Will Richmond Hill Learn From Aurora’s Experience
Posted by auroracitizen on March 17, 2010
Council Watch #7 – by Richard Johnson
Letter to the Editor RE: Richmond Hill votes for code of conduct, integrity commissioner, by Adam Mc Lean, March 16, 2010
Why does Richmond Hill not share the cost of Aurora’s Integrity Commissioner if we both have to have one ? I have to ask if they be too busy to handle two Councils work load ?
“The commissioner [of Richmond Hill] will act as a part-time employee in the town clerk’s office and $25,000 from the town’s council contingency fund has been set aside for the new post.” I find it interesting that Aurora set aside $60,000 annually for the IC, plus legal costs, so what does that say about Aurora’s Council ?
Aurora has wasted tens of thousands of dollars and ignored the opinion of David Nitkin, a well qualified international expert on corporate governance and ethics. It looks very much like Mr. Nitkin was fired the day after releasing his frist decision because he did not render the decision the Mayor of Aurora wanted. In order to justify her actions, Mayor Morris went to great lengths to discredit Mr. Nitkin at AMO, at Council and in the media.
Adam Mc Lean (the reporter of the above noted story) completely overlooked the political fiasco that has unfolded in Aurora surrounding our new code of conduct and the huge sums of money that have been wasted while we still have a complete mess of a council to contend with.
Aurora seems to be living proof that you can’t legislate integrity or common sense ! Only the power of the vote can really fix our respective councils.
Richard Johnson
Aurora Citizen 
fed up said
These people were not elected to use OUR money to fight their internal battles. The entire lot of them that voted for this IC and included funds should be turfed out