Tuesday - May 6, 2025 - Abbotsford posts $66 million surplus

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Good morning!

I need some help, and what’s the point in running a newsletter if I can’t draw on all of your collective knowledge to remedy an age-old family problem?

Here’s the issue: I obviously don’t know how to catch a trout from a dock. I assume it can be done. The other day I was standing on a dock with the sign “fishing dock.” My kids had fishing rods in their hands. Fish were jumping nearby. But I knew we wouldn’t catch anything because I’ve never caught anything from land. (I’ve barely caught anything from a boat, but that’s a whole separate conundrum.)

So tell me anglers: what should a guy do to increase his odds of catching a fish (given that certain factors, time of day, loud kids, erratic dog, and limited bait supply are all out of our control). What can we do to finally land a rainbow on the dock? Or should we just keep enjoying the sunshine?

– Tyler

Traffic & Weather

🌤 Local forecast: Langley | Chilliwack | Abbotsford | Hope 

🚘 Driving today? Check the current traffic situation via Google, and find DriveBC’s latest updates.

🛣 Click here for links to road cameras across the Fraser Valley, including those for the Coquihalla, Highway 7, Hope-Princeton, Fraser Canyon, and Highway 1 in Langley and Abbotsford.

News

The streams beneath

Chilliwack wants to bring its underground streams into the light, and it's not the only Fraser Valley community looking to do so.

The Fraser Valley was once full of meandering streams and intertwining watercourses. But as settlers began to reshape the region for farming, and as developers paved over fields to build houses, the valley’s natural streams were turned into narrow ditches, or pushed underground into pipes and culverts.

Now, the City of Chilliwack is beginning the process of bringing at least some of those pipe-bound streams to the surface.

• Today, Grace explores Chilliwack’s plan to ‘daylight’ its streams, and looks at how other communities in the valley are trying to restore lost creeks.

Related

Need to Know

👉 A Conservative MLA is angry that her Chilliwack colleague hosted an anti-abortion group at the legislature [CBC]

🎥 US President Donald Trump has promised to levy a tariff on foreign movies—including those shot in BC—but he may find it difficult to actually do so [Global]

💰 The City of Chilliwack is selling a small park in Sardis [Fraser Valley Today]

⚖ A man has been charged with assaulting a woman on a mobility scooter last month in Mission [Mission Record]

🚚 More than 50 commercial trucks were yanked from service after being deemed unsafe by Langley bylaw officers and police [Langley Advance Times]

🌲 Wildfire detection units have been installed throughout Harrison Hot Springs’s East Sector Lands [Agassiz-Harrison Observer]

🐽 The City of Mission is looking to improve two smelly and cramped sanitary dump locations [Mission Record]

🚁 Mounties practised descending from a police helicopter in rural Langley [Langley Advance Times]

🎓 Changed your mind about where to study? KPU makes it easy to transfer your credits and stay on track. Find your path at KPU.*

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The Agenda

Developer-built infrastructure boosts Abbotsford surplus

The City of Abbotsford clocked a $66 million operating surplus last year—on paper at least.

The double-digit surplus on the city’s year-end books mostly comes in the form of buildings and other capital assets, the value of which increased by about $64 million last year. The city’s financial assets grew more modestly, increasing by about $2 million. What that means, essentially, is that the city owns more things but has the same amount of cash on hand to spend in the future.

Many of those non-monetary assets came in the form of parks, roads, and water infrastructure built by developers and then handed over to the city. That’s a double-edged sword—although the city didn’t have to pay for the infrastructure, it will now need to spend money to maintain it in the future.

Abbotsford has $1.6 billion in physical assets—nearly $3,000 for every resident. Water, sewer, and drainage accounts for about 40% of everything the city owns. Another 30% is land. The city’s roads are valued at about $214 million, or 13% of all assets.

Last year, the city recorded a surplus of $83 million.

You can see the city’s consolidated financial statements here.

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