A new notice posted at ARC: Attention Customers, the Parks, Recreation and Culture annual fee increase will take place September 1st 2007.

It is no wonder that with Parks, Recreation and Culture involved Plan A is such a bungled tragedy in progress for the taxpayers of Abbotsford, where the only sure results are that the taxpayers will be saddled with a ruinous burden of debt, the costs will keep rising, and should the City irresponsibly rush headlong into starting the arena construction – they will run out of funds before it is completed.

But then what can you expect from a department where management does not even comprehend a concept as simple as annual – happening once a year.

Or have management already forgotten the fee increases put into effect on July 1 of 2007? Is it that in their focus on squeezing every penny of cash flow possible out of taxpayer’s pockets that what was imposed just two short months ago was a “Plan A surcharge”? Perhaps it is just that city management is so use to misleading the public they “cannot help themselves prevaricating”?

Whatever the pretext, patrons will be forced to pay this second “annual” increase of the year, be left wondering when the next “annual” fee increase will occur or awaiting imposition of another “surcharge” and wistfully yearning for competent management at Parks Recreation and Culture.

Explaining to people the differences I have with the manner in which Abbotsford City Hall runs and behaves can be time consuming since the list of behaviours and actions that demonstrate City Hall’s mastery of mishandling the city’s business, finances, service delivery, citizen’s interests etc is mind numbingly long and wordy.

So I always keep an eye out for some way to illustrate, in a short and snappy manner, that Abbotsford City Hall sees a completely different reality from that its citizens live in and just how devoid of common sense Abbotsford City Hall is.

When I came across the city sign in the picture I knew I had found that concise piece of evidence. I did wonder if perhaps City Hall’s cognitive difficulties arise from mind altering substances rather than problems with the oxygen levels within city hall.

This sign, posted on a signpost carefully set in a big cement footing in Mill Lake Park, bears irrefutable testimony to the twisted, confused reality Abbotsford City Hall sees and inhabits. The sign’s existence providing the viewer clear evidence of the absence of common sense.

It also leaves the viewer tp ponder the question: Ice? What Ice??

A Stairway to Nowhere; how fitting as a symbol for Abbotsford.

Over the winter, on the corner of George Ferguson Way and the Mission Highway a mysterious structure has slowly been rising. Once it became obvious that it was a stairway people began to wonder: 1) why build the stairs first? 2) when does the foundation and structure get built and what is it to be?

When the dirt was mounded around the stairway and covered with sod and the fence moved tightly around the stairway it became obvious that what it was in fact a Stairway to Nowhere. The addition of the sign giving this monument the appearance of being the entrance to a housing development made clear its association with Abbotsford.

I find it unbelievably ironic just how appropriate this stairway is as a symbol of Abbotsford.

A fence surrounds it to exclude people, to have them pass by to somewhere more friendly and welcoming. A fence lest those in need of rest and respite should choose to stop and seek refuge rather than moving along.

No foundation, no structure just the empty promise of a stairway going nowhere. One could not describe Abbotsford more succinctly.

No structure of thought or planning to provide leadership to effectively and efficiently govern Abbotsford. No foundation of common sense, compassion and the consideration of citizen’s needs and priorities. Just an endless rise built of empty promises.

A Stairway to Nowhere: one would be hard pressed to better sum up the current state of affairs in Abbotsford. This Stairway to Nowhere is truly Irony personified.

The little ditty they sing on that commercial about bankers always having their hands in your pocket came to mind as I read the sign at Abbotsford Recreation Center about fee increases.

And no, it was not the fact that they were charging we citizens more to use the facility on the same day they were cancelling or cutting back access and services.It is that I have lived in Abbotsford for nigh on two decades, lived through and paid many fee increases, which in all those prior years took effect on September 1.

Why was the effective date moved up this year?

The only explanation I can think of is that the city coffers have been drained so empty by Plan A, that even the modest extra cash flow from this early fee increase is desperately needed by the city.I am afraid to ask how long it will be before we face quarterly fee increases or inventive new fees.

With quarterly increases the city can claim: “See, we only put your fees up 2.5%!” or disingenuously ask “What are you implying, what do you mean that is over 10% increase for the entire year?

”Just think, if council was to do tax increases on a quarterly basis they could claim taxes only went up 4% this quarter year.And this is why that little ditty is running through my head.

♪♪ …hands in your pockets …♪♪♪♪