This is a mayor and council who swore up and down they would not be helping subsidize the travel costs for AHL teams to travel to Abbotsford – and then proceeded to do exactly that. A mayor and council who maintain their willful blindness, insisting that it is the Heat who subsidize the visiting AHL teams travel costs and that the council’s multimillion dollar yearly subsidy of the Heat has nothing to do with the Heat’s ability to subsidize travel costs for visiting teams.

A mayor and council who had Global Spectrum act as their agent vis-à-vis the agreement between the city and the Heat in order to sidestep the provincial municipal statutes that prohibited this type of agreement. A prohibition intended to protect citizens by preventing municipal governments from putting the taxpayer on the hook for paying a potential liability such as the $73 million guarantee given the Heat ownership.

And when citizens questioned this action the mayor replied – so sue us; a mayor who berated Chilliwack’s mayor for grandstanding when she declined free Olympic tickets on the grounds of ethics.

With a municipal election next year, the mess, misery and financial woes council have afflicted upon the voters is it any surprise politicians would not want to put at risk political donations from businesses?

Given that if Mayor Peary and Councilor Smith had not voted in favour of the developer the developer’s proposal would have been defeated 4 – 3 rather than approved 4 – 5 (3 + Peary + Smith).

Why was anyone surprised that, even with the clear conflict of interest of having received political contributions from the developer, Mayor Peary and Councilor Smith voted in favour of the developer and the development?