mayor Peary favours the current councils approach – why?

“Peary said despite the Frontier Centre’s numbers, previous councils’ decisions to take Abbotsford into the big leagues are in the past and the city’s investments are trumping any neighbour’s ability to poo-poo the debt load.”

Reading the above followed by “”Ask the people in Chilliwack the last time they had a Tragically Hip concert” one is left expecting to hear nya-nya-nya-nya nyhaaaa.

Apparently, rather than a capable and thoughtful city council, Abbotsford is being run by a group with more in common with a group of ten year olds.

A group of 10 year olds that has, sadly, saddled Abbotsford with the highest per-household debt in the lower mainland, so they can boast ‘mine’s bigger than yours’. Although this need for ego projects does go a long way towards explaining councils Plan A at any cost attitude.

While the cost of cleaning up all the unfavourable fallout that results from these unwise decisions and actions rouses exasperation even ire, the Mayor’s words “previous councils’ decisions to take Abbotsford into the big leagues” tend to evoke pity.

For it is something to be pitied that council thinks one can buy a city into ‘the big leagues’; that what makes for a first class city is merely structures and facilities; that accumulating the right list of possessions makes a city ‘big league.

I am not saying that infrastructure is not important; what I am saying is that it is not big ego projects that are important in a first rate city but items such as streets that do not devour tires or car suspensions and that you can safely drive at night because you can see the line markings or neatness of appearance as opposed to Abbotsford’s “look[ing] a little scruffier, with less street sweeping, less grooming of parks and city flower beds and reduced bylaw enforcement.”

Any council can build monuments to their egos as long as the are willing to abandon common sense and fiscal responsibility and crush citizens under debt and ever climbing taxes, levies and fees, while cutting services.

What makes a city a City of Note  is not constructed of concrete but is constructed of intangibles and character.

A reputation for/as a good place to do business (not as a bureaucratic nightmare); sound financial management (not as a debt ridden black hole insatiably consuming taxpayer dollars); maintaining infrastructure (not as a city whose infrastructure is falling apart from lack of maintenance or needed investment); as a place where all can afford to participate in sports and fitness (not for fees so high increasing numbers of children and citizens simply cannot afford to participate).

Councils ill-advised decisions were not “decisions to take Abbotsford into the big leagues” but decisions that have made Abbotsford less liveable and reinforced the city’s reputation, outside of the legend that exists only in the ‘council think’ of councils minds, as ‘the hick city in the country’.

Municipal, Snafu

Reality vs. Council Think

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Council bears no responsibility for the sad state of the City of Abbotsford’s finances and the fact Abbotsford has the highest municipal debt-per-household in the lower mainland?

Even for Abbotsford “council think” this strains the bounds of credulity. Although given the disastrous state of the city’s finances, cuts to services and a municipal election less than two years away it was only a matter time before city politicians began to revise history in an attempt to avoid responsibility for the consequences of their actions/decisions.

Apparently, in the revisionist council version of the history of Plan A, council are innocent bystanders whose involvement in Plan A was merely that of obeying the wishes of taxpayers.

Even if you overlook that Plan A was initiated by council who led the cheering squad for Plan A; who spent $140,000.00 taxpayer dollars on advertising to sell taxpayers on Plan A; who denied the rights of those who opposed Plan A by denying them access to city buildings even as the pro-Plan A council plastered city buildings with pro-Plan A propaganda and whose conduct during the referendum process was such that the BC Ombudsman’s office and the Ministry of Community and Rural Development have developed guidelines for future municipal referendums in order to prevent future abuses; it is a far-fetched, preposterous revision of history to suggest that the fallout from Plan A is NOT the responsibility of Abbotsford’s council and city hall.

Shall we have a historical reality check?

Yes the citizens of Abbotsford voted, by the slimmest of margins, to borrow $85 million to build Plan A. But that was not a blank cheque to build Plan A at any cost to the city.

In seeking the approval of citizens for Plan A, council made commitments and guarantees to the citizens of Abbotsford to win approval of Plan A. Among these commitments and guarantees were that the maximum amount that was to be spent on Plan A was set at $85 million; undertakings were given that contracts with the builders would guarantee the cost of Plan a would not go 1 cent over the taxpayer approved maximum of $85 million; expenditures from reserves for any amount of spending on Plan A was never raised for approval and therefore never approved by taxpayers; that while the museum/art gallery and ARC addition would need yearly subsidies the Sports and Entertainment Complex would not need any subsidy, indeed council guaranteed this Complex would be a source of positive cash flow and not a black hole for city dollars.

The $45 million plus over expenditure was not only solely the decision and responsibility of council and staff, but was against the will of the citizens who put a cap of $85 million on expenditures in voting for and agreeing to the Plan A terms and conditions set out by council.

Indeed council should either have shelved plan A or gone back to the public for approval when they realized that Plan A would require expenditures in excess of $85 million approved by citizens.

Since council was aware, but did not disclose, that expenditures in excess of the $85 million agreed to by taxpayers would be required even before the referendum, no expenditures for Plan A should ever have been made.

The recent announcement of the $2.3 million (if lucky) subsidy required by the Sports and Entertainment Complex this year (with increasing subsidies in future years) was predictable at the time of the referendum even to someone living homeless in their car using only a piece of blank paper, a pencil and $1 calculator with the simple application of basic math skills and common sense.

In light of this the fact council and city staff issued guarantees of a positive cash flow raise questions about their common sense or veracity or both.

With council having withheld pertinent information from taxpayers about Plan A costs during the referendum and failing to comply with the direction given to council by taxpayers that costs for Plan A were not to exceed $85 million, it is facetious to suggest that citizens in any way approved the financial mess that is Plan A.

An examination of the facts makes clear that citizens did not give approval for Plan A as implemented by council. That if council had been forthright with taxpayers or behaved as directed by taxpayers or behaved with integrity and honour Plan A would have been shelved and the city and its future would be in much better financial shape.

Municipal

No apologies.

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A few words for those recent letter writers complaining about citizens who expresses their concern with city council and staff continuing the same financial spend, spend, spending pattern that built Plan A and has the City of Abbotsford running out of money and seeking to disguise a double digit tax increase by breaking up the raise into smaller less imposing increases (property tax, gas tax, fee increases, service decreases etc).

“The facilities were built because citizens voted yes. It’s too late to complain. Why not support the facilities instead of trying to prove yourself right? Get over it.” Larry Ross

Unless Mr. Ross is aware of a second referendum held that I am not, what citizens voted for was spending $55 million on a facility that would have a positive cash flow into city coffers.

Citizens did not vote for a $100 million arena (an arena that Langley built for $45 million) and an operating subsidy that (if citizens are lucky) will only cost $2.3 million this year; a subsidy that will increase year after year into the future.

There is no need for “trying to prove yourself right”, the consequences of city council and staff’s lack of basic common sense, financial, planning and budgeting skills has already done that.

How is one suppose to “Get over it” when council continues the same ruinously spendthrift behaviours that have Abbotsford in dire financial straits? More importantly, why would one want to get over or ignore this behaviour?

“If you want to lower the price of tickets, buy a season ticket. I am paying $12.96 per game,” Phil Menger

You are paying $12.96 per game and citizens are paying $58.50 per game to subsidize you and everyone person who attends an event at the arena for the cost overruns and arena subsidy. That amount is IN ADDITION to the $43.40 per person/per event subsidy that people approved when they voted to spend $55 million to build the arena.

It is easy to understand why you and those you have spoken with are happy not to have to pay the actual costs associated with your arena usage and with your fellow citizens subsidizing your night out by $100.00. Can you appreciate why citizens are less than pleased with the 135% ($58.50) increase in the amount they subsidize you and every other person at every event at the new arena?

I can also understand why you and others would choose to label being reminded that your fellow citizens are subsidizing your entertainment by $100.00 per event as whining.

However it would be irresponsible not to hold council and staff accountable for the consequences of their decisions and actions; irresponsible not to work to have council and staff behave with basic common sense in financial planning and budgeting; irresponsible not to share the consequences of council and staff continuing ‘business as usual’ in light of the high cost this behaviour has imposed and will continue to impose for decades on the citizens of Abbotsford.

Sorry if being reminded how heavily subsidized your attendance at arena events is by your fellow citizens is disquieting to you, but while council and staff continue behaving irresponsibly on financial and operational decisions you will just have to put up with the ‘whining’.

“Tongue planted firmly in cheek, I conclude with this: Shame on the city for having this albeit costly venture built in little old Abbotsford.” Rob Ironside

The shame lies in all the citizens of Abbotsford who can no longer afford the use of facilities because of fee increases to feed the voracious appetite for cash flow servicing the debt and subsidizing the arena has; for all the children/families who cannot afford to continue or start to participate in sports or activities because of the cumulative costs of all the fee increases imposed by the city to pay for the arena; the fallout for services that the large cutbacks in staff hours taking effect in January 2010 will have; the increasing number of citizens on limited or fixed incomes in danger of losing their homes because of tax and fee (e.g. water) increases to pay for ego/luxury facilities; the citizens on limited or fixed incomes who have to go to the food bank and other charities for basic necessities in order to have the money to pay the increases in fees and taxes.

The true shame in this lies in a council, staff and citizens who were/are focused only on how this would and does affect THEM, without giving any thought to the affect their decisions have on their many fellow citizens who currently struggle just to survive.

I make no apologies for demanding council and staff behave in prudent and responsible ways, for reminding them of the consequences their past bad decision making is having, for urging them to change their behaviour or for considering the affect councils behaviours have on all citizens – not just myself.