By James Breckenridge. When Mr. Barkman didn’t supply the details following his announcement of a plan to solve homelessness in Abbotsford [February 2014] I thought he had decided to wait until the municipal election campaign to set out how he plans to bring about Abbotsford not needing housing for homeless persons in 2 years.
The campaign for seats on Abbotsford’s City Council has begun and Mr. Barkman is running for re-election, but there has been no mention of any Barkman Homeless Plan.
At least one assumes that Mr. Barkman meant he has a plan to end homelessness in Abbotsford when he voted to turn down $$millions of dollars$$ of provincial funding by voting down the ACS Housing First project stating: “We need housing now, not in two years.”
Because, if Mr. Barkman didn’t have a plan to end homelessness in Abbotsford, and Abbotsford will need housing for the homeless in two years, surely Mr. Barkman should have voted to accept the millions of provincial dollars and to build the ACS housing proposal?
After all it would have been nonsensical [or as John Smith called it – irrational] for Mr. Barkman to vote against building housing the city would need even more desperately in two years.
Unless………… “We need housing now, not in two years” was simply another example of an Abbotsford city councillor excuse mongering and the totally vacuous, totally absurd “We need housing now, not in two years” was the best pretence Mr. Barkman could fabricate for voting to turn down millions of dollars from the province and to continue Abbotsford City Council’s policy of increasing the number of homeless on the streets of Abbotsford?
In which case Mr. Barkman voted down the ACS Housing First proposal for reasons he is unwilling to publicly admit to.
So Mr. Barkman, did you vote NO because you have a plan or for self-serving reasons?
Watching the Misadventures of Abbotsford City Council I wondered why somebody didn’t do something about this debacle.
Then I realized I AM SOMEBODY.
Councillor Les Barkman attended the AbbotsfordFirst candidates meeting last night.
While I listened to the candidates expressing their positions on various topics that mattered to the audience, I was immediately struck by the sharp contrast between them & Abbotsford’s current councillors.
The AbbotsfordFirst candidates provided new approaches to existent unresolved issues that were thoughtful, concise and doable. Their ideas were given traction by their presentations: they made sense of issues that were often made to feel vague and somehow otherworldly by our current council & mayor.
It was refreshing.
Our current council and mayor distinguished themselves by their failures.
As I listened to AbbtosfordFirst’s candidate presentations, it became clear to me that they are Abbotsford’s best hope to make things right in our town.
There is no one else that can effect the changes necessary to get us out of the Black Hole our current mayor & council have ditched us in.
Are AbbotsfordFirst candidates perfect? Course not.
But there is no better qualified team of dedicated people out there who can provide Abbotsford citizens with the tools to define itself beyond the dysfunction served up by our current mayor & council.
Both as individuals and as a group, they offer proven skill sets & attitudes that will go a long way in providing Abbotsford citizens with the opportunities needed to resolve the issues our current council & mayor have shown themselves incapable of solving.
I wondered what Barkman was thinking while listening to the AbbotsfordFirst candidates’ presentations.
The most likely answer is, nothing.
Enrique Rempel Says:
I would like to know that as well. The straight answer, not a political answer that uses a lot of words but doesn’t really say anything.
A simple “yes I have a plan and here it is…”
Or
“No I have no plan and this is my reason for throwing away funding to help people”
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