“ We’re just bleeding,” said Councillor John Smith.

Please……bleeding is what happens when you knick yourself shaving, when you slice open your jugular you are Haemorrhaging.

When Council’s desperate, no price to high to to avoid the embarrassment of having an arena with no hockey team, added the Heat to the fiasco that was (and is) the Great White Elephant (AKA the Abbotsford Entertainment and Sports Complex), Council sliced open the City’s financial jugular.

The debacle thus created has caused the City to haemorrhage – not bleed – millions, multimillions, of dollars every year down the twin financial black holes of the Abbotsford Heat and the AESC.

And suddenly after three years of ever increasing multimillion dollar losses it is “This just dismays me.” and “We have to deal with this issue. It’s killing us.”

A pity Councillors chose to ignore and run roughshod over those who dared question the divorced from reality assumptions, promises and numbers Councillors sold to taxpayers. If you look at what the ‘naysayers’ were saying, the current financial quagmire is what the ‘naysayers’ predicted would happen.

Mayor Banman’s statements on this matter do show he fits right in at City Hall. Only in Abbotsford City Hall would those nasty ‘naysayers’ who dared predict the City of Abbotsford would haemorrhage tens of millions of dollars, be used to obscure that it was Councillor’s egos that brought about the Heat/AESC financial debacle.

“There are solutions but moaning and groaning and crying about it won’t make it better,” said Banman.

“ Moaning and groaning” Mayor Banman?

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” George Santayana Reason in Common Sense (volume one of the five-volume Life of Reason)

It behoves us all Mayor Banman, to remember that the Heat were City Council’s “solution” to an empty Arena and that Council’s ‘solution’, in addition to the multimillion dollar yearly direct subsidies to the Heat, drains yearly multi-million dollar operating losses for the arena out of the City treasury and taxpayer’s wallets.

Remember because taxpayers and the City cannot afford another Council solution to the issue of the Heat that drains millions of dollars more out of the taxpayers’ pockets year after year.

“There are solutions….” The accuracy of the financial forecasting by the ‘naysayers’ on the cost to taxpayers of both the AESC and the Heat suggests a solid understanding of the fiscal and marketing realities of the Heat and the ASEC.

An understanding in alignment with that of the ownership group of the Heat: the only solution to losses incurred by the Heat is to have someone with deep pockets – currently the taxpayers of Abbotsford – on the hook to cover the losses.

It is clear Heat ownership saw nothing millions of dollars of red ink in having the Heat playing in Abbotsford since the ownership of the Heat would not purchase and move the team to Abbotsford without City Council’s agreement to cover the losses for a decade.

As to the likelihood of City Hall finding a way to stem the multimillion dollar haemorrhaging……. I would not consider a nearly 50% [(3905 – 2653)/2653 = 47%] increase in per game attendance to be: “A relatively small number of new fans were needed to secure the franchise success,” he (Mayor Banman) added.

Additionally Mayor Banman’s 3905 fans per game as break even requires an average price in of $38 per seat. Given that the most expensive seats are now only $42 and that tickets can be had for $15…..3905 is low.

He (Mayor Banman) also said ” Critics need to accept the arena and Heat supply fees are done deals and join efforts to solve the problem.”

I, and other ratepayers, are highly motivated to solve the problem

Which is why we support going to court and having the agreement with the Heat declared illegal (which it is) and therefore void, putting a stop to multimillions of dollars flowing out of taxpayers’ pockets into the pockets of Heat ownership.

Staff and politicians may not find this to be a welcome solution [in light of the fact that while protected from the consequences of incompetent actions, the consequences of illegal acts are a different matter], but for taxpayers it would end the haemorrhaging of taxpayer dollars.