By Abnor. Boy oh boy. All anybody in Abbotsford is talking about is that Mike de Jong guy running around town with Bruce Banman in tow and a taxpayers’ cheque book handing out the people’s money left and right.
The only question is – how much of your money will he spend in his bid for re-election. There’s only five and a half weeks and Mike appears to have a big public chequebook
So far, according to the Abbotsford Ratepayers Association (ARA) his tab with your money is closing in on a minimum of $10 Million – $8.3 of which Abbotsford taxpayers are going to have to pay directly!
- $175,000 Climate Action Grant
- $600,000 Justice Centre Grant
- $400,000 for Policing
- $50,000 to bring TOIFA stars to Abbotsford (part of a $12 million total)
Awards Abbotsford the 2016 BC Summer Games – amount of cash to be determined - $8.3 million for the Vye Road overpass (one-third of the total cost of the project)
Mike and Bruce handing out some more of your money on Mike’s road to opposition status. Photo by Lily Kaetler
The Vye Road $8.33 million we don’t have will benefit just a handful of businesses down by the border crossing and has to be spent because Bruce accepted the deal Mike and Ed Fast worked out that saw Abbotsford taxpayers’ share of the deal change from $600,000 to $8.33 million.
Somebody told me the $600,000 to $1.8 Million we’re spending to study the new courthouse we’ve been studying since 1995 is actually going to being taken up on Sumas Mountain in City trucks and left to blow away in the wind.
The climate action grant, for all the hard work Abbotsford’s Lexus environmentalist, Patty Ross, did paving our wilderness with the Discovery Trail and giving away Sumas Mountain to the gravel industry, might be used to shovel all the BS out of the administrative offices at Town Hall (now that’s an environmental cleanup we could use) but I haven’t a clue what the $400,000 for policing is going to be spent on.
After all Darryl Plecas (remember our the professor who advises municipalities on how to avoid the law) just told us a few weeks ago that 97% of Abbotsford’s 133,000 people are pleased with the Abbotsford Police Department and feel safe in their homes.
Since the other three percent can only be the homeless who keep getting pushed around, evicted from their camps and having all their stuff taken away, I’m not sure $400,000 is going to change any of their minds before Plecas’ next survey. (I wonder how many homeless people he includes in the group he surveys)
I wonder if Bruce has asked Mike if, in all his generosity, he’s found any money we could give to the owners of the Abbotsford Heat to take their hockey team and … my editor just told me to be civil … move to Utica.
Personally I think Mike and Bruce look cute together as Bruce stops to pick up every little dollar of their friends’ and neighbours’ money Mike drops on his way through town.
To watch a video of Bruce and Mike making the rounds click here. Doesn’t Bruce look cute running along behind Mike through the streets of Abbotsford? He has to be in pretty good to bounce up, over and off of Mike like that.
Abnor:
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Abnor
Editor’s Note:Abnor joins us from time to time with a question or two about what he sees around him. He has plenty of time on his hands and he spends a great deal of his time wandering the streets of Abbotsford wondering about what he sees and hears. He’s a modern day hobo with a Blackberry.
Abnor’s Story
