Category Archives: Municipal

Consider, Federal, Homeless, Municipal, Provincial

The Wisdom of Youth.

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One of the most telling comments on homelessness that came out of Philip Mangano’s visit to Abbotsford was from someone not even in attendance.

In speaking to a planner I know after hearing Mr. Mangano’s experiences in successfully beginning to end homelessness, she related the wisdom passed on to her by her eight year old daughter. Previous to Mr. Mangano’s visit she, the planner that is, had been involved in the FVRD mayor’s forum on homelessness held about a year ago in Chilliwack. In explaining the trip to Abbotsford her daughter was informed we would be talking about homelessness.

Her daughter was amazed. Almost a year latter and we were still talking about homelessness – having taken no action to end the disgrace of homelessness. Year after year we keep talking and wringing our hands; year after year homelessness keeps growing.

Perhaps it is time we take the young lady’s advice: shut up, commit our will and ourselves to ending homelessness and putting our resources where our rhetoric is.

Municipal

Hey, it is not coming out of my pocket….

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What, Abbotsford City Hall felt it had not wasted enough tax dollars on their slick, misleading advertising campaign to sell the imaginary benefits of Plan A? One would have thought $140,000 was enough to waste. I know City Hall claimed to have squandered only $40,000 tax dollars on Plan A advertising, they in fact spent 350% of that amount or $140,000.

Perhaps to City Hall $100,000 tax dollars is considered pocket change but in the real world, where it comes out of people’s pockets, it is a noteworthy amount. Just as in the real world calling it “communications” does not change the reality that it is advertising.

Reality – what a concept. If only we could introduce Abbotsford City Hall to the concept we could save untold $$$ and get some services for our tax dollars.

From City Hall’s advertisement, and an ad is an ad even if City Hall labels it a letter, at City Hall the positive economic impact is already evident. In the real world there will be no economic benefits from a Hotel on Pauline Street because the developer has to go with vastly less economically beneficial residential housing to avoid the huge increases in development charges needed to pay for Plan A. Perhaps someone should explain to City Hall just what an economic benefit is and that making claims of economic benefits does not make them exist – at least not in the real world beyond the walls of City Hall.

“Best possible hockey team”. I certainly hope that that best is far better than the demonstrated “best City Hall can do”. Only in the wacky world of Abbotsford City Hall would pursuit of a “best possible hockey team” be considered something positive to strive for. In other cities they go after the NHL or Major junior teams – in Abbotsford we are expected to happily settle for the “best possible”. Maybe City Hall feels that after all the years citizens have had to tolerate “best possible” business practices and behaviours from City Hall citizens should know better than to expect good or excellent from anything involving City Hall.

And while this comment may seem a little cruel, if the Cultural Centre is the best the arts and heritage community can produce, what these communities need for vibrant, living, engaging substance and value has nothing to do with, nor will it be solved by, bricks and mortar.

Finally, I cannot help but note that nowhere in the letter does mayor, council or City Hall speak to the most important point they have refused to address since the debate on Plan A began – the need for their chosen sports facilities. I see no suffering caused by the lack of a city-owned basketball court or another city-owned arena. I do see the massive disruptions caused citizens and patrons at ARC by the lack of a pool to cover the ineptitude of City Hall’s actions on Centennial Pool. I see the Whalers having to consider the possibility of renting a pool in another community for competitions –communities having many more (indoor and outdoor) pools, not population, than Abbotsford.

But why build what Abbotsford needs rather than what City Hall wants to build? That would be sensible, and Common Sense is demonstrably in as short supply at City Hall as Reality.

Homeless, Municipal

Like a dog chasing its tail ….

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Crime-ridden Clearbrook issued a call for an interesting variation of the NIMBY syndrome, calling on the City of Abbotsford to solve their crime problems by driving this mayhem into other neighbourhoods. With neighbours like that …

Although one can see why residents advocate this course of action, since many of Clearbrook’s current crime problems arise as a result of actions by the Downtown Business Association (DBA), it remains a very un-neighbourly way to behave and ultimately self-defeating.

While the previous paragraphs have a certain tongue-in-cheek component, at their core is a solid truth. The police are not a solution, clearly demonstrated by Clearbrook’s current difficulties. Months ago, when the DBA was using the police to drive many of the homeless out of the downtown area and away from their survival support systems, I pointed out all they were really doing was being bad neighbours, inflicting their problems on their neighbours throughout the city.

It is currently Clearbrook’s misfortune and massive headache that they are the victims of the major portion of the fallout of the Downtown Abbotsford Businesses behaviour. That the calamity currently befalling Clearbrook is thanks to the DBA, is no excuse to solve Clearbrook’s problems by inflicting them on another neighbourhood. All the police would do is chase the problem out of Clearbrook into someone else’s backyard – nice for Clearbrook, hard on the sacrificial neighbourhood.

The uncomfortable, perhaps even painful truth is that the only way to solve these problems, as opposed to just inflicting them on someone else, is to stop repeating what we have done over and over ad nauseum to no avail, and begin to act with thought, planning, deliberation and commitment to actually end the problems with housing and support services that have led to Clearbrook’s miseries.

It is not by accident that Clearbrook, with no social support such as the Food Bank or Salvation Army, is being laid waste by crime. Lacking any support the homeless and those living in poverty must in effect pillage the Clearbrook neighbourhood for their daily survival. We can either keep the homeless et al moving from neighbourhood to neighbourhood like a ravaging Mongol horde until they arrive back at their starting point in downtown old Abbotsford OR we can take intelligent actions.

Insanely keep doing the same thing over and over hoping for a different outcome this time OR think and act to end homelessness. Choose, although it does seem a pretty clear choice to this citizen.

Municipal

Secret Payments? Is that not a ….

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Out of their own mouths … the words of Abbotsford city staff and council as reported in The Post of May 11th, 2007:

………“Where did the $60,000 for advertising come from?” she (Elizabeth Gray) demand.

Coun. Bruce Beck responded to Gray saying, “Most of the money spent on advertising for Plan A was not the glitzy ads people saw in the papers it was spent on the legally required notification of polling station location and times.”
Beck sought support for his statement by asking Dan Botrill, Abbotsford’s director of corporate services; “The majority of the $40,000 we allocated to advertising for Plan A was, in fact, for statutory advertising wasn’t it?”
Botrill contradicted Beck saying only $15,000 of the $40,000 allocated by the city for advertising was spent on statutory advertising.
Gray then stated, “I’m talking about the $60,000 from private donations.”
Botrill responded, “I know we received some donations. I’m not sure we can make that public. I’ll investigate and get back to you”.
Let us overlook the fact that this exchange between citizen and City Hall shows that City Hall continues to attempt to provide misleading information and to not answering citizens questions (the $60,000 donations) by giving an answer they want ($40,000 of city money), however misleading and untrue that answer may be.
I direct your attention to is City Hall’s continued refusal to provide citizens information on who, what, when, where and why of the $60,000 donated to the Plan A campaign.
Are not secret donations made to City Hall by secret contributors, not properly accounted for Bribery?
Municipal

More taxes needed?

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Regarding the Abbotsford News headline “Mountain part of city by July?”
April 26 2007. The story is misleading readers and should be a major concern of tax paying residents.
Area H would represent aprox 1/5 the land mass of the municipality, taxpayers of the city should be aware the cost to service and govern this land is much more than the one time grant of $250,000 from the province, who admits this will be used to coordinate the conversion of bylaws between the FVRD and Abbotsford. There has been a further $250,000 offer towards a fire hall. This is peanuts considering the long term costs that will be passed to the people. $250,000 will not even buy a fire truck let alone a fire hall. City council would be foolish to accept this burden.
The 4 inch by 5inch ad placed in the Abbotsford news giving notice to the residents can hardly be considered fair notice to the taxpayers. I see why there hasn’t been much public awareness. This small map hardly reflects the fact that this is 10,000 acres. Most would see the ad on the “city page” as just another development proposal.
The question mark at the end of the headline suggests there are many unanswered questions.
Does the city manager believe the residents are so naïve, this huge expansion of city boundaries “there will be no costs to them?”
“No more Public meetings?” The city has made 3 failed attempts to annex area H in the last 4 years and has not had any public meetings.
Why have all discussions at city hall been secret?
There is no business case or legitimate rational for this expansion to wit the last 3 failed proposals. Once full municipal taxes are collected from area H the city will stand to gain a whopping $58,000. Maybe enough to pay for garbage collection?
How about Fire hydrants, snow removal, Policing, Planning, Municipal water, Sewer, Natural gas?
Why does the city refuse to commit to continuing a Supreme Court of British Columbia lawsuit launched by the FVRD vs. HIGHLAND QUARRIES to protect the Clayburn Creek head waters and ground aquifer? According to this latest proposal the city will negotiate passed in soil removal fees, estimated to $60,000 when fully implemented indicating they do not want to stop gravel extraction in this sensitive water shed.
This, in effect will give license to mining companies to continue expansion adding more truck traffic to these rural residential roads, that have been declared by the Ministry of Transportation as “far from ideal, rutting and potholes will be more sever with additional truck traffic, there will be car/truck conflict, no shoulders, sections of the road will suffer major damage due to large trucks.” In 2002 The FVRD contracted a geotechnical assessment by Thurber Engineering of Vancouver. The report states “In our judgment North Sumas Road area hazards require attention and cannot be maintained properly without redesign and reconstruction” Portions of this road are unsafe even for rural residential traffic and are subject to continual failure.
I hope the good citizens of Abbotsford are prepared in my estimation to spend over $10 million to bring this road to a minimum rural residential road standards. Further, if gravel mining is to continue/expand there will need to be a commercial truck route built as identified in our community plan.
Who will Govern the Majestic Sumas Mountain Regional Park? I represent Area H on the FVRD Parks committee, Area service committee, Executive committee, just to name a few and it appears to me there is no possibility, of transferring this park to the GVRD as is the intention of the city. 18 months ago the city withdrew from the FVRD Parks relinquishing their seat at the table and giving up any opportunity to be involved in the decision making for the 3500 acre Sumas Mnt. Park stating they wished to save $80,000 per year. At that meeting, I conveyed my concerns that if they proceeded in this direction the requisition from the GVRD would increase by aprox. $160,000. This was denied by the mayor, however within six months the new GVRD parks requisition increased by more than $150,000 per year. How can this be called good planning to save money?
Be assured I have asked all of these questions and others repeatedly, with resolutions from the FVRD Board of Directors demanding the city clearly communicate its intentions with them, and the Director for Area H. To no avail, not even a phone call to discuss the needs of the local residents. This only touches on some of the real concerns however, space does not allow.
I suggest the taxpayers of Abbotsford take up the challenge of City Manager Gary Guthrie, in his words “Revolt.” 10% of the city’s registered voters need to sign a petition to get your council to bring this huge download from the province to a referendum. This will force them to discuss this in public, and explain how a 10,000 acre land grab fits within the 2004 Regional Growth Strategy, Imagine Abbotsford dialog, and address urban sprawl.
When a politician is waving the red flag with the right hand you should look to see what the left is up to! As Councilor Cadwell states “she was led down the garden path” so to are the ratepayers on the annexation of Area H. If the people demand accountability from their city officials, by gathering enough support for a referendum on “Area H” download, the ballot could possibly include a second vote on Plan A? We have until May 26.
Lastly, why are you mla,s not protecting you interests?

Respectfully, Keith Warrener Days 604- 614- 0144 Eves. 604- 855- 9961
Director, Area H, FVRD Email kwarrener@fvrd.bc.ca