I saw in the Tuesday December 26th News that Mr. Raymond Szabada wants to attract high-tech to the Fraser Valley and possibly Abbotsford. Which I think is an excellent idea for Abbotsford and that Abbotsford has several large advantages to offer. A growing international airport, a few minutes travel time from a US border crossing, straddles the Trans-Canada Highway, available industrial land and Greater Vancouver just down the road.

Unfortunately for the citizens of Abbotsford, their tax bills and the City’s future the City lacks a major requirement – city staff and council to work with who are innovative, flexible, future oriented and willing to put in the hard work necessary to attract highly desirable industries with high-paying employment. This is why we currently suffer the phenomena of businesses bypassing Abbotsford on down the highway or across the Fraser River. Fortunately for Mr. Szabada he also plans to work with Chilliwack and Mission, two cities who have benefited from Abbotsford’s anti-business behaviour while demonstrating their ability and desire to attract good industries and their well paying jobs.

Despite Moe Gill’s enthusiastic support Mr. Szabada stands an excellent chance of running into the same situation I have when enquiring about why the City is not working to attract certain businesses with their well paying jobs and excellent tax base potential: a long, long, long list of why nots, can’t dos and an attitude of discouragement.

I do wish Mr. Szabada the best of luck. After all when the City could not seem to get their act together enough to put in place a life saving extreme weather strategy a group of citizens got together and had one in place in time for our November deep-freeze. For the citizens of Abbotsford one can only hope that Mr. Szabada and his group are hugely successful – notwithstanding city staff and council behaviour and attitudes.

Of course the need for Mr. Szabada and his group does cause me to wonder why and for what we pay Mr. Teiehroeb and his entire heavily staffed development department. But then in light of their ill-considered plans to rashly rush to overpay $60,000,000.00 for arena and recreation center I suppose that a few hundred thousand (millions?) of dollars is a petty waste and should be of no concern to taxpayers.

No wonder the City of Abbotsford is always claiming to have NO MONEY to invest in reducing poverty, homelessness, addiction and other pressing social issues. When you like to waste money in $60,000,000.00 chunks, you would tend to find yourself a little short of cash.

They will have lots of excuses, which they will call explanations or reasons, why Abbotsford paying $75 million when Langley is only paying $15 million does not mean Abbotsford is overpaying by $60,000,000.00. Although why they believe and expect taxpayers to believe paying $75 million for what someone else pays $15 million isn’t overpaying …

With just 25% of what they have chosen to overpay we could build the social housing facilities and fund programs to make serious inroads on poverty reduction, homelessness, addiction and affordable housing. Even a paltry (to City staff and council) 10% would fund innovative new approaches to addressing these stubborn issues. It would also provide funds to enable groups within the City to put together applications for monies available from more senior levels of government.

Funding is needed by these groups due to the fact it takes a great deal of paperwork to write up such applications – a very time consuming process when relying on volunteers. It seems that searching for and submitting grant applications is too much work for taxpayers to expect city staff and council to do so. Which may explains why senior city staff felt they deserved big salary bonuses for working during the strike they provoked last summer?

It does cause me to wonder how many thousands (hundreds of thousands, millions?) could be saved every year on the City’s yearly budget through responsible fiscal, grant and management practices? Such sound practices would appear too much work for city managers and council to bother doing in an effort to leave a few extra dollars in taxpayer’s pockets. Now if it were their own pockets …

When I consider how much good could be accomplished in 2007 with a fraction of the money City staff and council are in such a headlong rush to throw away, I am left wondering if I had better get my doctor to double or triple my prescribed antidepressants.

1. This year let council and city staff adopt a “Can Do” attitude as opposed to their current practice of coming up with a list of excuses on why they cannot do such things as get more grants from senior levels of government to reduce the burden on local taxpayers.

2. Less excuse making, more acceptance of responsibility and a willingness that instead of offering excuses taking corrective actions.

3. Adopt at least minimal ethical standards; council and senior staff had and caused so many conflicts of interest with their behaviour with Plan A that it appears council and city staff currently has no code of acceptable ethical standards. Not to forget ethical questions arising from the deal for the land the arena is to be built on.

4. Resolve to abandon their “easy come, easy go” attitude to taxpayers money and their “tax and waste” management styles. The purpose should be to get the most out of each taxpayer dollar, not to maximize spending by squandering the citizen’s money ill-conceived projects or spending.

5. Adopt sound financial, business and governance practice. Particularly with respect to day to day operations and yearly budgets/spending. If their practices on day to day matters are no better than those they apply to $85 million spending proposals it is reasonable to conclude taxpayers are taxed to cover hundreds of thousands of dollars as a result of council and staff’s spendthrift behaviour. Such things as searching our and going after any possible monies from more senior levels of government, even if it requires a change in plans or practices.

6. Resolve to be in less haste to throw away taxpayers money. They claimed to be investigating getting money from other levels of government and/or other sources to relieve the burden on local taxpayers. But if they are awarding contracts in January ’07, looking to break ground in April or May of ’07 there is no time to investigate or find such funds.

7. Resolve that council and senior staff will, in future, save the taxpayers $60,000,000.00 by doing their homework and practice due diligence when spending City funds, even if this entails a little effort. This way you spend the $15 million Langley will spend on arena and recreation complex and not the $75 million Abbotsford will spend thus saving taxpayers $60 million.

8. Resolve to attract business to Abbotsford and not to drive them away over petty matters as occurred with the Sandman. Better yet, demonstrate to the citizens exactly what benefits we get from our large expenditures on the development office at city hall. Besides Mr. Teichroeb to act as chief apologist and excuse maker for city council and staff

9. Resolve to stop making excuses for why businesses pass by Abbotsford and locate in neighbouring communities and to adopt attitudes and behaviours that welcome and encourage business investment in and relocation to our City. Get out and actively pursue investments in the City that have high tax-base advantages such as office tower/jobs relocated here from downtown Vancouver.

10. Explain to citizens, in a way that makes sense, why it was the city drove the Chiefs out of Abbotsford, and then decided to build a monster sized arena. Would the size and location of an arena for the Chiefs not have been any benefit to UVFV’s bid for University status and if the City is building the arena in support (why else beside the University with all the parking and traffic flow difficulties; why else so over sized a seating capacity) should not the University and Alumni be contributing to the cost?

11. Take at least one (preferably many) actual action with respect to homelessness, poverty, hunger and affordable housing. Words, committees, pointing fingers, making excuses, screaming from the rooftops, crying poor when proposing to spend $60 million more than necessary, none of these count as actions.

12. Actually listen to citizens and address their concerns rather than trying to avoid difficult questions by making statements in support of city staff and council positions that have nothing to do with the actual question posed. Citizens have the right to be heard and should be able to speak at any council meeting, not just those where staff and council condescend to all citizens to ask questions and raise their concerns. Citizen input – a novel concept for Abbotsford to adopt.

13. Council will cease functioning merely as a rubber stamp for the bureaucrats of city hall and begin to represent the best interests of the citizens of Abbotsford, demanding senior staff perform their jobs thoroughly and competently rather than allow them to set a standard of “good enough”. Council will remind them that as civil servants the citizens of Abbotsford are entitled to civility and service.

14. Finally stop patting themselves on the back for Plan A. They spend large amounts of citizens money to trample over citizens rights to equal representation for their position; they spent large amounts of money promoting their position while denying the free speech rights of those who did not agree with them (not allowed to put up “No” literature or materials at “public information meetings” funded by taxpayers). They disdained ethics with a total disregard for the concept of “conflict of interest. They are guilty of gross negligence in their failure to do their homework and practice due diligence meaning Abbotsford will pay $60 million more for an arena and recreation complex than Langley and Langley has a tenant for their arena.

The appalling ignorance of basic economic reality demonstrated by recent letters and comments based upon the erroneous assumption that only those wealthy enough to own property pay into city tax-coffers does help explain the poor decision making by voters for municipal, provincial and federal representatives.

Everybody pays. Those well off enough to own property merely see the direct costs of the tax on their property in a much more in your face manner. It would appear that most fail to appreciate the hidden city taxes everyone pays. The most easily visible of the non-property owner’s property tax payments is the portion of rent that pays the landlords rental property taxes. One can be sure that landlords who can will pass any tax increases to their tenants.

Only the most gullible would believe that business and commercial taxes are not passed on to the consumer – whether they own property of not. It is unfortunate that all non-property owners could not take all their business to other jurisdictions and demonstrate to the property owners just how much they contribute to city coffers – without the benefits of property ownership to offset the city’s constantly increasing appetite for tax revenue.

One can build a solid case for the fact that the homeless and poor are unfairly burdened in being required to contribute a much higher proportion of their income to city coffers than the much better-off property owners. The basic deductions and differing tax rates at the federal and provincial levels is intended to address the unfair effect taxation has on the poor and those living in poverty. There are provincial and city property tax rebate programs for the poorest of the property owners, but none for the effects city taxes have on those to poor to afford property.

Of course this ignorance is particularly appalling in those who call themselves business people, especially leaders of various business organizations within the city. Although I suppose in the case of the Downtown Businesses the special treatment this area receives, at the expense of other taxpayers, warps their view of who pays into the city coffers and thus into their pockets.

It is just unfortunate for so many of the taxpayers who fund this largess that it failed to cause them to consider the effect driving the poor and homeless out of downtown and into other parts of the city would have on the lives of residents of these areas.

Or perhaps it was just another example of the growing practice of failing to actually think before forming conclusions. Even a situation that appears as simple as who pays into the city’s coffers is more complex than a superficial glance would suggest. Whether financial, social or some other aspect of the decisions, challenges, issues and problems we as a City, Province or Country face they all have a complexity that demands thoughtful consideration. We as a community, as a society, can no longer afford the luxury of not paying attention to what reality IS – as opposed to making decisions based on what we want to believe are the facts.

Time after time people complain about politicians lying, then vote for the politicians who tell them the lies they want to hear or believe. Citizens need to become questers who consider carefully and are willing to vote for those who, while one may not like everything they say and would prefer to believe something else, when examined with careful thought and consideration are found to be not only truthful but aware of the reality of our streets and country.

It is time we begin to stop, examine, learn and think before deciding. Otherwise financial, social and the multitude of other complex problems such as homelessness will simply continue to grow into overwhelming crises. Or we will continue to burden ourselves blindly and unheedingly with politicians mirages such as Plan A.