Columns: George Peary Should Just Buy The Abbotsford News And The Abbotsford Heat Instead Of Using Their Expensive Installment Plans

By Mike Archer. There is a distinct trend developing in the way the City of Abbotsford deals with political issues and hot potatoes. It would be humourous if it’d didn’t reveal so much about the paternalistic and inept leadership at City Hall.

Since it is impossible for any city official or politician to admit they either don’t know what they’re talking about or that they made a terrible mistake, they rely on advertising dollars to get their version of events properly covered in the local media.

This was they can keep residents asleep in the certain knowledge that higher taxes and lower services is simply another way of saying ‘contentment.’

The news cycle in Abbotsford:
1. Citizens (naysayers) and organizations like the Abbotsford Ratepayers Association (ARA) and Abbotsford Today raise questions and problems with the way city officials and politicians are handling issues of importance to Abbotsford taxpayers
2. City officials and politicians are interviewed in the Abbotsford News calling the citizens, the ARA and Abbotsford Today (though never by name) names and assuring residents there’s nothing to worry about
3. Predictions made by the naysayers, the ARA and Abbotsford Today turn out to be true after all
4. City officials and politicians are interviewed in the Abbotsford News calling the citizens, the ARA and Abbotsford Today names and assuring residents there’s nothing to worry about
5. Residents start complaining to City Hall that what they’re being told is hooey






What Do You Think?

Why doesn’t the City of Abbotsford stop all the pretence? Instead of buying a hockey on the long term payment plan, and buying a newspaper on the same long term payment plan, why not buy the hockey team and the newspaper outright.

It will achieve the same objectives and cost the taxpayers an awful lot less.

6. City officials and politicians are interviewed in the Abbotsford News calling the citizens, the ARA and Abbotsford Today names and assuring residents there’s nothing to worry about
7. Things get worse and The Abbotsford News tells residents the crisis, which seems to have crept up on city officials and politicians out of the blue, will cost taxpayers more money than expected and services will have to be reduced
8. Residents complain
9. City officials and politicians are interviewed in the Abbotsford News calling the citizens, the ARA and Abbotsford Today names and assuring residents there’s nothing to worry about

In the Saturday Abbotsford News City Manager Frank Pizzuto got a top of the page spot for his letter to the editor reassuring eveyone that the whole water shortage thing is a tempest in a teapot and outlining all the things the City is doing to solve the issue.

Basically, it turns out taxpayers will have to pay more to use less and the City is going to borrow lots of money in a few years to solve the issue – money you’ll have to pay back through higher taxes.

This was followed by a news story from Mayor George Peary in which he explained that he had misspoken when he had claimed the City wouldn’t have to hold a referendum in order to borrow the money for the new water supply.

The law, it turns out, protects taxpayers from politicians who want to borrow more than $50 million at one go. The law was put in place to protect taxpayers from profligate spenders on city councils who might push their municipalities into large enough long-term debts that they would face bankruptcy.

Oops.

Case Study: Abbotsford’s Water Shortage

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Back in 2005 when City councillors were spending hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars in the local newspapers to convince residents we should spend the surplus in town coffers and an additional $50 Million on a new hockey rink and museum, the ARA and many others argued that, without a proper business plan in place and a hockey team on board that would fill the arena, it made more sense to spend our money on things like the looming water shortage, the much needed upgrades to the sewage treatment plant and roads – basic infrastructure.

City councillors and staff pilloried their critics, called them names like ‘naysayer’ bullied their way forward building the now infamous Abbotsford Entertainment and Sports Centre (AESC) – way over budget and way past schedule – and built the Reach Museum and Art Gallery.

The newspapers devoted their time to printing whatever the City told them too, telling citizens all was well swallowing hook, line and sinker statements like “On Time and On Schedule” from City minions like Jay Teichroeb and passing all the good news on to their readers while continuing to pocket hundreds of thousands of dollars of municipal advertising.

When the ARA suggested the City should finish the AESC and leave it empty until a good deal could be struck with a hockey team that made sense and would be able to survive financially Mayor Peary made his now famous statement in the Abbotsford News, “It’s hard to take these people seriously.”

That was followed by an arrogant editorial in the News by Andrew Holota telling citizens they were lucky to have him and award-winning newspapers like The News around to sift through the information about municipal politics before letting things be published, thereby protecting their readers from information people like him deemed unimportant or silly.

In the end neither project has been successful. The AESC has been sitting empty (except for paid staff) for three months and both are sucking money out of city coffers on a daily basis. The City has had to provide a 10-year revenue guarantee to the owners of the hockey team just to keep them afloat in the face of lagging attendance figures.

Warnings in the old Abbotsford Post and on Abbotsford Today about the water supply shortage and the complete lack of funds to deal with it were dismissed as the incoherent ramblings of the naysayers and assurances were made by politicians and Abbotsford News writers that all was well.

This summer Abbotsford Today once again raised the issue as the City told us we had to turn off our taps and stop using the water we pay for in order to let the City water its sports fields and protect us against fire.

After citizens began bothering their councillors and councillors began asking staff what to say, the Abbotsford News discovered the story and has been running a whole series of ‘the City is doing something about the water shortage’ stories which, when summed up, amount to this:

Water Supply Shortage

1. We don’t have enough water to allow residents to use it as they see fit
2. We are going to have to pay more for the privilege of not being able to use the water we pay for
3. We’re going to have to use less water
4. We’re going to need to borrow money and ask the federal and provincial governments for money to solve the problem
5. Oh … and this is all going to cost you more.

So relax. Everything is fine. Sitting in the Million dollar Friendship Garden or the white elephant on King Road taxpayers can enjoy the fruits of their labour and dream of the increases in taxes we can expect to pay off the additional funds we’re going to have to borrow over the next few years in order to use less water.

Why doesn’t the City of Abbotsford stop all the pretense? Instead of buying a hockey on the long term payment plan, and buying a newspaper on the long term advertising plan, why not buy the hockey team and the newspaper outright. It will achieve the same objectives and cost the taxpayers an awful lot less.