Contrary to City council and staff accusations I am neither a naysayer nor a negative person.

It is that I hold myself to a standard of excellence and expect of others a job well done. I cannot abide a half-assed effort such as the one City senior staff and council made on Plan A.

Below is what I demanded that the City do before asking my agreement on their plans and the outcome when another Municipality did the work I demanded of Abbotsford senior staff and council. You judge the outcomes.

I felt it was necessary, that as part of my program of mental health and self-improvement, to reflect upon how I behaved and what I had learned over the past year before setting any goals for 2007. Since Plan A was only a month ago I decided to start my year in review there.

I asked myself if my objections, questions or position on the matter were reasonable since council, senior city staff, people conducting commerce and people laying claim to representing various groups of citizens acted as though it was heretical to question the dictates and decisions delivered to the serfs, I mean taxpayers, from the rulers in their castle, I mean city hall.

What I asked about and wanted the City to provide before I would consider supporting a proposed facility was:

1) I wanted a set of architectural and engineering drawings in order to determine exactly what would be built.
2) I wanted a business plan setting out projected revenues, expenses (all expenses) and deficits. As part of the business plan I wanted to know anticipated users and usage to evaluate how realistic the financial projections were. This would also demonstrate the need for and priority of any facility.
3) For facilities such as an arena I wanted to know who the major tenant would be, permitting the building to be planned to match the actual need and avoid costly overbuilding of the facility. Also avoiding ending up with an expensive white elephant that would be a money devouring black hole.
4) I wanted to explore all possible funding avenues, being ready to adapt and change the building plans to access government $$$. I also wanted to explore private participation in the funding of the projects – whether sponsorship or partnership.
5) I wanted to explore private participation to take advantage of expertise and solid fiscal management practices.

For having the audacity to suggest applying the good governance and financial practices any BCom, Chartered Accountant or businessperson would insist on I, and others of like mind, were vilified as nay saying, negative people. It was asserted none of these actions were needed or would be of any benefit to Abbotsford’s taxpayers and their pocketbooks. During those November days I might have begun to question myself, except that in looking around at those I was standing with – I realized I was onside with the people of reason and intelligent decision making processes.

The questions of heresy and what, if any effect the City having done the homework required to answer my questions would have had looked to go unanswered for years. Then like an early Christmas present, a huge and much appreciated present, Langley made their arena/recreation center announcement.

By doing their homework Langley’s city staff and council will build an arena and recreation center for a net cost of $15 million. Abbotsford’s city staff and council are building an arena and recreation center that will only cost Abbotsford’s taxpayers $75 million. It would appear that Abbotsford’s city staff and council refusal to address my questions and use basic common sense will cost the taxpayer’s an extra $60 million. Chump change, it would seem, to this city staff and council.

You can count an a few things happening in the New Year. Senior city staff and council will have all kinds of excuses for why addressing the questions I and other stopplana.com supporters asked would not have had similar massive savings for Abbotsford’s taxpayers. They will also have excuses for why it was that Abbotsford chased a hockey team out of the City then decided to build an arena, while Langley agreed to build an arena after they had a hockey team – the same one chased out of Abbotsford. You can be sure that they will also have some kind of unsatisfactory explanation that no, the reason they could guarantee the quoted price of $75 million for arena and recreation complex was not that it should only cost the $45 million total that Langley will pay for arena and recreation center. You can count on council and city staff to have many excuses as to why they cannot learn anything from Langley and why re-examining the Abbotsford projects in light of Langley’s behaviour is a “waste of time”. They also can be counted on to insist on rushing ahead while making all kinds of excuses as to why such haste is necessary, that it would only waste time to look for grants and/or private sponsorships or participation.

You can be positive that Langley’s citizens would refuse to trade their senior city staff and council for ours, even if we offered to throw in $50 million. You can also be absolutely certain that even at a cost of $50 million the trade of senior staff and council would be a great deal for the citizens and future of Abbotsford.

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.