Mr. Pizzuto’s state of the water supply letter raises several interesting points for consideration.
When council first proposed spending millions on installing individual household water meters, an astute citizen did the calculations and concluded that spending millions of dollars on water meters instead of investing the money in water delivery infrastructure made no sense economically and concluded the reason council was so gung-ho to put in water meters was as the first step to large increases in what citizens were paying for water.
Of course council was quick to issue assurances and promises that they were installing the water meters only for the purpose of more efficiency in managing the water resources, citing a water leak that had gone undetected for months under the old system that would be caught much sooner with the new water meters in place. Council trotted out their favourite defence: those citizens questioning the installation of water meters were ‘naysayers’, didn’t know what they were talking about and council would not be using the new metering system to change water billing from once a year or using the meters to limit the volume of water citizens could use or to implement large increases in the cost of water to residents.
Given council’s repeated demonstration of its lack of economic sense or consideration of the effect council’s actions have on taxpayer’s pocketbooks the matter has stood unresolved – until now.
Mr Pizzuto’s letter speaks of “over a resident’s average water needs” and “should be able to do so without paying high-use premiums”. Taken together with statements out of city hall about billing changing to several times a year and at least 50% increases in what citizens are billed for water this is yet further proof, for those who needed more demonstrated evidence, as to the worthlessness of assurances and promises made by Abbotsford City Council.
“growth pays for itself” through Development Cost Charges (DCCs); while that is the theory behind the existence of Development Cost Charges, it is only true if a city uses the DCCs for infrastructure. When a city uses its Development Cost Charges as a funding source for day-to-day city operations, as Abbotsford’s city council does, who is paying for what (citizens or developers) becomes a matter of who is doing the accounting and how they do it.
It is the council practice of using Development Cost Charges to pay for day-to-day city operations and not strictly for infrastructure that is behind council’s desperate need to increase DCCs NOW. It is this desperate need that led to borrowing from Abbotsford’s future via the three year future tax holiday for developers who pony up DCCs now.
Given “Hence the watering restrictions that were implemented for July and August this year”; does anyone else finding it a little worrying that the city manager is seemingly unaware that water restrictions were imposed in Abbotsford beginning April 1st and not simply July and August, that it was the degree of the restrictions that was changed (or imposed) in July and August?
Just out of curiosity, while I agree that designing a water system based on one or two days of peak demand is neither financially or environmentally responsible, if we are speaking of only one or two days why were restrictions in place from April 1st and then tightened for 2 months. If we are speaking of only 1 or 2 days should not the length of watering restrictions be in terms of days and not months?
On the matter of the 2005 report and Mr. Pizzuto’s (and council’s) assertion that “The review showed that we would need to develop an interim source of water before our new major supply could be brought into service in 2015 – the target date for our new Stave Lake water supply to become active.”
Only if you are spendthrift and improvident.
For prudent and financially responsible managers the report says that the new Stave Lake water needs to be brought on line before the 2015 target date in order to avoid the risk of water shortages and the increased costs to taxpayers through the need to develop expensive interim sources such as the Bevan Wells.
By moving up the date for bringing the new water supply on line, millions of dollars in savings would have been realized by eliminating the need for interim sources of water; the new water supply would be on line well before the city was in danger of running out of water or the need for strict water use rationing occurred; you avoid worries/questions about possible contamination in the Bevan Wells because of Mill Lakes industrial use history or of any possible negative effects on the jewel that is Mill Lake and it’s water table from pumping millions of litres of water out of that water table from under Mill Lake.
For the prudent and financially responsible having this report in hand in 2005 is a reason to focus on new water supply infrastructure.
It is only for the spendthrift and improvident that having this report in hand in 2005 means the need to spend millions on interim band-aid sources of water in order to put off investing in new water supply infrastructure so you can build ego projects with their massive cost overruns, need for millions of dollars in yearly subsidies and council’s final ego project – subsidizing the purchase of a professional hockey team for those privileged citizens favoured by Abbotsford city council.
After all as Mr. Pizzuto writes, Abbotsford has plenty of water – as long as we don’t use more than we have.
Those citizens who had hoped that Mr. Pizzuto’s arrival as city manager would result in more prudent and financially responsible decision making and behaviour must be disappointed by this evidence that council found, not prudence and fiscal acumen buta city manager in tune with ‘Abbotsford city council think’.
Still, while not necessarily helpful, Mr. Pizzuto’s letter – trepidation inducing and disheartening as it may be – is informative