You expect the police to speed and drive badly on patrol, after all it is the public they issue traffic tickets to in “protecting the public from bad drivers”, not their fellow officers.

Apparently this double standard applies to the photographic arts as well when it comes to police versus public allowable behaviours.

It is, in the eyes of the Abbotsford Police Department (APD), perfectly fitting for the APD to surreptitiously snap clandestine pictures of citizens for no justifiable reason.

Personally, I hadn’t realized the Charter of Rights and Freedoms together with the privacy laws were not the Law or at least the laws enforced in Abbotsford.

It is not, in the eyes of the APD, perfectly fitting for citizens to photograph ADP officers as they work their duty tour. Should you be as bold as to video the APD, you will quickly find APD officers in your face demanding your camera as one abbotsford resident found out recently.

Notwithstanding the fact your right to video on duty APD officers would, outside the boundaries of Abbotsford, be protected under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Moreover, videoing on duty APD officers would appear to be totally legal under the privacy laws.

So these days in Abbotsford, the police can ignore the public’s Charter rights, disregard privacy laws and deny the public the right to exercise their rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Makes one pine for the good old days, when speeding and bad driving were the only double standard the APD exercised, eh?

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??