The Mayan calendar suggests the world will end on Dec. 21, 2012, spawning many websites with countdown clocks and tips on how to spend our final hours before doomsday.
First the good news: No more Christmas shopping lineups, no Port Mann Bridge tolls, no more worries about decimated retirement funds or babysitting the cranky Bacons on our dime.
The not-so-good news: Only three more Sports Illustrated swimsuit editions, our new council won’t have time to slash taxes (wink, wink), and your goal to lose weight in 2013 is now all messed up.
Then again, the calendar might be wrong, which means we likely have to repay The Brick and we can’t count on an apocalypse to solve the city’s cash crunch.
When we asked readers on Friday how they’d bail out the current Abbotsford council, most suggested torture and public stoning. The nastier responses have been saved for another time.
Not surprisingly, blame-storming and Plan A-bashing outweighed any concrete plan to get us out of the hole. Nobody offered a revenue-generating idea, but many offered cost-cutting suggestions by firing civic employees or rolling back salaries, taxing churches and keeping the lights turned off at Plan A facilities until further notice.
If you recall the 2008 municipal election campaign, many candidates were already waving the financial SOS flag, citing excessive spending, poor planning and inefficiencies.
Steve Dunton’s mayoralty bid included a zero tax increase, making City Hall more business-friendly and a promise to shakeup the old boys’ club and cut waste. At one forum he singled out several examples of civic workers wasting time and money – his “pinkslip platform” undoubtedly reduced votes and Facebook friends.
Gerda Peachey became astute on using the Freedom of Information Act in her quasi-bid for mayor.
Her campaign gem was to ask how the Friendship Garden became a $1-million project and why we’d spend that much on flowers and soil. The avid gardener had other examples of wasteful spending that would make drunken sailors blush.
The “spin” at City Hall – and Victoria and Ottawa – is to not talk about how we got into this mess, but rather how we will get out. Convenient, but methinks we should do both.
Hate to harp on Plan A (sort of), but it seems to be the pet peeve for frustrated taxpayers.
This controversial project started out as the Legacy Plan to replace the aging MSA Arena with something better – like Prospera Centre in Chilliwack or The Events Centre in the Township of Langley.
The council of the day (2002-2005) could have voted to build a $40 million arena, with ample parking, and be done with it, right? Nope. Most politicos said we couldn’t afford it.
So, the conservative Legacy Plan morphed into the elaborate Plan A enterprise, where to get that needed arena (and extra yes votes) lobbyists had to add a few more projects and many, many more millions. The tab is now $115-million and counting.
In our “rush” to get Plan A completed, we didn’t ask the province or the feds for funding, we dismissed P3 ideas, “forgot” to add a parking lot and we “gambled” that we’d secure a top hockey team to offset costs.
And now we need a local gas tax to fix our roads? Or a new casino to ease the tax burden?
Is this anyway to run the city’s business? Are you really surprised we’re in deep doo-doo?
Henry Youngman once said: “I’ve got all the money I’ll ever need if I die by 4 p.m.”
That was supposed to be a joke, not our latest civic update. Yikes, indeed!
