All posts by James W. Breckenridge

Municipal

News: new information

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Question of the Week: “Do you think the Legacy Plan to build several new Abbotsford projects, including a multiplex facility, will be approved when it is finally put to a public vote?

Could you have asked a more banal question? Frankly I cannot think of a more pointless question on this matter. Especially in light of the quote in your paper of the same date (Tuesday August 1) about “… the referendum is not about whether these projects will happen”. With all the issues that this quote raises, you considered the question of approval germane? Because if a yes or no vote does not really matter, then is not the question of approval moot? Now questions about what Mr. Beck’s statement implies about the City administration’s and Council’s attitude to the wants, needs or opinions of the citizens would be news worthy.

While on the subject of the city’s capital plans I would like to enquire why the News has failed to address

Since I have raised the subject of pointless behaviour, why choose to waste valuable editorial space on an opinion about another moot point, as you did with the “opinion” piece on the strike by city staff? If the News had chosen to print that piece earlier it would have been an opinion. Now it is just old news, although it does serve to underline the questions raised by the fact that during the strike the News chose to print only letters portraying CUPE as poor, under paid, misunderstood victims of terrible HR policies on the part of the city. I find it extremely hard to believe that no taxpayers wrote in to suggest that if they did not like their overly generous salaries, they should quit and let someone familiar with the real world enjoy the wages and benefits.

Vibrant communities need ideas and vision. A curious, undaunted local paper is needed to give voice to questions, facts, opinions, discussion and happenings around the city and in local politics. If you are going to claim to be the “news leader”: less drivel, more hard news, asking the hard questions, timely positions and opinions, a willingness to charge Hell with just a water bucket if necessary and above all the desire to engage your readers in their community issues and decisions.

Homeless

Real Coffee! Thanks Starbucks!

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Sometimes the best laid plans …. You may recall that I felt that the good people at the Open Door Seventh Day Adventist church deserved special praise for the effort they made during this summer to keep their commitment to providing Sunday lunch to the homeless and hungry. Even to the point of a grown son turning to his mother to cover for him and serve Sunday lunch. No matter how old a child is still a child and a mother is forever your MOM.

This week the keeper of the coffee urn was away on holiday. In preparation for this he provided a house key for access to the coffee urn. However, he did forget one little thing, a sad fact of modern life, – the alarm code. I am afraid that when I see him I will have to give him a ribbing about the “trust issues” inherent in this oversight.

Be that as it may, the outcome was that those in charge of lunch Sunday found themselves without the ability to brew coffee. Among those they serve lunch to on Sunday I for one am willing to acknowledge my coffee addiction and I am not alone in my need for Java. Most fortunately a local coffee franchise stepped in to provide not just coffee but REAL coffee.

Starbucks donated the coffee, real actual cream (a nice treat), cups, stir sticks and provided the container to serve the hot coffee from. A nice BIG container so we all could have more than one cup and those of us with the need could sate our desire for caffeine with extra servings of a most excellent brew. Yummy! Not to mention the energy and ability to focus to get several writing projects written.

We sometimes tend to overlook that some of the franchises and franchisees, as well as other corporate citizens, in our midst take an active role as “citizens” of our community providing support for charities and other good causes in a variety of ways and products. People have come to take this so for granted that it is often forgotten to say “Thank You”.

So to those corporate citizens who understand the importance of charity and contributing to their community, we of the homeless and hungry communities want to express our thanks. With a special big Thank You, for coming through on such short notice, to Starbucks. Real cream, real coffee = a real treat.

Federal, Municipal, Provincial

A ‘raspberry’ for Mr. Rushton

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“Methinks it’s time for some serious debate in City Hall” trumpets Mr. Rushton, ignoring the fact that what passes for public debate these days is what has lead Abbotsford to its dubious #1 status and is at the core of many social problems across Canada. Debate has become about “spin”, allowing the public to hear what they want to hear OR to hear something that sounds good (because they want simple, easy answers to complex questions) and to avoid having to actually LISTEN and THINK. Our current #1 ranking, which you rail against, is the result of formulating public policy on what people believe or would like to believe as opposed to what REALITY is.

Debate as practiced in the political and public arenas is about winning, whether it is your point of view or an election. It has nothing to do with defining the issues, understanding the reality of the situations or of considering the consequences and outcomes of proposed actions. Instead it is about “spin” and waging a “war of words”, in the process ignoring the fact that basing public policy on mirages built of words guaranties not only failure to obtain your goals but also substantially increases the chances of negative consequences.

I watched that new TV commercial that implies that chocolate milk comes from brown cows and wonder how many now believe that chocolate milk comes from brown cows because they “saw it on television so it must be true”. We are dealing with people so nothing is going to be neat, easy or cut and dried. If your goal is to address crime effectively you should have called for examining the current state of affairs to gain an understanding of what the actual facts are; for the setting of realistic goals; for thinking through what the actual consequences of proposed actions will be (as opposed to what you would like them to be) and for making our decisions based on reality (no matter how unpalatable that reality may be) not upon wishful thinking.

Methinks it’s time for some serious though in our City, Province and Canada as a whole. Then we can decide on appropriate actions to pursue and have a reasonable expectation of attaining positive results.

Hmmm

We stand on guard for Thee

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This is in response to Mark B. Toth’s diatribe against Jack McEwen.

There are certain agendas that are indeed harmful to children, and I’m certain most people in Abbotsford and across Canada would agree that the campaign of intolerance by the religious right is one of them. To call such people “narrow-minded” and “bigoted” may not convince others of similar dogmatic and closed minds, but it is accurate and such language is necessary to draw attention to their behaviour.

People who believe in God’s love and His cherishing us all, must express their views with the hope their comments will improve the lot of those groups of God’s children the religious right choose to persecute.

In this connection, we cannot allow God to be usurped by the religious right to further their campaign to assume God’s right to judge the actions of His people and to guide our individual spiritual journey’s. In the same way we demand the followers of Islam stand up and speak out against the actions terrorists commit in the name of Islam, we must stand up and speack out against the actions of these misguided people in their attempt to impose their beliefs and relegate our moral consciousness to some dark closet.

In speaking of totalitarianism Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr said “A totalitarian regime crushes all autonomous institutions in its drive to seize the human soul”. Thus it is we need to guard against the religious rights attempts to “seize the human soul” by crushing all those who do not argee with the views they seek to impose upon us all. In guarding our souls and spirituality from this attempt by those of the religious right to exercise absolute and centralized control over our personal relationship with God, one must confront their attempts to surpress opposing cultural, political and spiritual expression.

If Mark B. Toth finds the fact that those of us with deeply held spiritual beliefs are standing up to expose and stand against the unwholesome agendas of the religious right so upsetting, he should stop reading the letters to the editor.

Municipal

Nonsense

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“At the end of the day the referendum in the fall is not about whether these projects will happen, it is about whether or not it make sense to accelerate the time frame” – councillor Bruce Beck.

Do I understand correctly? We are wasting thousands, probably hundreds of thousands, of taxpayer dollars and countless thousands of hours that city employees could use to accomplish something useful (like catching up after the recent labour strife) on a referendum where we, the taxpayers who foot the bills, will not be allowed to say either build or NO! DO NOT BUILD?

Sense: something wise, sound or reasonable

All this money is being flushed down the drain to decide: If it makes sense to build these projects in an overheated construction market where building costs will be maximized in an artificially high market, rather than waiting until the boom has passed and value for money would be maximized.

If it is sensible to rush into the projects without taking time to consult the end users, to plan out the project and carefully select your contractor on their ability to deliver quality work on time and budget – avoiding situations such as ripping the roof off ARC in the winter monsoon rains, allowing the leaking water to soak everything inside, instead of planning and doing it during the DRY summer days. To say nothing of the massive cost overruns the arena project at ARC incurred, for overlooked items such seating for spectators, I mean who would have thought that spectators would prefer to sit through games.

If it is sensible to allow, in then name of hubris, “Pet Projects” to be built while badly needed projects and the services they would provide are ignored and go un-built. To allow decisions about building priorities to be made behind closed doors at City Hall rather than through open and public discussion, input and thought. Having the referendum about these “Pet Projects” rather than it being about thinking and setting the City’s priorities based on the City’s needs.

I have no idea what kind of “sense” Mr. Beck is speaking of. Perhaps he is speaking of some kind of warped politicians idea of “make sense”, since it is clear that this referendum and its outcome have nothing to do with common sense. Then again, when one is speaking of the actions of City Hall and all too many of our local politicians and leaders, one has come to expect this kind of nonsense.