One can hardly be surprised that Mayor Peary and Abbotsford City Council are opposed to Translink. After all it would interfere with their great gas tax grab.

First it was parking fees in city parks, now it is gas taxes. Just what kind of budget did Council pass? Incomplete and under funded it would seem. Exactly what was the purpose in passing a budget that lacked adequate funding to pay for all the services?

A budget that it seems failed to include roadwork, and who knows what other infrastructure, acutely needed for the functioning of our city.

City officials seem to see nothing out of the ordinary in setting a budget with a 5.5% tax raise they themselves admit was not adequate to cover the costs of operations with out additional sources of revenue (taxes) such as the parking fees.

Leaving one to wonder what other unpleasant surprises await taxpayers as the year progresses and the “budget” plays out?

With building starts off (84% in February ’09) how much will last year’s actual revenue fall below projections?

Remember that Council burned its way through much of the City’s reserves on undisclosed Plan A costs and cost overruns. Thus it will not require much of a revenue shortfall to place Abbotsford in a deficit position at the end of the 08/09 fiscal year.

Since, by law, municipalities are not to run a deficit any deficit will need to be made up out of taxpayer’s pockets.

With City business so bad last fall that council only needed to meet twice a month, beginning to trim spending last fall would have been the prudent and responsible course of action to take.

I suppose citizens should not be surprised that council did not act in such a financially responsible manner. After all, faced with the current economic climate city council chose to increase spending, not seek savings. Increasing spending to the point council needed to try to sneak additional tax increases in disguised as and called “parking fees”.

Should not the millions of dollars of roadwork the mayor speaks of have been addressed in the budget? Instead of just being pushed into the future as part of the $50 million in deferrals? Abbotsford is threatened by this towering tidal wave of deferred but needed infrastructure projects.

But hey, as citizens are crushed flat by onerous taxes, city fees and levies, the city falls apart around us or run out of cash sometime during the 09/10 fiscal year – we have a new Arena complex to play and party in while ignoring fiscal reality and fiscally responsible behaviour.

‘Peary suggested that talk about the city covering team costs may be fuelled by “those who don’t want this to succeed,”’

How about citizens who watched the city ignore questions raised about parking and road access vis-à-vis the location the city insisted on building the arena on from the start? Now suddenly the City discovers the need for parking and road/access improvements?

Or citizens left shaking their heads at the suggestion that because it is summer parking will be available at UFV so the city has until September to find a solution. UFV is a University with a heavy schedule of summer classes.

Or the citizens who have watched the cost of a project they were promised was guaranteed not to go over $55 million balloon to $90 million and still climbing.

How about the citizens who were given incorrect information, given incomplete information, were denied information, given promises and assurances that have turned out to be false?

I think any reasonable observer can well understand why citizens lack faith in the accuracy of any statement made by Abbotsford City Hall officials and are instead demanding full disclosure and transparency.

Any semi-sane, semi-intelligent citizens want a hockey team in the Arena to reduce the operating deficits the taxpayers of Abbotsford will have to cover on Arena operations.

But given the lack of veracity in City Council and staff’s statements concerning the costs of this project and the number of items they failed to disclose until Freedom of Information requests were filed or the accurate numbers were revealed in another manner, it is hardly surprising citizens are highly sceptical of City promises.

No, citizens want to make sure it does succeed – and ensure that Council does not turn the Arena into anymore of a black hole for taxpayer dollars than they already have.

A recent newspaper article revealed that the world wide economic meltdown was the latest addition to Abbotsford City Hall’s “excuse bag”.

According to the City their desperate need for cash has nothing to do with their tax and spend, spend, spend ways. Nor does it have anything to do with the City’s poor financial management. No it is all out of their control and the fault of the world wide economic meltdown.

Apparently not only is City Hall in desperate need of cash, they are desperate for any excuses they can find to shift blame from where it belongs – the City’s financial behaviour.

During our recent municipal election, just a few months past, suggestions by several of the candidates that the City needed to get its financial house in order was pooh-poohed by councillors seeking re-election, who assured voters everything was rosy. Suddenly, safely re-elected, the City’s financial well being requires parking fees in our parks.

If the City stopped costly excuse making behaviour such as coming up with that farcical and pointless comparison to Chilliwack’s or Port Coquitlam’s “cost per hectare” it could save enough to cover the budgeted shortfall of $50,000.

I say farcical and pointless comparison because the difference in the cities hectares (139, 223, 1,054) makes it quite clear that this comparison is comparing apples to oranges to grapefruits and thus meaningless. The only purpose served by this type of comparison is to make it seem the City is acting in a financially prudent way when the fact the comparison is meaningless demonstrates just the opposite – that the City is acting in a financially irresponsible manner.

Yes the world wide economic meltdown is affecting Abbotsford.

However excuses, more tax and spend behaviour, wasting money creating meaningless comparisons, trying to hide taxes under euphemisms such as parking fees, business as usual for the City is not going to cut it in dealing with the economic realities that have come home to roost at City Hall.

It is time for leadership, making tough decisions and financially responsible behaviour. Unfortunately we are stuck with our current Abbotsford City Hall which does not bode well for the City’s financial future.

“Peary said the paid parking is just one in a series of difficult decisions the city was forced to make, in order to stop the tax increase drifting beyond 5.5 per cent.”

Once again I find myself calling upon any of my fellow Abbotsford citizens who have a spare dictionary to deliver the dictionary to Mayor George Peary as his statement demonstrates the continued need for a dictionary at City Hall.

From the dictionary – tax: a sum of money demanded by a government for its support.

Nowhere in the definition is a tax defined in terms of what a government labels a tax nor is tax defined in terms whereby it is only a tax if government calls it a tax. The definition makes clear that government itself does not get to decide what it wants to call a tax or not a tax..

A tax is any sum of money demanded by a government for its support.

It does not matter if City Hall wants to mislead by using the euphemism “parking fees” or not. It is money they are demanding to support City Hall’s spendthrift ways and thus a tax.

Council apparently lacked the courage to admit to their spendthrift ways by openly raising taxes to the level necessary to pay for their tax and spend ways. Instead City Hall seeks to hide the actual level of tax increases by mislabelling taxes using euphemisms such as “parking fees”.

I have a suggestion. Why do we not add up the mayor + city councillors + city managers and divide the $50,000 by the total we got from our addition. We then charge each of the persons included in the total that amount as a “city hall parking fee”. Not only would this let them experience first hand the pain so many citizens are experiencing; it seems only fair in light of the fact that it was the actions of this group that led to the City’s current financial state.

It might also serve as a vivid reminder that a tax is any sum of money demanded by a government for its support.

Sigh. We may have changed Georges, but we still have the same lack of financially responsibility at City Hall.