SO, WHAT'S PLAN B, BUSKING?

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!

Taken from http://myextratwobits.blogspot.com/

BREAKING BREAD WITH GEORGE!

On the same day this city reclaimed its Murder Capital of Canada epithet, and Statistics Canada revealed we’re one of the country’s most violent places to call home, George W. Peary apologizes for running three minutes late for a lunch date.
Abbotsford’s mayor, seemingly in damage control mode since replacing The Other George in 2008, has been up early trying to make sense out of complex numbers relating to crime, taxes, budgets and civic proposals.
With his busy day just warming up, he has already been vilified by Today website scribblers, social bloggers, several Vancouver radio shows and the usual letter-writing suspects who, like cabbies and hairdressers, don’t understand why they are not running our country.
Peary looks fit, rested and in good spirits while we break bread across the street from City Hall, the perfect location as he enters Day 2 of a week-long car-free challenge with three other Metro Vancouver politicians.
A friendly waitress advises this scribe to treat her “favourite customer” well. Peary assures her not to worry because he “never argues with people who buy ink by the barrel.”
Well, that’s not entirely true (wink, wink), but like all personable politicians, he certainly enjoys a great debate. And unlike most in today’s much-too-scripted, spin-doctored world, he returns calls and e-mails no matter how bad headlines and commentaries are in the morning. It’s just the way he rolls in our Gangland in the Country.
After offering up a few Winston Churchill motivational quotes, Peary admits life in the “hot seat” is extra challenging when dealing with a civic cash scenario easily mistaken for Old Mother Hubbard’s cupboard.
Asked if he’s enjoying wearing the Chain of Command bling during this Great Recession, the mayor is blunt: “The way I look at it, is if somebody has to occupy the chair in tough times, it might as well be me.”
Infamous for such Peary-isms as “I’m not young enough to know everything,” and “Our new arena would have looked much better with a real parking lot,” the mayor’s best line came as a councillor several years ago when he promised during a slump in the economy: “I refuse to let this thing die on my watch.”
He said Tuesday that’s still his mantra, which, if nothing else, helps him cope as critics pump up the volume on the city’s spending habits, salaries, user fees, gangs, gas taxes and, of course, Plan A.
During his campaign last fall, he admitted the latter expenditure would “put a real constraint on the council of the future.” It has, and during lunch he hinted the “on time, on budget” cheer chanted by his peers may prove to be only wishful thinking when final numbers are revealed in a couple weeks.
Despite making some enemies over the years with his no-nonsense, shoot-from-the-lip style, Peary is intelligent, politically savvy, passionate and relentless. The Abbotsford Regional Hospital and Cancer Centre is an example of what happens when you tell this guy “it’s never going to happen.”
He spent 21 years lobbying and fighting for that impressive facility, being told by several premiers and governments along the way that it just wasn’t in the cards. Whatever. So, when critics suggest he’ll be Dead Mayor Walking if he continues to do things his way, you just know he’s got them exactly where he wants them.
“A professor once told me the perfect lesson has yet to be taught. So, you do what you think is best, learn from mistakes and hope the voters don’t make you a one-term mayor.”
Or, as Churchill said: “Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room.”

Taken from http://myextratwobits.blogspot.com/