Do we really find it coincidental that we are seeing DCC's being proposed to rise by 100%. We have all this necessary infrastructure that needs development in order to grow. However, city hall knows it can't put it on the back of the tax payers because we are already being stiffed with $300 plus per year thanks to Plan A. So let's stick it onto the developers. Oh wait, that means that developers will look eleswhere to develop where they can actually make a profit. So we will have all this expensive buidlings sitting empty because no one other development will be taking place in this area. All those people who were suppose to move here will now move to Langley, Chilliwack, Mission, Maple Ridge. Hats off to another successful round of thinking by our city council. I wonder where all this information was during Plan A debates.

My question to Marilyn Hamilton, Stacey Corriveau and Glenn Hope is how can you possibly have a dialogue about the future of The City of Abbotsford 30 years from now without some sort of debate? What makes these 20 citizens of Abbotsford, the “20 thought leaders” of this community? I would suggest that is a very elitist comment at the least. Now let me get this straight! You wanted to hold a meeting about the future of the City of Abbotsford at a Public Library yet excludes the very citizens who are going to be here 30 years from now. Then you expect these same citizens to maybe get the opportunity to present their cases at City Hall but not want to discuss it with you while discussions are going on. Frankly, I would like to know what is being said and going on in these closed door meetings about the future of this City. In no way do I believe that this meeting was going to be hijacked but I do believe that the group that wanted to join you at this meeting had good intentions going in. I think maybe you were a little extreme in thinking that you were going to be ambushed. I especially liked the statement that “trained facilitators knew how to keep the exchange open and out of debate…” So what you are saying is that Imagine Abbotsford is a very controlled forum so that no one is able to vehemently disagree with whatever comes up. Jim Wright http://www.abbyjournal.ca