All posts by James W. Breckenridge

Municipal

Just what does binding mean here?

Leave a comment

It there some secretly enacted bylaw in Abbotsford making it illegal to ask Councillors or City Staff probing, hard or difficult questions? As part of this hidden bylaw are staff and politicians exempt from answering, except when and where they feel like it? These questions popped into my mind upon reading “Beck stays mum on Big 3 details…”. Since I am posing questions just what does binding mean as used here?

A few weeks ago Mr. Beck was quoted in your publication as saying that the referendum was only about timing, not about if the proposed projects would get built. Now it is said to be binding. So which is it? Is the referendum a pointless waste of taxpayer dollars because these projects will be built no matter how loud the public’s NO is? Or is it binding and does binding mean that when people sensibly vote NO council will turn from this “Big 3” and address the many pressing small facility needs?

If the strike has caused problems in adequate planning and preparation exactly why are we rushing to hold the referendum in November? Oh wait; this is typical behaviour of council and staff, rushing in without thinking. Don’t think it is typical behaviour that has caused massive cost overruns, resulted in construction of facilities lacking needed aspects such as adequate seating for spectators and being a little short of what they should be because of such peccadilloes such as running out of room for the ice surface and having to cut it short of Olympic size? Just ask anyone who is familiar with the true tale of the building of the rink at ARC, at least those with nothing to hide about oversights.

This giving the bums rush to taxpayers seems likely to prevent thoughtful consideration of the plans and the City’s true needs as to facilities we need to build. Why the rush? Are there details and costs that will be kept hidden by forcing a rushed decision? Would taking a look at setting priorities based on what the City really needs get in the way of councillor and staff pet projects?

If we are to be rushed to judgement can we add the requirement for council and staff to act with careful planning and consideration, due consultation with the users of the facilities and prudent management?

Once these ill-considered, unneeded projects representing a wasteful use of taxpayer dollars are defeated with a loud, resounding NO we can get on with choosing and planning badly needed capital projects. Assuming that staff and council can recognize that NO means NO, that binding is binding and that the taxpayers who foot the bills have a right to set priorities for their City’s facility development and needs.

Caveat emptor, Homeless

The Abbotsford News Champions ESP as: THE solution to Homelessness.

Leave a comment

(HP) Homeless Press

No, this does not stand for Excessive Social Pressure. That course would require the News to become an active participant in: a continuing community wide dialogue on homelessness and its associates (poverty, mental illness, unemployment, drugs – to name but a few); an exchange of ideas on lines of attack; community wide tackling of these issues. This seems highly unlikely given that contentious issues or positions, no matter how well they would serve the community, have far too much potential to cause a reduction in advertising revenues.

No, I am no mind reader myself. It is clear from the language used that the News can only be advocating the use of Extra Sensory Perception in dealing with homelessness in Abbotsford. Psychics would, one assumes, be used to determine who in our community was about to become homeless. Remedial actions could then be undertaken to prevent this homelessness from occurring, thus avoiding the creation of additional members of the homeless community. One would presume that once this use of clairvoyants proved proficient in averting additional homeless, the News would call for additional seers to be employed in addressing the needs of those currently homeless. How foolproof! Using psychics to divine the specific set of actions that would enable each and every homeless person to deal with and overcome the maze of issues that have reduced them to a life of living on the streets. No failures, no relapses, no need for community involvement … only correct actions need be undertaken under the guidance of the paranormal practitioners. Brilliant … or sheer lunacy

“NO!” That was the almost unanimous answer given by the homeless surveyed on the question of whether the use of psychics would prove successful in resolving homelessness. It needs to be noted that some of the more dedicated practitioners of chemically altered reality did feel the News may be onto something with this approach of dealing with current problems by fortune telling the future.

No, Oh No. One can only hope that there are enough thoughtful citizens aware of the complex reality of homelessness to, in voting no, counterbalance those looking for a neat, quick, easy solution. Otherwise the fairytale illusion championed by the News in their Question of the Week:

Do you believe (take as true) homelessness can be
averted (avert: to keep from happening; ward off; prevent)
in communities that establish special committees to tackle the issue?

– will permit this community to continue to avoid the grim, harsh, despairing reality that populates its streets.

Caveat emptor, Homeless

RE: Valley neighbours setting an example.

Leave a comment

I sit here shaking my head, dismayed that this piece is what the News considers an opinion worthy of expression on such a complex issue.

Anyone reading your totally misleading “reporting and opinion” on the British success in achieving a 35% reduction in crime, would come away with the thoroughly erroneous impression of what measures the British used in accomplishing this notable reduction. Only those who had seen balanced and fair reports of Mayor Watts’s trip from other sources would know the British had wisely decided to try the unique approach of focusing on addressing the root causes of their crime problem. As with any weed, you can waste all the time and money you want on the symptoms of the problem (the leaves) such as car theft, B & E, prostitution and drug trafficking, and it just grows back. In fact, this approach often permits the weed to flourish and spread. You want to kill off the weed, you better get at the root.

The British, recognizing this reality, chose to focus on Cause rather than the effect. Not that anyone reading your “reporting” of the British experience would learn this. More accurate reporting elsewhere made clear that the British used innovative social programs and approaches to help the people involved, their fellow citizens who were in need of assistance, to address their personal problems and issues in order to permit these marginalized people to begin leading productive lives.

With all the innovation involved in the British approach that achieved these highly desirable results, the News chose to report and focus on the old and trite surveillance camera red herring of a “plan”? Further we are suppose to be amazed that citizens are complaining and upset about the activities in Jubilee Park? I suppose the News would favour using the ”miracle of surveillance” to drive these people out of the Park. Then in a few months the News can “report and opine” the problem some other area of Abbotsford is having with those previously displaced from Jubilee. Then repeat then process over and over and over as is the current policy.

Then blundering onward to the subject of transition housing regulation, you give any of the public depending on the News for informed opinion the entirely wrong impression that this is an easy question to deal with.

You offer a few misleading lines on issues that, to even begin to give the citizens of Abbotsford a basis for thinking about and making decisions on, need as series of articles (for each point/issue) to convey the many complexities of these problems.

The News wagging a finger at the council, no matter that the council fully deserves to be severely chastised for its lack of imagination and action, is the pot calling the kettle black. It is hubris to point a finger at the council for lack of being proactive when the News itself fails to invest the time, space and writing needed to be act in a proactive manner by informing the community of the intricacies of these issues, fermenting debate and involving the community in a situation that can only be addressed and solutions derived with the involvement of the entire community. Enough “drivel”, let us have some “meat and potatoes” from the News.

Caveat emptor

Living up to ones Ideals

Leave a comment

“We are independent and non-partisan. We represent no vested interests nor will we be afraid of reporting on controversial issues or expressing our opinions.”

“By providing insight, perspective and commentary we hope to provide a forum for discussions …”

Both statements made very welcome reading to me and I am sure many others. With our local papers being part of media chains, all to often their ‘reporting’ seems founded on the principle of blandness so as to not upset anyone in order to maximize profits. Having grown up with an independent locally owned newspaper I appreciate how important and how much a local paper can contribute to the issues of a City and the lives of its citizens. With so many important issues and decisions facing our Cities the promise of “ … nor will we be afraid … controversial” and “forum for discussion” seemed an answer to prayers for bring important questions into much needed public attention, focus and discussion.

While “Could media be to blame” was on the rather safe topic of whether medias constant “if it bleeds, it leads” reporting of crime is leading to unreasonable public fears, it was a step in the right direction. You also included a report as to the Times strike and settlement. I suppose one could argue the need to ease both the public and their new paper into examinations of whether media conglomeration has left them ill served in the examining or reporting on important local and national issues. Future editions of The Post will bear witness on this.

However, in order to deliver on your promises as quoted at the outset of this letter, you cannot let statements or issues raised in the stories you report on go unchallenged.

In “Downtown looking up” you failed (miserably) to examine or question the statements: “the idea is to clear out the area where STREET URCHINS lurk…” or “…will drive out the some of the seediness that has plagued these streets in recent years.” Street Urchins? What exactly is that in reference to? Drive out seediness? Again, what does that mean? Now given the actions of the Downtown Business Association I would suspect these statements are veiled references to the continuing campaign to drive the homeless, the poor, the addicts and the hookers out of Downtown into other parts of Abbotsford.

If the Post truly wants to “report” it needs to make sure it does not accept vague euphemisms but requires the speaker to clearly spell out what they mean. You also failed to address what effect the “…clear out …” or “…drive out …” would and has had on others. I would suspect the merchants on Sumas Way have little thanks for “street urchins” driven their way. I am sure that homeowners finding these “street urchins” and “seediness” forced into their neighbourhoods, by the actions of the downtown businessmen, would have some words to pass along to Mr. Bos and associates for “what you told us…” Assuming you would care to question the actions of a “vested interest”. Moreover, I would expect that many citizens would like the opportunity to comment on the fallout of the efforts led by Mr. Bos in closing down Street Hope. Losing the source of their evening meal, being human (and thus unwilling to quietly starve) and having been forced to “clear out” into new parts of the City items previously not worth stealing suddenly became the means to food.

Instead we get a puff piece either of the other papers would or could have written. Understand I fully support the right of the Downtown to work for improvement. I just feel they should have addressed their concerns with thought and carefully chosen action. I certainly do not think it is permissible, or acceptable, that their current solution is to “drive out” their problems onto their fellow business people and the citizens in general. Of course puff pieces are far easier to write and sell than asking hard questions and holding perpetrators responsible for the consequences of their actions.

To compound the offence against your stated goals for your new paper you allowed Fiona Brent to misrepresent the upcoming referendum as an “all encompassing facilities upgrade”, when that is clearly what the referendum IS NOT about. Further you have accepted the implied assertion that the plan is a good idea without raising any of the important questions that would clearly demonstrate that this plan is far from a good idea.

You have ignored that this is about only a few facilities; overlooked Councilors Beck’s statement that this is not about IF but only When the facilities will be built; failed to to ask a representative of the Chamber of Commerce if the business people really think it is a good idea to rush to build in an over priced construction market, to build without adequate design and consultation with end users, to build a huge rink after chasing the major tenant out of town (the Chiefs), wasting money on what is in the end a pointless referendum since it is only about timing; you have not questioned what the priorities for City capital projects should be; if we should be building a large sports/entertainment complex for which there is no clear need when the money would permit the building of many needed smaller capital projects; should we be deciding what to build based on what projects are pet projects of City Staff and councilors OR should we base capital plans on the needs of the citizens, the people who pay for all the building.

Yes, it is only your second issue. Perhaps it is that you intend to raise all the questions and issues that others have failed to ask about capital spending plans. Mr. Bos is slick and facile with words, but no more than you should expect form one involved with the legal profession.

Still, as you begin so do you tend to go. If you truly want the public to “find what we (the Post) have to say useful, thought provoking and always interesting” you need to be willing to forego the easy “Puff” pieces and work hard digging into the Who, What, Where, when and Why of stories. In that way you will succeed in offering our communities the “forum” so sadly lacking and desperately needed.

Consider, Municipal

Can you imagine Abbotsford as a Vibrant community?

Leave a comment

I recently found myself at a rather interesting point on the space-time continuum where a most interesting (and important) conversation, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say a series of conversations, was taking place. Once time has allowed me to think about and digest what was expressed, I plan to share some of the conversation, some of the questions posed and what answers/thoughts were called into my mind. Because the point of this conversation was to begin the process of engaging the entire community in this conversation.

It seems that some of our fellow citizens, when looking around at the state of affairs found themselves (quite understandably) less than pleased with the state of poverty, and all its trappings, in the city of Abbotsford. At the beginning of this past June at the Ramada Plaza the Frazer Valley Community Conference 2006 was held on the topic: “Creating Community Movements for Change”. The speaker was Mr. Paul Born of Tamarack: An Institute for Community Engagement who was not only an inspiring speaker, but had the advantage of having what he was saying make sense. That what we have been doing has not been working, has in fact allowed things to get worse. That if we want to address issues of local concern such as poverty, we have to do it as fully engaged communities since that is the way to act effectively. That achieving a purpose requires using purposefulness to power and motivate change, creating movements for change. www.tamarackcommunity.ca/index.php

Our displeased fellow citizens, seeking to effect positive changes in our community, have sought out the expertise and experience that Tamarack has built and continues building with communities across Canada. As part of pursing this working relationship with Tamarack, and through them with other Canadian cities seeking to make positive changes, Vibrant Abbotsford was born. At the time I attended the conversation being written about, this newborn was less than a week old and taking his/her first steps out and about our community, seeking to engage us all in creating change in our community.

So why am I writing this? I look around our community and see poverty and its attributes such as homelessness, hungry children, the desperate need for the local food bank, mental illness and addiction, families with young children eating at the Salvation Army, human life reduced to the cheapest commodity on the planet, pain and hopelessness – to name but a few. I see how badly Abbotsford needs to come together as a community to create the change needed and seek to knock over that first domino. To start the chain reaction of falling dominos that, gathering speed and inertia, will help power Vibrant Abbotsford’s spread through the community, engaging the community in creating not only the movement for change but CHANGE itself.

I also want to answer the last question posed to us during that conversation – do I want to, am I willing to give of myself, in order to bring positive change to my community, to work at turning our community into Vibrant Abbotsford. The answer is YES; I will stand up and be counted. So it is that I pass the question along – Look around. What do you see? What do you want to see, what matters to you? Will you be part of Vibrant Abbotsford?