Columns: How Stupid Do Frank Pizzuto And George Peary Think We Are?

UPDATED 02/09/11 – MORE COMMENTS RECEIVED – By Mike Archer. City Manager Frank Pizzuto, Mayor George Peary and his newspaper – The Abbotsford News – are now clearly operating on the assumption that Abbotsford taxpayers are absolute fools. [Click On Image For Full Story]
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Editor’s Note: This column was originally posted 18/05/11 and has been updated with comments received today (01/10/11). For the latest on ‘George Peary’s Deal’ please see Abbotsford News: Taxpayers Lost $1.3 Million On The Abbotsford Heat Last Year

Incompetence and Stupidity
First we were asked in a referendum for permission to borrow $55 Million towards the cost of building a hockey arena which ended up costing over $115 million.
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Then we were promised that the Abbotsford Entertainment and Sports Center would generate revenue for taxpayers – this despite the fact that the brain trust at City Hall went ahead and built the arena, using most of our reserves in the cost overruns and delays, without having an anchor tenant for the building.
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In desperation, City staff gave away the farm in order to attract the only professional hockey team in North America that would consider coming here by guaranteeing travel subsidies and covering the losses of the team just so the staff and politicians could save face and put some bums, any bums, in seats.
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Anybody who pointed out the rank incompetence and outright stupidity of public officials and politicians was accused by civil servants, councillors and The Abbotsford News of being naysayers, negative thinkers and virtually unpatriotic for questioning their intelligence and integrity.
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Now that the proverbial chickens have been coming home to roost, and the proverbial shit is hitting the fan, taxpayers have been treated like absolute ninnies by a a string of lies and buffoonery that is almost Shakespearean.
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Discrepancies Emerge
Last summer Mayor George Peary explained that the legal requirement for reporting the cost to taxpayers of The Abbotsford Heat as of July 1, 2010 would be missed by a bit. The figures were eventually released four months late in November 2010.
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According to Mayor George Peary and City Manager Frank Pizzuto that loss amounted to $450,637 – a long way from the profits we were promised but, as Pizzuto said at the time, the City along with the rich local Heat owners were busy building a business – apparently for Lane Sweeting, Barry Marsden, Ron McNeil, and Fred Strumpski – not the taxpayers of Abbotsford, even though it was our money they were using to build the business.
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On May 3, 2011, Abbotsford Today revealed that losses on the AESC last year were $3.4 Million not the $2.6 Million the City reported in The Abbotsford News. Four days later The News published a story quoting Pizzuto explaining away the discrepancy.
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Now Pizzuto has revealed, after repeated attempts by concerned citizens to get the information from City staff, that the taxpayers lost $1.2 Million on our investment in The Abbotsford Heat this year, not the $724,000 he and Peary earlier reported.
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Then Pizzuto had the gall to tell The News that, because the final Heat figures are not yet released, the deficit will likely change!
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Like all deficits in Abbotsford … of course it is likely to change. Based on last year’s track record, though the figures are due in July, who knows when we’ll see the ‘changed’ figures.
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Where Has Council Been?
And where has Abbotsford Council been through all of this skulduggery? Turns out they’ve been sitting there – front and centre – putting their hands up blindly in favour of things they clearly don’t understand it.
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Where have our pillars of the community stood on this issue as it has moved from a bad idea to a financial crisis that threatens to bury the taxpayers they represent in long term debt that is already the second highest in BC and tax increases that will likely never cease?
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Putting their hands up blindly in favour of things they clearly don’t understand.
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It is time for the farce to end. The Abbotsford News doesn’t know how to do its job. Printing whatever it is told to print by its masters at City Hall has made it a laughing stock in the community and eroded its ability to convince its declining readership to believe anything it tells them.
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George Peary Is Powerless
George Peary has proved a powerless spokesman for the people who pull his strings and an apologist for the swivel servants who have made a mess of this city’s finances.
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Frank Pizzuto, who was given a generous pay package and moving incentive, apparently based on his ability to turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse, has failed to convince us that anybody at city hall has a clue what they’re doing.
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City council, while giving themselves pay raises and permanent guarantees of further annual raises, without ever needing to ask taxpayers permission, has blissfully ignored their responsibility to act as good stewards of their fellow citizens’ money.
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Instead, the incompetence of a group of people who are generously paid not to make such egregious mistakes with other people’s money, has been allowed to exist, prosper and grow with the willing assistance of a media who either know not whereof they speak or simply don’t care.

Abbotsford Heat Ownership Group – Where All Your Money’s Going

In June of 2009 the members of the investors group were finally revealed.

Barry Marsden

Other than hotelier Lane Sweeting, owner of the Ramada Inn and Conference Centre, who has represented the group in public, and at whose hotel the visiting AHL team players stay when in town, the members of the group represent a variety of interests.

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The group includes:

- Lane Sweeting, Ramada Plaza & Conference Centre and Director of the Abbotsford Tourism Society (2007 – Secretary Treasurer)
- Barry Marsden, Chairman of Cascade Aerospace and The Conair Group
- Ron McNeil, founder of LMS Reinforcing Steel Group
- Fred Strumpski, real estate developer and Columbia Bible College donor (through the Fred and Ella Strumpski Foundation) and one-time board member of the Mennonite Historical Society of BC.

Ron McNeil (L) and LMS co-owner Ivan Harmatny(R)

Heat owner Lane Sweeting (artist's concept)

The group is said to also include other minor investors.

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Cover Art:

3 Comments

1. 

   justlynn

   May 20, 2011 at 1:45 pm

   The day that the Editor of the Abbotsford News (the major advertiser for the City of Abbotsford) frankly addresses the flawed decisions and actions of Abbotsford Mayor and Council in an unbiased manner is the day that we will see pigs fly. It is almost as if someone at this paper has a relationship with the privately owned hockey team that goes beyond mere journalism. Why does this paper continually spin the AHL Heat $1.65 million deficit as a positive “some day in the future” fantasy rather than the actual ongoing debacle? What is in it for the Editor and Publisher of the Abbotsford News other than advertising dollars?

   Reply
2. 

   Deceit in Drugs

   May 20, 2011 at 10:00 pm

   It is almost as if someone at this paper has a relationship
   with the privately owned hockey team that goes beyond mere
   journalism.”

   Well, when you think about connections and associations, it
   really does make one wonder.

   The Abbotsford News serve or served on and sponsor some of the
   same city organizations, which the Abbotsford Heat owners private
   companies sponsor or have sponsored for years, in the past.

   The Abbotsford News receives advertising not only from City Hall,
   but, the hockey team ownership group and the people associated with
   the hockeyteam ownership group, who are closely tied to past and present directors of the Abbotsford Chamber of Commerce via the various “key City committees” such as the Abbotsford Airport Authority, Economic Development Commision, Agriculture committee and Transportation commmittee.

   Two of the five members (two are silent partners) are no stranger to
   Abbotsford Municpal Politics.

   Barry Marsden served on the cities’ Abbotsford Airport Authority in 2002 $
   2003 along with Bob Bos (past president of A.D.B.A.), Darryl Horton (Abbots-
   Ford Development Corp.- presently serving on Abootsford’s Economic Develop-
   ment Commision) and Dave Batten ( presently – director – Abbotsford Airport
   Authority – 2011/12) Dr. Skip Bassford (past president of UFV,) Karen Matty
   (presently – member – Economic Development Commision – 2011/12) and Satvir
   Gill (Mgr.- HSBC – past Chamber director.)

   Lane Sweeting has served on the Abbotsford Tourism Society Board of
   directors from 2003 – middle of 2009, along with Jay Teichrob (City of
   Abbotsford, Manager of Economic Development/Plan A Committee staff member,)

   Tourism Abbotsford was given the responsibility of managing Tradex for the
   City of Abbotsford in 2004, when ownership was transferred to the city.

   Lane Sweeting is presently, chair, Finance on the Abbotsford Airport
   Authority, Board of Directors.

   The 2011/12 Airport Authority Board includes, Dave Holmberg, chair (recent campaign manager for Michael DeJong (B.C. Liberal candidate), Mayor George
   Peary(Council repres.,) Dianne Delves, vice-chair (Quantum Properties,
   developer) David Lane, chair, Goverance committee.

   The Abbotsford News is the official media sponsor for the Abbotsford Heat,
   while the Ramada Inn is the official hotel sponsor for the Abbotsford Heat
   hockey team and Domain 7 is the official logo designer of the Abbotsford
   Heat logo.

   Shawn Neumann (Secretary-treasurer of Envision) is the owner of Domain 7
   and he and Ken Baerg are the organizers of “Run for the Water,” which is
   sponsored, by The Abbotsford News and Envision.

   Ken Baerg served on the cities’ Economic Development Commision 2009/10
   and 2010/11, until he was hired on as Economic development director, by
   the City of Abbotsford’s, Economic Development Department about one month,
   ago.

   The Abbotsford News, past publisher, Josh Connor, previously served on
   the Spirt of B.C. board of directors, along with Christine Wiebe,
   Spirt of B.C. chairwoman, Alvin Epp, Abbotsford Chamber of Commerce,
   Vice President, Juanita Gosling, Tourism Abbotsford, Milt Walker, B.C.
   Summer Games, president and past councillor, Christina Caldwell and
   appointees, Mayor George Ferguson, School district #34, Shirley Wilson,
   and Abbotsford Economic Development Manager, Jay Teichrob.

   Spirit of B.C. was listed in documents provided to The Post under a
   Freedom of Information request as having contributed $2800.00 to the
   city in the form of Plan A sponsorship.

   The Abbotsford News has allowed itself to be put into a position,
   whereby, it can reap the advertising dollars from the select few,
   who really control the “purse strings” in this city ( and it sure is
   not Mayor and Council,) and, also, control the information, which comes
   out of City Hall, via the Abbotsford News.

   Reporting the “flawed decisions and actions of Mayor and Council”
   in an unbiased manner has been traded for advertising dollars and
   in turn, the important issues facing the residents in the City of
   Abbotsford is being compromised for the “almighty buck.”

   Mayor and council, also, have allowed those, who “pull the purse
   strings” to dictate their decisions and actions.

   The Abbotsford Sports & Entertainment Centre and Abbotsford Heat
   Hockey team are clear evidence of “too many fingers in the pie.”

   Reply
3. 

   Observation

   October 1, 2011 at 10:37 am

   Peary and Pizzuto aka P2 must go.

   Any CAO with a brain would never have allowed the AESC Heat Deal to go ahead.

   Abby residents don’t want to go see the Heat because they are the Calgary Flames farm team and Vancouver Canucks rival. The sad thing here is that the players on the Heat team, who are trying their hardest to move to the next level, suffer. It’s not them. It’s the bureaucrats, City officials and pathetic Abby News, who have tried unsuccessfully to get other Black Press papers in the Valley to do advertising for Abby Heat.

   Reply