Well the vote is in and it seems people prefer anonymity on this blog (well most people do) — at least for themselves.

We asked the question a couple weeks ago and over 75% wanted to maintain anonymity on the site — although slightly better than half voted that people be required to use a pseudonym.

Should Anonymous Comments be posted?

• 35% said; Yes, leave things as they are
• 41% said; No, require people to use an anonymous online persona
• 22% said; No, require people to sign their names

So we have decided to leave things unchanged and simply ask that people honour the request and chose a nom de plume for the benefit of responding to comments.

We won’t enforce the policy, but it will be interesting to see the commentators who choose a name and those who continue to remain anonymous.

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Much has been made about the ownership and potential bias of this blog. Often, this is simply used to distract from the actual issue identified in the initial post — simply refer to the last post about Development Charges as an example. Not one comment responded to the issue of why the Development Charges by-law was rushed.

So here’s the invitation. One that has been extended a number of times already.

Send in a post — anonymously if you wish — and we will post your opinion (unedited and unchanged) on any issue in the Town as long as the post meets the guidelines (i.e. language should be consistent with what you would be pleased to have your children read, unsubstantiated allegations will not be accepted).

If you want to send it anonymously, simply write an anonymous comment in any blog posting and add a header indicating that the post is to be publish as a Guest Post. This has been done a number of times in the past.

If you agree with the conduct of Council in any aspect — make your point and present your arguments. Then others will have the opportunity to respond.

If you disagree with the conduct of Council in any aspect — make your point and present your arguments. Then others will have the opportunity to respond.

If you have an opinion about anything — make your point and present your arguments. Then others will have the opportunity to respond.

If you have any doubt about whether they will be published — look at the previous post. If the intent was to stifle comments, why would all of the negative comments have been published. It’s hard to make that assertion stick in the face of hard facts.

If you chose not to accept this invitation to post an opposing opinion, then we will assume you are comfortable that your opinions are being heard through the comments section of other posts.

This blog will continue to present issues we feel would be of interest to the community and publish them in a forum that facilitates people expressing their opinions.

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Aurora is recognizing Energy Conservation Week from May 17 to 23, 2009.

With conservation in mind, one of our readers was interested in knowing how others felt about plastic single use water bottles.

Recently there has been a considerable focus on the banning of single use water bottles at schools, sports facilities, sports clubs and municipal facilities. Our own Aurora Youth Soccer Club has banned them at games and practices.

Some folks are starting to use designer water bottles that reflect their personality.

What do you think? Should they be banned? Should they just be discouraged? Should we be free to chose?

What else are you doing to conserve? Share your thoughts and ideas.

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There has been feedback on whether anonymous comments should be allowed. Ironically, many of these have come from Anonymous.

A suggestion was that people select a user name — which would still protect the anonymity of the commenter, but would allow for people to see who is commenting by virtue of their online persona. Some folks have chosen to do this, but not many.

One option would be for the moderator to manually post only those with an anonymous user name. Remember — this would still allow for anonymity.

What do you think. In addition to reviewing the comments, we will post a poll for the next 2 weeks. Let us know your thoughts.

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Someone who disagrees with the issues raised on this site is now hacking the site and deleting comments.

It is a disturbing strategy. Initially they attacked the commentators. Now they are deleting the comments.

We fully recognize that this is probably 1 individual who thinks they are doing the Mayor and Council a favour. We are confident the Mayor and Council would be equally concerned by this behaviour.

What is happening to our community when dissenting voices are targeted to try and silence them?

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Our last post on the fundraising activities of the Dream Team has generated a tremendous amount of commentary — from both sides — second only to our invitation to the Mayor to set her up as an author on this site so she could post with complete confidence that her words would be her own. (We would extend that offer to any member of Council or allow guest posts by any interested citizen — hence the name Aurora Citizen — all are welcome to post or comment.)

But back to the post about fundraising.

Concern was initially raised about who the group holding themselves up as The Dream Team were and who they represented. This naturally led to questions about how the money raised was to be used.

The comparison was drawn to other organization such as sports association or community groups. In these cases, there are a specific group of stakeholders with a common goal who have agreed on a mandate for their organization and have clearly identified what the dollars are to be used for. This is called transparency and accountability.

Stakeholders for this groups should have the right to view the books and see how the dollars are being spent. If they have issues, the questions are raised and hopefully resolved. We see this with numerous groups within our own community.

However, we have seen circumstances outside our community where this has gone terribly wrong. People have not used funds appropriately and when the balance of stakeholders find this out they are naturally upset and take appropriate action.

Town committees (i.e. special events, Traffic and Safety etc.) are operated in a similar manner. They accountable to Council and are required to make public their financials.

The concern in this situation seems to be the perceived lack of transparency and accountability to stakeholders — which in this case are the citizen of Aurora not a small select group of stakeholders. Hence the issue. In spite of people suggesting that those who expressed concern about the situation were off the mark — there has never been any answers provided, just attacks against the questioners.

Why are the details of the workings of this group not available for public review by the people who are funding their activities either through taxes or direct donation and supposedly benefiting from their activities.

To be clear, there has never been any suggestion of inappropriate behaviour or misguided direction. There has simply been a request for information.

It is troubling that no one has been able to determine the legal status of The Dream Team. Why has someone who is in the know not shared the information with those that are asking simple, justified questions?

Clearly people are concerned about this lack of information. They are concerned about the perception of favoured status by Council. They are concerned about where the dollars are being spent. Simple questions that require simple answers.

Can any one help shine some light on this situation?

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