Letters: Dysfunctional City Laid Bare By YMCA Process

Dear Editor. I was at the YMCA Council meeting yesterday and was mystified by the dysfunctional process driving this initiative.

Critical reviews of the facts have revealed that the YMCA initiative was faulty (and/or harmful to Abbotsford’s taxpayers) from the outset. City documents and YMCA’s promotional materials were fractionally accurate at best.

The question in many taxpayers’ minds is why? How could such a significant proposal make it this far given what we know today? Furthermore, why didn’t the City discover and critically assess the same factors brought to its attention by its constituency?

Instead, some Councillors actively wasted taxpayers’ time by stubbornly denying the facts before them and by appearing unable to comprehend their strategic significance.

There was no indignity lost by Council denying the YMCA initiative yesterday afternoon, as proposed by Councillor Braun. But Council chose instead to heap a great deal of indignity on its constituency by proceeding with a further review of the YMCA’s faulty proposal.

Yesterday, City council had an opportunity to distance itself from its inglorious past fiscal mistakes. Incredibly, it chose instead to continue tormenting Abbotsford’s citizens’ with the YMCA’s stillborn initiative. That’s a big problem. If YMCA persists, its good name will be tarnished and it will become part of that same problem.

Walter Neufeld

Editor’s Note: The image provide with this post was originally featured on facebook and has neem altered for satirical purposes. None of those featured consented to portrayed in this fashion.