Aurora Citizen

News & Views from the Citizens of Aurora Ontario

Archive for the ‘Community Input’ Category

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Imperfection of Social Media

Posted by auroracitizen on September 30, 2009

Bruce Temkin of Forrester Research recently published this post about social media. It seems appropriate in this circumstance.

Best Buy recently posted a seemingly innocent question on its Facebook page: “What do you think about offering Bestbuy.com in Spanish?” But it didn’t get the constructive dialogue that it was looking for. According to Tracy Benson, Best Buy’s senior director of interactive marketing and emerging media:

It was a landmine. There were hundreds of negative responses flowing in, people posting racist, rude comments

My take: Best Buy’s experience highlights key learnings about social media:

  • Feedback doesn’t always reflect the actual voice of the customer.
  •  A loud minority can disrupt almost any conversation.
  • If you initiate a conversation, you should have rules for terminating it.
  • Being open and honest sometimes requires being firm and intolerant.
  • Listening to feedback is only the first step in the “LIRM” process.

The bottom line: Don’t treat social media as a panacea

Posted in Community Input | 10 Comments »

Focal Point on Roger’s Cable should be interesting Wednesday night….

Posted by auroracitizen on September 29, 2009

The Wednesday night “Focal Point” show on Rogers TV at 8:00 p.m.  is on Municipal Governance and the show will have 4 experts on municipal governance and municipal government.

Panel includes;

  • Award winning Municipal legal expert who is finishing a handbook for municipal governments (George Rust D’Eye)
  • Professor of political science who specializes in municipal government (Rob MacDermid)
  • Current Newmarket municipal councillor (Chris Emanuel)
  • Former Markham Mayor and MPP from the Region (Don Cousens)

Should be a worthwhile discussion on what leads to dysfunctional Councils and will touch on both Aurora and Vaughan situations.

FOOT NOTE: We understand that the show has been delayed to sometime in mid October.

Focal Point has decided to do a follow up on the infrastructure show where Gordon Landon suggested that the conservatives were not giving infrastructure to Markham and area because they elected a Liberal. This issue was brought up with the Prime Minister and Mr. Landon has subsequently been dropped from the Conservative ticket.

Focal Point is doing a follow up show on this topic given the national media coverage on this issue.

Posted in Code of Ethics, Community Input, Integrity, Leadership, Town Council | 1 Comment »

Tear Down or Rebuild

Posted by auroracitizen on September 29, 2009

There were 2 articles in the Sunday Banner dealing with older buildings in Aurora.

The first dealt with the Petch log house and second Wells Street School.

A decision needs to be made about whether to invest in rebuilding the Petch log house structure, or to tear it down. Arguments for rebuilding are supported by the historical significance. While the tear down argument is that the building is well past its “best before date” and it will be too expensive to rebuild.

The same arguments to varying degrees apply to Wells Street School.

Regardless of whether it is a Town managed asset or a Board asset, the cost for rebuilding ultimately comes out of our wallets through our taxes.

So what’s your take?

Is the desire to preserve our heritage overstepping our fiscal abilities? Or should we re-build at any cost because it is preserving a piece of our heritage.

Posted in Community Input, Environment, Growth | 11 Comments »

Another Community Based Ad?

Posted by auroracitizen on September 25, 2009

The Auroran published what looks like another community ad this past week (w/o Sept 22). On page 4 the following ran.

Reader wonders about election …

Remember, remember come next November,
The Council we got, continually fought,
Professional staff left to Aurora’s regret …
Who can possibly save us,
from tax money spent
On lawsuits still pending
With seemingly no ending.

Judy Salmon
Aurora

We are unsure if it was an ad or a creative Letter to the Editor — but in any case it was just one of a number of people in the community who are expressing their disappointment with the actions of our Council.

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Posted in Community Input, Town Council | 3 Comments »

Volunteering: Is Respect Earned or Expected?

Posted by auroracitizen on September 24, 2009

Thanks to one of our contributors for this very thoughtful post.

Recently there has been some attention drawn to the role volunteers have in Aurora. I’ve been a volunteer in our community for about 15 years so I thought I’d share my perspective.

People recognize us for what we are. There aren’t a lot of interviews for getting a volunteer job in Aurora. We start at the bottom and work our way up. We get the response someone else feels we deserve, whether it is criticism or congratulations. Sometimes we get criticism and congratulations for the same thing, depending on how we affected different people.

Some of the criticism seems unpleasant but it has two very important side effects. First we stop taking ourselves so seriously. Second, we look at what we did and how we did it and decide if that is a good way to go in the future or if we should re-evaluate and change our ways. It’s much like having a job, but without a pay cheque. At least we don’t have to worry about the change in salary if we realise we need a change of career.

The congratulations are lovely and thankfully received with the realization that they should be shared with others, both volunteers and paid staff.

One thing volunteering has taught me is that I can’t do anything on my own. I can volunteer because my family supports my efforts, both in time and finances. I can volunteer because I have earned the trust of people. I can volunteer because people are willing to tell me what they need. If I want to make a change, I have to do it within the community.

As a volunteer, I have to work with other people who see the same problem, but may have different ways of getting to the goal of fixing it. We ask each other questions, and take the time to try to understand why each question was asked. When people start fighting about how to get to the desired end product, they are not serving anyone anymore.

Should volunteers have to stand up and ask for respect? Sure, but they have to earn it. They have to act like professionals, even if they aren’t paid that way.

For the record, my current volunteer activities in the Aurora community are: Convenor of Tyke House League for the AMHA, Co-chair of the School Supporters Association at Lester B. Pearson Public School, and Chair of the Aurora Public Library.

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Posted in Community Corner, Community Input | 9 Comments »

Changes are on the Way

Posted by auroracitizen on September 23, 2009

You will be seeing some changes over the next little while. We will be moving this blog over to a more robust platform that offers improved features. So please stay tuned for the changes and we ask for your patience as the transition is underway.

For those of you who have bookmarked this blog, you will need to update your bookmarks to get the most current posts — we’ll let you know when that is available. For those who subscribed through Feedburner, we are hopeful the transition will be seamless — but we will let you know when you need to check your feed.

Also, we are very pleased to be welcoming our first guest moderator. We are excited about this because it has always been our desire that this be a community forum for discussion. Stay tuned for more info about that.

As this online conversation continues to grow and build readership we will also continue to publish posts from an expanding group of contributors. So please keep your comments and ideas coming.

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Posted in Community Corner, Community Input | 13 Comments »

Politics & Religion

Posted by auroracitizen on September 20, 2009

We have received a number of anonymous comments/emails about the Aurora Mayors Prayer Breakfast (Oct 20 @ 7am – DiNardo’s) — intended as a “multi-faith” initiative.

A number of these emails suggest that this initiative does not embrace all faiths — or non-faith — and is really an inappropriate blending of politics and religion. This is something that has been observed in the US to varying degrees.

Do you think the Mayor should be engaged in this type of initiative — regardless of faith issues — or should Aurora politicians remain separate from anything that could be construed as religious based?

NOTE: Please do not post sections of emails — we will not post unless we have direct knowledge of the complete email and a source that confirms it’s authenticity. Your comment may remain anonymous on the blog, but we must have a copy of the email before posting your comment.

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Posted in Community Input | 37 Comments »

Anonymous is Upset

Posted by auroracitizen on September 7, 2009

Some commenter’s are upset that we have not published every negative comment they have posted about Councillor Buck — usually without making any reference to the actual post that everyone else is discussing. They call it censorship.

They will continue to be disappointed. This is not a vehicle for them to tell everyone how much they dislike Councillor Buck. That is not the purpose of the blog. It is and will continue to be a discussion.

We will continue to publish both positive or negative comments that are about the posts.

So feel free to disagree, just don’t make the sum of your comment “We/I hate Councillor Buck”.

Or, if you feel that strongly, we invite you to submit an article to be posted. Then that entire post will be about your topic and others can comment as they see fit — on that topic.

We will continue to try and keep comments related to the subject of the original post. We ask that commenter’s try to as well.

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Posted in Community Corner, Community Input | 18 Comments »

Willfully ignorant vs. aggressively skeptical

Posted by auroracitizen on August 15, 2009

The following post was reprinted from Seth Godin’s Blog.

Willfully ignorant vs. aggressively skeptical

Challenging the status quo is what I do for a living. Either that or encourage other people to do it.

But there are two ways to do it, and one of them is ineffective, short-sighted and threatens the fabric of the tribe. The other seems to work.

I heard someone screaming about death panels and how the government was not only going to kill his grandmother, but would take out Stephen Hawking himself if it had the chance.

The screaming is a key part, because screaming is often a tool used to balance out the lazy ignorance of someone parroting opposition to an idea that they don’t understand. (If you want to write to me about this post, please write to me about the screaming part, not about whether or not you agree with the facts or the science. That’s what the post is about, the screaming.)

If you want to challenge the conventional wisdom of health care reform, please do! It’ll make the final outcome better. But if you choose to do that, it’s essential that you know more about it than everyone else, not less. Certainly not zero. Be skeptical, but be informed (about everything important, not just this issue, of course). Screaming ignorance gets attention, but it distracts us from the work at hand.

It’s easy to fit in by yelling out, and far more difficult to actually read and consider the facts. Anytime you hear, “I don’t have the time to understand this issue, I’m too busy being upset,” you know that something is wrong.

Brands face this as much or more than politicians do. I witnessed a knock-down fight between two teenagers over which operating system was best. There are generations of arguments between Ford and Chevy owners. Motorcycle gangs are often parochial in their choice of bike. And in each case, the less people know, the more they yell.

If you want to change what your boss believes, or the strategy your company is following, the first step is to figure out how to be the best informed person in the room.

We think it applies. Facts are essential. Opinions drawn from facts are worth listening to. Opinions without facts to support them are just yelling. We love your informed opinions — thanks for joining the conversation.

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Posted in Community Input, Leadership, Town Council | 31 Comments »

Community Hydro Expert Speaks Out

Posted by auroracitizen on July 1, 2009

Local community hydro expert Richard Johnson and key member of STOP sent in the following comment. It is published unchanged. You can also read his Letter of the Week from June 26, 2009 in the Mississauga News on the same subject.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views of the AURORA CITIZEN.

Mayor Phyllis Morris and Sue Walmer of MegaWHAT and EAC both apparently drive SUV’s and rumour has it that they may well be sympathetic to the Conservatives as a few photos seem to suggest, which may all be well and fine with the exception that it also seems to fly in the face of the “green” image that they are so diligently trying to portray. So which is it, are they green or are they blue?

Sue Walmer refused to even discuss the power supply issue for three and a half years despite many attempts to engage her and EAC in the important issues being discussed in our community, before she then inexplicably co-authored MegaWHAT’s ridiculously poorly founded position statement that both Mayor Morris and “shadow Mayor” MacEachern also appeared to align with through an obviously preconceived and apparently contrived Council resolution related to the same issue.

Clearly none of them even read, or at the very least understand the environmental assessment studies or the OPA needs analysis related to the local power supply issue before they adopted their hard line stance on these long standing issues.

Mayor Morris refused to permit council to become well informed before any vote was taken on the power supply issue despite the many offers made to educate council by numerous well informed people. None of them even came close to demonstrating an understanding of the issues or the viable alternatives.

For some of us, including the Town of Markham, who spent $750,000 on communications, technical and environmental law experts in Aurora’s defence on these very same power supply issues, it was hard to watch. Mayor Morris, Sue Walmer and Council rejected the need for a critically required gas fired peaking plant to be built anywhere in Northern York Region or the province for that matter; despite the fact that the peaking plant was ironically required in order to incorporate wind or solar power solutions into the power grid as well as to protect our power reliability of Aurora, while at the same time reducing coal fired emissions in the province. Now these same people apparently all support a less environmentally friendly and a more expensive (per kilowatt) diesel powered UPS generator for the Town Hall!

Go figure. It just seems to go from bad to worse all of the time. I have to assume that the thinking may be that if you say you are a well informed defender of the environment or an energy expert enough times some people might actually believe you.

There is certainly no shortage of smoke and mirrors in Aurora at any event. Given the mixed signals being sent it really does make you wonder where they might stand with regards to the need for environmental assessments at all given that to date they seem to have ignored so much professional and well informed input from the likes of the Ontario Power Authority, OEB, IESO, APPrO, power company engineers and environmental assessment experts in any number of areas.

Through their mis-handling of environmental and planning issues locally they have arguably missed a significant opportunity to be constructively engaged in the power planning, environmental assessment and procurement processes. Under their leadership Aurora, the Region and even the province have missed the proverbial boat on smart growth infrastructure planning and sadly King, Mississauga the greater province are now paying a big price as a direct result.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that socio-economic impacts and other environmental concerns are often not addressed when we have so many governments, starting from the local governments upwards, that don’t even seem to care about the facts or the viable options before they adopt their politically expedient stance on any given issue.

It is no surprise to me that the province has passed legislation to allow them to impose power supply infrastructure on unwilling host communities given the clear lack of professional and good faith co-operation we have witnessed from our local municipalities and most notably from Aurora. If I have learned anything in the past five years politics and planning are all about spin, self interest and money at the end of the day, don’t kid yourself.

From my perspective, based on what we know from our local experience, it would be enlightening to know where Mayor Morris, shadow Mayor MacEachern and EAC stand with regards to the Globe & Mail news story quoted below. It sure does make you wonder where we are headed.

Ottawa could waive thousands more environmental assessments, (abbreviated quotes)
Martin Mittelstaedt and Dawn Walton, Toronto, Calgary — From Friday’s Globe and Mail, Friday, Jun. 26, 2009

The number of federally funded infrastructure projects exempted from environmental assessments could soar to nearly 14,000, up from the 2,000 figure the Conservatives announced in March.

The new figure was introduced earlier this week in a Federal Court of Canada case by the Sierra Club of Canada challenging the legality of exemptions. It was based on a disclosure Ottawa made in the Canada Gazette last month indicating that up to an additional 12,000 projects will be approved under the infrastructure program.

The new total suggests the federal cabinet’s decision to limit environmental assessments on infrastructure spending will have far broader effects than was initially thought. The exemption applies to a wide range of projects receiving federal money and includes highway widening, bridges and sewage treatment plants, but also ventures with little or no environmental impacts, such as bike trails and social-housing construction.

“Certainly we were appalled when it was at 2,000 and now we’re at a sevenfold increase. That’s just immense,” said Justin Duncan, a lawyer at Ecojustice, a public interest legal organization that is representing Sierra Club in the case. “Ballooning up to 14,000 certainly provides greater fodder for our case that the federal government is getting out of the [environmental assessment] game.”…

Speaking to reporters in Calgary, federal Environment Minister Jim Prentice, defended the exemption plan, saying the government “looked at the kinds of projects in the past where environmental assessments had resulted in delay, but not necessarily any improvements and where we felt that duplicative environmental assessments would not be in our best interests.”

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Posted in Community Input, Growth | 15 Comments »

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