The longest sitting current council member speaks of people saying to him they want:

1) Keep my city safe

2) Spend my money wisely

3) Keep taxes as low as possible

4) Keep things transparent.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm?

Property crime is rampant, people are gunned down, gangs operate in the city … doesn’t sound as if this city has been kept safe.

According to Rob Isaac, manager of wastewater, $21.5 million of needed infrastructure had to be deferred until after 2010 because of lack of funds. Council built an unneeded arena and deferred needed sewer infrastructure. That is not spending money wisely.

Plan A, the friendship garden complete with six foot fence – doesn’t sound to friendly, the Centennial Pool tank fiasco, etc. Council spends money as if taxpayers have bottomless pockets with the result that Abbotsford not only ranks #1 in the lower mainland for the highest taxes, but is the highest by several percentage points. This is not keeping taxes as low as possible.

Novembers Abbotsford Today speaks of the costs of Plan A having risen over $120 million, quite different than councils claims. Abbotsford Today could not be more specific since the city refuses to say how much they have spent to date or the bills still outstanding. A Freedom of Information request was needed to find out the monies spent promoting Plan A. This is not transparency.

– did not keep the city safe
– did not spend wisely
– did not keep taxes as low as possible
– did not provide transparency, but did work to keep information from the public.

At 0 – 4 after decades on council one must admire his gall, but not the disrespect, in running again after failing term after term to deliver on a single point people have stated are important.

A frightening level of ignorance (and you can take ignorance both ways for meaning) was demonstrated at Monday night’s all candidates meeting at UFV about the social problems of homelessness, addiction, mental health, recovery and wellness, poverty, affordable housing and to a degree crime.

“We cannot build 50 units of housing in one place, we have to break them up into smaller units, spread them all out and check to make sure the police can handle, have plans to handle, all the extra crime that will occur because of these houses/people being located in the area.”

Statements along these lines made clear the failure of those making these and similar statements to have become informed on the reality and extent of the affordable housing crisis and other social problems in our city, displaying a woeful lack of basic awareness and knowledge on these issues.

The statements also demonstrate an unacceptable level of blind prejudice.

Admittedly my reaction is influenced by the insult given to myself and many others I know in those sweeping, ignorant statements.

Let me say again that I have been in and may find myself again, given my precarious one financial hiccup from homelessness situation, in need of this type of affordable, supportive housing. Supportive since falling out of your home is a traumatic experience.

I am also dismayed at the willingness to make judgments and sweeping demeaning, prejudicial statements concerning housing when nobody knows what kind of housing or tenants we are speaking of. Bad enough to fail to inform yourself on what are major issues facing the city, but to be unable to recognize a situation where there is no information at this time to make a decision on….

I have been involved in housing and other social issues in this city for years; indeed I have personal experience with the affordable housing issues having been scrambling at this time last year to find safe, healthy affordable housing.
With my experience and expertise I have no clue what type of housing we are talking about building with the BC Housing money or what organization (or organizations) will be involved in building and running the housing.

We won’t know until proposals are submitted to the city about what will be built and who will be the tenants.

I believe that as a member of city council I should know what I am making a decision about and what the facts are before I make a judgment and decide what course of action to pursue.

I just find that decisions I make tend to work out much better when I am informed about the issue or matter at hand and actually know what I am talking about.

The only part of this matter on which we can speak is about the monies that are or will be attached to each of the projects for supportive services.

While I am far healthier mentally and as a person than I have ever been in my life and so cannot regret the journey that brought me to this state of health and wellness I faced far more of a struggle to achieve that wellness than I needed to or should have faced. Indeed I admit that luck was a factor in my journey to balance and wellness. Luck should not be the factor that determines recovery or whether you have a high quality of life.

Far to many people are going to suffer because the support they need to prosper and be housed does not exist. The BC Housing buildings come with funding for this needed support.

The type of support needed is the same in a 50 unit building or a 5 unit building. The difference is that building 10 smaller 5 unit buildings will result in a cost 10 times as much to provide the needed level of support services for each building. Where do they suggest we get the extra $5,850,000 per year for the next 30 years?

Then there was the mayoralty candidate who stated they were against building any more housing for the homeless, that we already had too much homeless housing.

This will certainly be news to the hundreds of people who are currently homeless on the streets of Abbotsford. I am sure they will be as surprised as I was to hear that rather than a shortage of safe, healthy affordable housing Abbotsford has to much of that type of housing.

I am sure this surplus will be a relief to the increasing numbers of seniors, families, women and children finding themselves homeless because they cannot afford the cost of housing, of living in Abbotsford.

Or was the real meaning of the statement about no more housing that they wanted to ignore these people and leave them suffering homelessness?

We all know how well ignoring these social issues and problems worked out to this point.

As much as we all may want the statement made by one of the candidates that “these are complex problems but the solution is simple” to be true, it is not. The reason that these problems have grow year after year is that governments were searching for a simple solution that did not exist, rather than facing reality and doing what was necessary to begin addressing and reducing these social problems and their related societal costs (e.g. property crime).

The only thing that chasing a nonexistent simple solution will do is waste time and money, while allowing these social ills to continue to grow and worsen.

The thought of an alternate financial reality that exists only for our current city councillors crossed my mind at the UFV all-candidates meeting.

First it was one current councillor telling me I did not need to spend any money on filing Freedom of Information requests to find out what the actual costs of Plan A are. I could save my money because he could tell me the total cost for Plan A and that was $85 million. City Hall has already admitted to additional costs of $23 million for Plan A. Information leaking out of City Hall indicates that the costs have soared beyond the admitted to cost over budget.

Sorry, I still want to know the actual monies spent on Plan A since clearly, by the city’s own admission, the costs exceed $85 million. What does it say about the openness and veracity of financial claims by councillors that one is still sticking to the original $85 million claimed cost – even when we know it is at a minimum $23 million higher and have realistic reasons to believe it is higher than that?

Just as an aside: what does it say that citizen’s best hope for accurate and timely financial information is leaks and rumours?

Then there was the councillor insisting that Abbotsford’s property taxes are 4th lowest in BC and waving a piece of paper as proof of this. My typing “the moon is made on green cheese” and waving it around does not make the moon made of green cheese.

I say this because when I go to the websites cited by Vince Dimanno president of the ratepayers association (Provincial Government, InvestBC, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, and numbers created by the City Finance Manager from the Township of Langley) I find that the numbers show Abbotsford having not only the highest taxes in the region but the highest by to many percentage points.

Obviously there is evidence which raises reasonable doubt about the claim by council concerning how Abbotsford compares to other communities in the region.

Given this kind of behaviour and record when it comes to the accuracy of statements made on financial matters by council and/or councillors is it any reason so many have no trust for statements and claims made by council?

How could any reasonable citizen, given this type of behaviour, not be demanding more transparency, openness, information and input on financial matters?

Citizens have the need and the right to be given a detailed report on how their money was budgeted to be spent compared to how it was spent. That way citizens can clearly determine what effect large unbudgeted expenditures such as the $500,000+ on the cement puddle at the library aka friendship garden have on other city services. In choosing to spend that $500,000+ on the cement puddle what did not get done that was suppose to be done in order to build the cement puddle.

Another aside: does anyone else find it a little strange to be building a 6 foot high fence around something called a “friendship garden”? Still I suppose the wall will provide privacy for the homeless who can certainly us a tub (pond) and shower (artificial waterfall) to improve personal hygiene.

As to costs associated with determining this information for a Freedom of Information request it should be $0.

The city should know what it has spent to date on Plan A and when finished should what the total expenditures were.

The city should know, should be keeping track of, how the money it has spent to date or the totals of monies spent in the fiscal year compare to how it was budgeted to be spent.

If the city does not know these basic facts about how it is spending or has spent taxpayers money then we as taxpayers have a serious problem and need to undertake a thorough housecleaning and hire competent financial people.

Further taxpayers should not have to be filing Freedom of Information requests to get this information. Taxpayers are paying the bills, they have the right to know how their money is being spent or how it is being misspent.