Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Unasked Questions
It is only fair and just that Jerry Gosling’s letter of support be offered as is, since it is on the letters/opinion pages. Being identified as the president of the MSA Museum Society provides the entire context needed to understand and evaluate his RAH-RAH leading of a cheering section in support of the capital plan, given the inclusion of a world class museum and art gallery, which far surpasses any sane or reasonable proposal, in the council’s absurd proposal.
There can be no excuse for boosterism disguised as “news reporting” on the front page of Thursday’s News. In large bold text the News trumpets “Trustees back Plan A, say students benefit most”, including in the body of the story that the vote was unanimous. The News blindly printed statements citing benefits while failing to ask a question so obvious any non-partisan, semi-intelligent person’s mind screams “Where’s the Beef” or in other words what are or were these never stated benefits? Or did the school trustees unanimously support imaginary, perhaps non-existent, benefits? The fact there were no actual benefits to support the vote certainly would explain the failure of the News to print even one so-called benefit. Or incompetence.
It is perfectly within their rights for the News to support and lead a cheering section for the capital plan. Fair and principled behaviour demands that this boosterism be made clear by the use of the Opinion page and at least minimal journalistic standards applied to any information purported to be news This apparent effort to hide the News’s leading of a cheering section for the proposed capital plan concealed as ‘news’ is, at the kindest questionable behaviour, more accurately described as bordering on the unethical.
The argument for it just being incompetence does have clear support on the same first page. It seems to me that the theoretical semi-intelligent person cited above would feel the statement “... with 533.91 fewer students” demands an answer to the question of exactly what .91 of a student is. More importantly, what exactly is the .09 of a student that is still attending school here? Just as an aside: in a city growing this fast what explains that Abbotsford schools have less students?
While on the subject of the capital plan council and supporters are seeking to foist, by whatever means possible, upon the gullible citizens – why is it called Plan A? I was not aware of any Plan B, C, D. Would it not be more accurate to name the plan based upon the grade it deserves – F?
Speaking of obvious and unasked questions: Why award a contract to replace the Centennial pool tank to a company that “… had not completed a cement pool before”? They came “highly recommended” – as what? It would appear obvious that the recommendation could not be as a builder of pools. Was it just because they had the lowest bid? Given the recent fiasco with pool building in Mission it would seem semi-intelligent behaviour to award the contract to an experienced pool builder who has experience with estimating what the pool replacement will actually end up costing the taxpayers as opposed to the low-ball bid submitted by a builder with NO EXPERIENCE in actually building a pool. The need to choose an experienced and knowledgeable builder would seem to be further demanded by the tight deadlines imposed by the replacement schedule.
But then it is a demonstrated, though sad and costly, fact of life that even semi-intelligent decisions and behaviour is beyond council and city planning or engineering staff. Alas, it also seems asking the obvious and needed questions are beyond the capabilities of, at the very least, the editorial staff of the News.
There can be no excuse for boosterism disguised as “news reporting” on the front page of Thursday’s News. In large bold text the News trumpets “Trustees back Plan A, say students benefit most”, including in the body of the story that the vote was unanimous. The News blindly printed statements citing benefits while failing to ask a question so obvious any non-partisan, semi-intelligent person’s mind screams “Where’s the Beef” or in other words what are or were these never stated benefits? Or did the school trustees unanimously support imaginary, perhaps non-existent, benefits? The fact there were no actual benefits to support the vote certainly would explain the failure of the News to print even one so-called benefit. Or incompetence.
It is perfectly within their rights for the News to support and lead a cheering section for the capital plan. Fair and principled behaviour demands that this boosterism be made clear by the use of the Opinion page and at least minimal journalistic standards applied to any information purported to be news This apparent effort to hide the News’s leading of a cheering section for the proposed capital plan concealed as ‘news’ is, at the kindest questionable behaviour, more accurately described as bordering on the unethical.
The argument for it just being incompetence does have clear support on the same first page. It seems to me that the theoretical semi-intelligent person cited above would feel the statement “... with 533.91 fewer students” demands an answer to the question of exactly what .91 of a student is. More importantly, what exactly is the .09 of a student that is still attending school here? Just as an aside: in a city growing this fast what explains that Abbotsford schools have less students?
While on the subject of the capital plan council and supporters are seeking to foist, by whatever means possible, upon the gullible citizens – why is it called Plan A? I was not aware of any Plan B, C, D. Would it not be more accurate to name the plan based upon the grade it deserves – F?
Speaking of obvious and unasked questions: Why award a contract to replace the Centennial pool tank to a company that “… had not completed a cement pool before”? They came “highly recommended” – as what? It would appear obvious that the recommendation could not be as a builder of pools. Was it just because they had the lowest bid? Given the recent fiasco with pool building in Mission it would seem semi-intelligent behaviour to award the contract to an experienced pool builder who has experience with estimating what the pool replacement will actually end up costing the taxpayers as opposed to the low-ball bid submitted by a builder with NO EXPERIENCE in actually building a pool. The need to choose an experienced and knowledgeable builder would seem to be further demanded by the tight deadlines imposed by the replacement schedule.
But then it is a demonstrated, though sad and costly, fact of life that even semi-intelligent decisions and behaviour is beyond council and city planning or engineering staff. Alas, it also seems asking the obvious and needed questions are beyond the capabilities of, at the very least, the editorial staff of the News.
# posted by James W Breckenridge : 4:27 PM
