Category Archives: This is so Stupid

‘Right Location’

There is no ‘Right location’; I would even be leery of suggesting that a ‘best location’ exists.

There are good locations and bad locations; locations that have good points and bad points, strengths and weaknesses, advantages and drawbacks.

But a ‘Right location’ for Abbotsford Community Services proposed first stage housing does not exist, and to pursue the ‘Right location’ is to chase a mirage.

The only actual existence the ‘Right location’ has is in the context of the ‘Right location’ being a location anywhere Not In My Back Yard.

“I am not against [insert name of project under discussion] it is just this is not the ‘Right location’ for __________, sounds so much more politically correct and so much less egocentric than NIMBY.

It has been repeatedly stated that Abbotsford has a critical need for the proposed housing and that those who oppose the ACS proposal are not against this type of housing in the ‘Right location’ – said  ‘Right location’ being in somebody else’s back yard.

Which is why no doubt it has not been stated where this mythical ‘Right location’ is. Given the people in the stated ‘Right location’ would find (and support) that the proposed location behind ACS was the ‘Right location’

The truth is that if you choose any location in Abbotsford for the proposed housing, I can give you ten solid reasons that the location is not the ‘Right location’.

Abbotsford has a critical need for first stage housing – assuming the city and citizens want to pursue an approach to reducing the number of homeless on the streets that has been demonstrated to be effective.

An assumption I freely admit has a high probability of being wrong given the reaction by city council and citizens to the ACS proposal.

A reaction which provides no evidence of any desire to stop chasing the homeless around Abbotsford until……………what??….the homeless fall down a rabbit hole and join Alice in Wonderland?

An outcome which, sadly, is no more insane than council’s chasing of the homeless around Abbotsford year after year after year after year…………in the hope that this time something different will occur and the homeless will……….disappear?.

This Stinks.

The most recent steps on the path to this wickedness began about six days ago when City employees, as part of the city’s ongoing war on the homeless, stopped by a local homeless camp. The city truck brought along to cart off any belongings the homeless failed to rescue, contained plunder from prior stops at other homeless camps.

I was working on the words to speak, once again, about the utter pointlessness of trying to cleanse the city of the homeless when the city has failed [or been successful in denying] to provide a viable housing alternative to camping for the homeless, when the city employees and truck returned the next day.

And the next day, and the next day, and the next day………….

After being driven from spot to spot around Abbotsford like nuisance animals [think the rabbits at the University of Victoria] several Canadian citizens who unfortunately have found themselves members of Abbotsford’s homeless community, had come together at a common location.. Being together provided the ability to have someone to guard their belongings and prevent the city hitting the camp when no one was there to rescue belongings.

The location also provided access to people who would help maximize the belongings rescued from the city and has a sanctuary nearby to which any belongings rescued could be taken.

Hence the need for the city to return day after day after day after day………….

I decided not to write anything until revelation of the city’s next tactic, once frustration with the failure of the homeless to disappear drove the city to escalate to a new level.

Today [Tuesday June 4, 2013] the city’s frustration reached the exploding point .

 

I have, and have had, differences with the decisions of Abbotsford’s mayor and council and the consequences the decisions have had, the burdens they  imposed, on Abbotsford’s taxpayers.

Even so I would never have expected, would never have anticipated, Abbotsford’s mayor and council sinking so low.

The City did not sow the earth with salt. Instead the city sowed this patch of earth with a covering of chicken waste – AKA chicken shit.

What is the next step? Capturing the homeless and having the Abbotsford Police Department transport and release them in some non-Abbotsford locality?

And when the homeless find their way home, and Abbotsford is their home, will council decide to follow the University of Victoria’s example and cull them?

I am not sure that either option would necessarily be worse than the contempt, the depraved indifference, of using chicken shit as a weapon, a chemical weapon I suppose, against the homeless?

I know the spring of 2004 was nearly a decade ago but did nobody remember the need for a cull of 1.3 million birds on 42 infected properties.

Speaking of culls, why did nobody reconsider the use of chicken shit as a weapon in light of the 27.5% death rate in China’s current outbreak of bird flu? A flu transmitted to China’s citizens from China’s chickens?

I wonder how Fraser Health’s local Health Protection Office and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency will view Abbotsford’s  deployment of their chicken shit weapon?

Of more concern is the consequences of the city ignoring the fact that this noxious material was spread across [on] a major thoroughfare used by the homeless. As a consequence this material has been being tracked throughout Abbotsford since it was spread.

Given the ethical bankruptcy of this action and the callous disregard of negative health consequences the bylaw officers, bylaw manager and city manager have achieved a level of incompetence that demands their replacement.

With the need for a by-election to fill Simon Gibson’s council spot, it will not cost any more to replace the members of council responsible for this twisted action.

You ignore reality and keep acting without though for a long enough period of time and simple mathematical probabilities mean it is only a matter of time until you do something truly asinine.