Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Garbage Fireworks Garbage Behaviour
Disgust; and a certain amount of contempt.
What else would any reasonable person feel for the words, position and behaviour of Vancouver’s striking outside workers vis-à-vis volunteers cleaning up after the fireworks.
Verbally attacking, threatening and running off citizens who volunteered their time and energy to clean up after the fireworks out of civic pride, in order to ensure the success of the Celebration of Light.
“Taking our jobs away”. What overblown bombast.
The other members of the union, who failed to call these thugs on their behaviour and denounce their actions, should hang their heads in shame and apologize to citizens. Perhaps their silence is just that they live in fear of these thugs in a union local so obviously lacking in true leadership.
I am not sure who should be more ashamed – the citizens who in the face of the strike are so lacking in manners and simple consideration for others to clean up their own garbage OR the union membership for its failure to put in place leadership with common sense or to exercise control over the thugs in their ranks.
Both groups deserve a swift kick in the ass for their disgraceful behaviour.
What else would any reasonable person feel for the words, position and behaviour of Vancouver’s striking outside workers vis-à-vis volunteers cleaning up after the fireworks.
Verbally attacking, threatening and running off citizens who volunteered their time and energy to clean up after the fireworks out of civic pride, in order to ensure the success of the Celebration of Light.
“Taking our jobs away”. What overblown bombast.
The other members of the union, who failed to call these thugs on their behaviour and denounce their actions, should hang their heads in shame and apologize to citizens. Perhaps their silence is just that they live in fear of these thugs in a union local so obviously lacking in true leadership.
I am not sure who should be more ashamed – the citizens who in the face of the strike are so lacking in manners and simple consideration for others to clean up their own garbage OR the union membership for its failure to put in place leadership with common sense or to exercise control over the thugs in their ranks.
Both groups deserve a swift kick in the ass for their disgraceful behaviour.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Unreasoning reasoning
Does anyone understand why we are building basketball courts at Abbotsford Recreation Centre? This when the debacle with Centennial Pool has clearly highlighted the fact that what the Abbotsford sports and recreation scene really needs is another pool.
I do know the reasoning of the city on the matter – I just cannot understand it.
I suppose I am just to rooted in reality as opposed to the strange dimension existing within the walls of Abbotsford City Hall.
Their “reasoning” goes something like this: pool operations lose money while basketball courts generally make money.
In the real world this “Abbotsford speak” translates to: pool operations have a negative cash flow while basketball courts generally have a positive cash flow.
That is to say you spend more to operate a pool than you collect from user fees (negative cash outflow). Operating costs for courts tend to be much lower and therefore user fees exceed operating costs (positive cash inflow).
That assumes certain levels of court usage to meet projected fee income. Costs can be fairly accurately projected based on operating costs at similar facilities in other cities, although ARC will incur the unusual additional cost of needing a second front desk to control and collect for the new facilities added. Not having access to all the current operating costs of ARC, the cost projection assumptions and calculations and the projected usage and user fees I cannot comment on the city’s calculations.
For the purposes of this commentary it is unnecessary to be able to ascertain the reasonableness of the city’s assumptions and projections. I am willing to assume a positive cash flow from the new facilities in the neighbourhood of their $100,000 per year.
In the real world, outside of Abbotsford City Hall any accountant, anyone with business or common sense can tell you that it is not cash flow from operations that determines whether you are making money or losing money. It is total income minus TOTAL COSTS.
When you ask City Hall why they are building a basketball court instead of the obviously and demonstrably needed new pool facility they say that pools lose money and basketball courts make money and that they will be looking at building the badly needed pool in the future – after securing the “positive cash flow” of the court facilities.
If Abbotsford City Hall wants to determine which recreation facility it will build or what order it will build in based on positive or negative cash flows rather than the basis of what facilities the City most needs, that is their call … but in the real world you do not ignore the costs of the new facility (plant) you are building in determining cash flow and income/operating expenses. Even in the oxygen starved air of Abbotsford City Hall it should have been obvious that if your reason for building a facility is its cash flow you then need to consider the cash flow associated with paying for the facility you are building.
So in order to be able to show a $100,000 a year “profit” from the court facility operations the city, thus the taxpayers, will payout $150,000+ per month or $1,800,000+ a year. Only in Abbotsford City Hall could spending $1,800,000+ to “earn” $100,000 seem rational. In the real world this would not be thought stupid, rather it would be considered totally insane behaviour. Perhaps what we need in accounting for Abbotsford City Hall’s financial practices is a budget item and expense category to record the costs of their lack of logic and any financial sense.
Has Abbotsford City Hall become so habituated to their own smoke and mirror shows, selling taxpayers a mirage, that they themselves no longer see reality but the fantasy world they have constructed?
Never having raised the false promise of profit with the arts and museum building the cost of the building only enters into the equation as a question of are we getting good value for our investment? The important, and still unanswered question, is whether we have a design appropriate for meeting the needs of Abbotsford not when the doors open but a decade, two decades in the future?
They have raised the promise of “profit” for the arena complex. However in light of the reports on the cost of Vancouver’s Convention Centre, another public/ PCL contract, it would not be prudent to make any estimate at this time. But profit anywhere but in the minds (and sales pitch) of City Hall?
I do know the reasoning of the city on the matter – I just cannot understand it.
I suppose I am just to rooted in reality as opposed to the strange dimension existing within the walls of Abbotsford City Hall.
Their “reasoning” goes something like this: pool operations lose money while basketball courts generally make money.
In the real world this “Abbotsford speak” translates to: pool operations have a negative cash flow while basketball courts generally have a positive cash flow.
That is to say you spend more to operate a pool than you collect from user fees (negative cash outflow). Operating costs for courts tend to be much lower and therefore user fees exceed operating costs (positive cash inflow).
That assumes certain levels of court usage to meet projected fee income. Costs can be fairly accurately projected based on operating costs at similar facilities in other cities, although ARC will incur the unusual additional cost of needing a second front desk to control and collect for the new facilities added. Not having access to all the current operating costs of ARC, the cost projection assumptions and calculations and the projected usage and user fees I cannot comment on the city’s calculations.
For the purposes of this commentary it is unnecessary to be able to ascertain the reasonableness of the city’s assumptions and projections. I am willing to assume a positive cash flow from the new facilities in the neighbourhood of their $100,000 per year.
In the real world, outside of Abbotsford City Hall any accountant, anyone with business or common sense can tell you that it is not cash flow from operations that determines whether you are making money or losing money. It is total income minus TOTAL COSTS.
When you ask City Hall why they are building a basketball court instead of the obviously and demonstrably needed new pool facility they say that pools lose money and basketball courts make money and that they will be looking at building the badly needed pool in the future – after securing the “positive cash flow” of the court facilities.
If Abbotsford City Hall wants to determine which recreation facility it will build or what order it will build in based on positive or negative cash flows rather than the basis of what facilities the City most needs, that is their call … but in the real world you do not ignore the costs of the new facility (plant) you are building in determining cash flow and income/operating expenses. Even in the oxygen starved air of Abbotsford City Hall it should have been obvious that if your reason for building a facility is its cash flow you then need to consider the cash flow associated with paying for the facility you are building.
So in order to be able to show a $100,000 a year “profit” from the court facility operations the city, thus the taxpayers, will payout $150,000+ per month or $1,800,000+ a year. Only in Abbotsford City Hall could spending $1,800,000+ to “earn” $100,000 seem rational. In the real world this would not be thought stupid, rather it would be considered totally insane behaviour. Perhaps what we need in accounting for Abbotsford City Hall’s financial practices is a budget item and expense category to record the costs of their lack of logic and any financial sense.
Has Abbotsford City Hall become so habituated to their own smoke and mirror shows, selling taxpayers a mirage, that they themselves no longer see reality but the fantasy world they have constructed?
Never having raised the false promise of profit with the arts and museum building the cost of the building only enters into the equation as a question of are we getting good value for our investment? The important, and still unanswered question, is whether we have a design appropriate for meeting the needs of Abbotsford not when the doors open but a decade, two decades in the future?
They have raised the promise of “profit” for the arena complex. However in light of the reports on the cost of Vancouver’s Convention Centre, another public/ PCL contract, it would not be prudent to make any estimate at this time. But profit anywhere but in the minds (and sales pitch) of City Hall?
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
A New Light
The Summer Abbotsford Parks and Recreation Program Guide is out containing historical highs and precedent setting changes. Fees have increased out of proportion with historical fee increases and setting a new precedent the fee increases take effect July 1 instead of September 1 as they have done in the past. Hopefully this precedent setting break with historic fee increase patterns does not usher in a new history of larger bi-yearly or even quarterly cash grabs… ahem, fee increases.
On the other hand these changes certainly do put a whole new spin; shine a whole new light on the signs posted throughout the change rooms and facilities warning patrons that “Thieves Work Here” - do they not?
On the other hand these changes certainly do put a whole new spin; shine a whole new light on the signs posted throughout the change rooms and facilities warning patrons that “Thieves Work Here” - do they not?
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Infected with the old Abbotsford spirit
Recently a favourite literary character came fondly to mind, Dickens’s Scrooge from A Christmas Carol. Understand I am not referring to the Scrooge before that bit of toothpick set off the ghostly hallucinations that warped that admirable focused, hard-driving, successful businessman Scrooge into that wussy, goody two shoes.
Scrooge and his transformation came into my mind this week when I received a picture of a boy kneeling beside his bed praying with his dog beside him with his paws together appearing to pray as well. This picture was kind of “the straw that broke the camel’s back”. What kind twisted sicko of an individual have I become that people now send me pictures of newborns, cute babies, kids in dance recital costumes, kids and dogs praying?
What kind of warped monster have I become that people send me these types of pictures? When did I slip over the line from a focused, self centered business person into Scrooge’s delusional world of Marley’s ghost “Mankind is My Business!”
I need to get my focus off the ideals behind the parable of the Good Samaritan or the golden rule and get the spotlight back where it should be – ME. What have I got? What do I want? Obviously I need to join one of our large, profitable, money machine local churches and concentrate on what is important – the almighty dollar.
None of this: “thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor and to the needy in thy land” or “Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues without right” or “What shall it profit a man if he shall own the whole world and lose his own soul”? Next thing you know it will be: “A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another”.
Live the golden rule of treating others as you want to be treated?
BAH! HUMBUG!
In Abbotsford it is all about ME! ME! ME! - after all “He who has the gold rules”.
Scrooge and his transformation came into my mind this week when I received a picture of a boy kneeling beside his bed praying with his dog beside him with his paws together appearing to pray as well. This picture was kind of “the straw that broke the camel’s back”. What kind twisted sicko of an individual have I become that people now send me pictures of newborns, cute babies, kids in dance recital costumes, kids and dogs praying?
What kind of warped monster have I become that people send me these types of pictures? When did I slip over the line from a focused, self centered business person into Scrooge’s delusional world of Marley’s ghost “Mankind is My Business!”
I need to get my focus off the ideals behind the parable of the Good Samaritan or the golden rule and get the spotlight back where it should be – ME. What have I got? What do I want? Obviously I need to join one of our large, profitable, money machine local churches and concentrate on what is important – the almighty dollar.
None of this: “thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor and to the needy in thy land” or “Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues without right” or “What shall it profit a man if he shall own the whole world and lose his own soul”? Next thing you know it will be: “A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another”.
Live the golden rule of treating others as you want to be treated?
BAH! HUMBUG!
In Abbotsford it is all about ME! ME! ME! - after all “He who has the gold rules”.
