Aurora Citizen

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Archive for the ‘Integrity’ Category

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Reader Suggests Councillor Gaertner Resign Based on Behaviour

Posted by auroracitizen on December 21, 2010

An Open Letter to Councillor Wendy Gaertner.

Councillor Gaertner,

After witnessing first hand your display at the Aurora Council meeting on Tuesday Dec 14 2010, I had to write. You have demonstrated to me a lack of respect to Aurorans, to Aurora Council, and to the oath you swore. You’re alone in this behaviour, and you present yourself in a less than professional manner.

At this meeting I saw that you handed a letter, prepared in advance, to a representative of The Auroran.  I can only conclude from this action that it was your pre-meditated intent to be disruptive and drive a wedge. This type of behaviour serves no good to the town, nor to the people you swore to professionally and respectfully represent. In my opinion, you weren’t being truthful to Aurorans when you campaigned on the promise of serving the people of the community.

Our new council is going to make some process and procedural mistakes as they find their way. Growing pains are understandable and are bound to occur with a new council, however these will quickly fade as council develops their political acumen and we all move forward. I’m certain every reasonable person in town can accept this. What I believe is important to most Aurorans, is that our new council is making every effort to restore good, civil, accountable government to Aurora. Why you remain stuck in the past and focused on the negative, frankly escapes me.

You are opposed to, and showed no interest in taking part in the off-site meeting. What could possibly be your objection to taking part in learning sessions and a key team-building exercise? Teamwork was something sorrowfully lacking on Aurora Council for the last 4 years. Surely you cannot believe that;

  1. You already know all there is to know about municipal politics?
  2. Teamwork adds no value to a functioning council?
  3. You have nothing to learn about your new teammates?

An off-site meeting gives all those who attend the chance to get to know each other better, share ideas, share best practices, grow a deeper understanding and appreciation of your co-councillors, and to learn what issues are important to them. Like a sports team on a road trip, getting away as a group creates a bond that just doesn’t occur when everyone stays in town, and heads for the door as soon as the structured meeting ends. It was encouraging to see that most of the other councillors saw the obvious benefit in attending.

The recent election results showed that the majority of Aurorans want true change. We’re tired of the infighting. We don’t want a fractured council anymore. Why aren’t you listening? Have you no interest in being part of something better?

In my opinion, I believe you may be getting bad advice.

Who stands to benefit by having you act this way? I can tell you that it’s not the taxpayers of Aurora, so who then, are you truly representing? I can’t imagine that anyone could maintain this level of bitterness and vindictiveness without having it create a lasting negative affect on their outlook, their judgment, or their health, for that matter.

Councillor Gaertner, I believe you have no intention of honouring your oath or commitment to the taxpayers of Aurora. And as such, I respectfully ask you to resign your post as councillor. It appears to me that you no longer have the attitude, energy, direction, and focus required to carry out your sworn duties in a positive, fair, and respectful manner.

Matt Maddocks

Aurora

Posted in Code of Ethics, Community Input, Guest Post, Integrity, Leadership, Town Council | 34 Comments »

Councellor Gaertner Admits She Didn’t Write Notes

Posted by auroracitizen on December 20, 2010

Could it get any weirder?

After attacking Mayor Dawe at last Council meeting because he provided Council with a written Notice of Motion rather than a verbal Notice of Motion, Councillor Gaertner read from prepared printed notes that most would assume she prepared in advance of the meeting.

Throughout, members of the audience saw her continuously refer to these notes as she railed on that the written notice was not consistent with the procedural bylaw — even after the clerk assured her that written was even better than verbal, which was the minimum  as stated in the by-law.

She then proceeded to move a motion that the written Notice should not be accepted — instead, Mayor Dawe should make the Notice verbal.

“I would like to make a motion that items 15 and 16 be removed from the agenda tonight as they contravene the procedural bylaw and the mayor can give notice of motion verbally under new business as is our custom in Aurora Council.”

This motion was seconded by — wait for it — Councillor Ballard. Thankfully Council saw the absurdity of this “keystone kops” motion and voted it down 7 – 2 (guess who the 2 were :))

After her comments, she provided a copy of the notes that she read from to Brock Weir of The Auroran for his reference.

Here’s where it gets good.

It has been a common belief by many Council watchers that Councillor Gaertner gets notes provided in advance by others and then reads from them as if they are her own — but never before has she provided them for the press so that this belief could be proven. However, here’s what she said when asked to comment on the notes provided to The Auroran.

When asked who printed it off and handed it to her, she said “I guess I shouldn’t answer because this might get them in trouble.” “I don’t know whose comments these are. I have no idea. Do you think that I would hand that to you knowing that there was something like that on the back? I never wrote that, but that is somebody’s opinion. That is not my opinion.”

Thanks for clearing up the confusion.

The interesting comment she makes was “Do you think that I would hand that to you knowing that there was something like that on the back?”

Well of course, any intelligent person wouldn’t hand them over — but would any intelligent person be reading from someone else’s notes to begin with?

Some questions that immediately come to mind.

  1. Who is this mystery person or persons providing Councillor Gaertner her comments?
  2. And who did people actually elect when they put their “X” beside Councillor Gaertner’s name?

Points to ponder in the coming months and when trying to evaluate the contribution of Councillor Gaertner to this Council.

Posted in Integrity, Leadership, Town Council | 18 Comments »

Special Meeting Planned to Deal With Lawsuit Funding

Posted by auroracitizen on December 19, 2010

Aurora Council has called a special meeting for Tuesday December 21 to deal with the Town of Aurora funding Phyllis Morris for her lawsuit against 3 private citizens and this blog as well as unnamed bloggers.

The purpose will be to re-consider the original motion that allowed the then Mayor to take “any and all” action — which resulted in Phyllis launching a $6 million lawsuit funded with your tax dollars.

The meeting is at 7:00 pm if you are interested in attending.

Posted in Integrity, Leadership, Legal, Town Council | 3 Comments »

Committee Appointments

Posted by auroracitizen on December 10, 2010

A reader submitted a comment that started us thinking (which is always a scary thought). They were enquiring about committee appointments.

How did Mr. Ballard manage to be on 4 committees when others who applied (my husband included) were brushed off with nothing more than a curt note from the clerk? Wouldn’t it make sense to broaden citizen participation with more diverse experience, knowledge and expertise rather than concentrate it into the chosen few? I hope the process changes this year. We are being short-changed if it is the same old few monopolizing all the committees.

The question for discussion is how should committee members be appointed in the future. What should the process be?

In the past, public notice was made of any opportunities and confidential applications were reviewed in camera by Council. Selections made and announced publicly.

Folks who applied, but were not chosen were not disclosed so people were not offended or embarrassed by not being chosen. But at the same time, there is no opportunity for public scrutiny to confirm that no favouritism was shown or that the best people received the appointment.

The issue was one of how the decisions were made in camera. Were the most appropriate people chosen? Was Council fair and impartial in their selections or was favouritism shown?

Councillor Ballard has been and continues to align himself with Phyllis Morris and her initiatives. When there is an appearance of favouritism it adds a stink to the air that is not helpful to anyone and breeds resentment on all sides — because suddenly there are sides versus working together for the benefit of the community.

To avoid any perception of favouritism and to demonstrate leadership in this area Mayor Dawe clearly stated in his election campaign that none of his key supporters would be appointed to any committees.

This term, a small group populates a disproportionate share of committees. The Town is not leveraging the diverse population to get the broadest input. I commit to encouraging diverse participation and will not support the selection of any of my key campaign team to any Town committee.

He subsequently listed his key campaign team on his website as part of his election thank you’s. So you can quickly tell if any are appointed to any committees.

We fully expect that he will honour this commitment. We are also confident readers will report if they see any conflict with this commitment. It’s pretty transparent from where we sit.

The fact that he felt the need to make this type of commitment suggests his view of past appointments, but does not implicate the process itself.

During his inaugural comments, Councillor Gallo made reference that politicians are held to a higher standard. We agree. They are in a position of public trust. It’s not just what they do, but how they are seen to do it. The commitment to simply not appoint any favourites to committees resets the bar and clarifies his position.

But the question still remains, what is best process for making committee appointments  — so it is seen to be fair and transparent by all members of the community.

And in this case, is there a loss to the town? In an effort to make sure the process is seen to be fair and impartial, potentially valued resources are precluded from participation because they were part of Mayor Dawes campaign team.

Your thoughts?

Posted in Code of Ethics, Community Input, Geoff Dawe, Integrity, Leadership | 18 Comments »

Mayor Elect Says No Means No

Posted by auroracitizen on November 22, 2010

On November 17, 2010 @8:29 pm in the post Recount Results,  “Anonymous” stated;

“Humfryes, Ballard, Gaertner, and Gallo should be a good check on Dawe, to make sure he doesn’t sell out the town to developers, and gut the new official plan.

I’m looking forward to seeing Dawes financial report to see how much developer backing he has.”

I was originally going to simply respond with a comment, but then I decided to submit a stand-alone post and see if we can’t have some fun with it.

First, to reiterate, I stated during the campaign, that I would not accept donations from developers. I said this a number of times and I was quoted (accurately) in the paper. So, that fact is very much public, and I fully expect it will be verified with my audited returns.

As I used to have to say to my kids, what part of NO do you not understand.

Should the audit show that I did unknowingly receive a donation from a developer, then I will

  1. return that donation, and;
  2. personally donate an equal amount to the Aurora Food Pantry.

HOWEVER, should the audit show that I indeed DID NOT receive donations from developers then I ask Anonymous to make a donation to the Aurora Food pantry – say $100.00.

What say you, Anonymous? Are you up for this challenge? Are you ready to make a positive difference to life in Aurora?

Let me know.

Geoff Dawe – Mayor Elect

Posted in Code of Ethics, Election 2010, Geoff Dawe, Integrity, Leadership | 28 Comments »

Guest Post: Integrity

Posted by auroracitizen on October 26, 2010

The events and news of the past week in Aurora have made me reflect on “integrity”. It seems that the word is bantered around at every corner. Integrity has become a political catchphrase and in Aurora its been battered and bruised. Are we are too liberal with the use of the word? Do we need to be more reserved so that it still holds it value?  Perhaps we need to review “integrity”, its meaning, its origins in ourselves, our children, our friends and our neighbours.”.

Here are my thoughts:

Having and maintaining integrity is hard work. It’s not something to be taken lightly. It’s not something that parents pass on like a family heirloom. It is developed and nutured in our children by leading them through examples. It is not automatically received by job title or promotion or family tree.

It’s what perhaps our best teachers, most memorable coaches, favourite family friends helped demonstrate to us growing up. It’s not something that we can self-prescribe to ourselves. It is something that must be earned and demonstrated from our interactions with our family, friends, co-workers and community. It’s something we may all struggle with at times to know what’s right and to do what’s right at the right time.

It’s treating people fairly – all people whether you’ve known them all your life or your just met them yesterday. It’s being fair, even if at that moment being fair is not to your advantage. It’s saying what you’ll do and following through by doing what you say.

You can’t display integrity some days and not others. By its definition it requires consistency. You either have it or you don’t – it’s not half way. At times you may lose your integrity, but perhaps you can regain it. It may be having the humility to admit that you have made a mistake (and we all have made mistakes) and correcting the wrong. It’s about how you handle yourself during the time when you need to right your wrongs and learn from your mistakes.

In going forward, perhaps we need to reserve the use of the word so that it retains its value and meaning. Aurora’s next mayor and town council will have a challenge of leading by example and being measured by their integrity. They may be choosing to do so without an appointed referee. Best of success to them all!

Paul

Posted in Code of Ethics, Community Corner, Integrity, Leadership | 1 Comment »

Ethics are a Funny Thing When Campaigning

Posted by auroracitizen on October 2, 2010

Recently all 5 Mayoralty candidates were invited to Devins Drive Public School to talk to the Grade 5 students and answer questions from the students about the upcoming election. Teachers and parents were also invited.

Most folks would understand this was not a typical campaigning event since it is more educational in nature and the audience were all young people.

However, since all 5 candidates were invited, would you expect Phyllis to behave as a candidate or Mayor?

We ask because Phyllis wore her official chain of office to this event.

What do you think? Did she step over the line?

When campaigning, incumbant candidates are not allowed to use town resources (i.e. email accounts) to avoid the perception of an uneven playing field.

Should she have worn her chain as Mayor, brought the chain and just shown it to the kids or should she have left it at home given the nature of the appearance with other candidates?

Posted in Code of Ethics, Election 2010, Integrity, Leadership | 13 Comments »

Candidates Debate at Rogers TV

Posted by auroracitizen on September 30, 2010

Yesterday all 5 candidates for Mayor were in attendance at Rogers TV for the first of a number of scheduled interactions.

From what we hear it was a spirited affair – so be sure to look for it both on TV and online.

One of the stipulations was that each candidate was only allowed to bring 1 supporter. Phyllis Morris brought Ken Whitehurst.

Wasn’t that the same fellow awarded a $60,000 dollar job without  advertising the job so other members of the public could apply — per town recruitment policies — and who also sat on the committee that created the job?

Hmmmm? Just asking.

Also, don’t forget to attend the all-candidates event at the Town Hall this Sunday starting at 2 pm, presented by the Library Board.

Posted in Code of Ethics, Conflict of Interest, Election 2010, Integrity, Leadership | 2 Comments »

Opinions, Allegations and Threats

Posted by auroracitizen on September 16, 2010

The Aurora Citizen is again the target of a letter from the Town solicitor demanding that comments be removed from this blog.

On Sept 14th, Mr Bill Hogg received a registered letter from Christopher C. Cooper, Director of Legal Services/Town Solicitor with the comment “While the Town does not seek to stifle fair and accurate comment, we hereby ask that you remove the posts from the Blog, which posts suggest  Mr Ballantyne is or has acted unethically and illegally in his role as the Town’s manager of Corporate Communications.”

Within the letter he also indicates the specific comments that are the subject of the letter.

So let’s be clear –in the quest for accuracy.

The comments identified by Mr Cooper are not posts written by someone associated with this blog — they were comments submitted by readers of this blog.

The first comment suggested that a Phyllis Morris quote included in a Banner article on her campaign for re-election was written by Mr Ballantyne.

The second comment indicated that they hoped that Mr Ballantyne was not responsible for updating comments on Wikipedia since they could be looked upon as electioneering edits.

Both comments expressed opinion. They were not asserted as statements of fact by the commentors.

The issue from the town perspective is that these comments implied that Mr Ballantyne was improperly using his office to help a candidate for re-election — which is inappropriate and a serious accusation under the Code of Conduct governing Town employees as well as the Municipal Elections Act, 1996.

Fair enough — we have removed the 2 comments at the request of the Town since it is the Town’s position that “the suggestions made in the posts were not true, have no basis in fact”. You can read the entire letter by clicking on the pictures above.

We also do not want any allegations published — either by contributors to this blog or the numerous readers who comment.

We believe the protection of staff from being embroiled in political debate is an important issue. Staff are expected to remain outside the political battles at all times. After all, this terms enemy, might be next terms boss.

We trust that Phyllis Morris and the remainder of Council share this view.

Posted in CAO, Election 2010, Integrity, Leadership, Staff Turnover, Town Council | 41 Comments »

Mayor Morris’ Re-Election Website

Posted by auroracitizen on September 15, 2010

Well Phyllis has finally launched her re-election website. And frankly it exactly reflects her political style. Glossy looking, completely lacking in anything of substance and a willingness to mis-represent or  twist facts and stretch the truth to suit her own purposes.

One of our readers has provided their view on the site and asked for your feedback.

Mayor Morris has now updated her re-election webpage.

Without knowing the history of Town Council for the past 4 years and having a critical eye for the lack of detail it would be easy for anyone to think that perhaps we should all be re-electing Mayor Morris. For perhaps the thousands of Aurorans who do not follow town politics this could be an easy conclusion. It’s up to the informed and the other mayoral nominees to set “the record straight”.

The other nominees should also note her “tag line” of “Leadership, Vision, Ability”. This is what they will have to counter and what she is running on as the incumbent. She doesn’t have to demonstrate these qualities she just has to keep repeating them and the voters may believe her and vote her in again.
 
I have included a few comments below of my own but would be interested in what others may think of her presentation. She of course would not speak of the negative and must spin it all to her best light. I believe it whitewashes over the conflicted town council and all of the problems of the past 4 years.
 
There doesn’t seem to be any message in her website of what’s going forward by electing her once again. She perhaps doesn’t want to disclose a platform at this time and will only do so when needed.

Reference www.phyllismorris.net  (Homepage)

  1. “It has been a pleasure to work with a fantastic Town Council that successfully considered and charted new directions. The public record shows it to be the most capable in a decade at both finding common ground and achieving results.”  Wow! Has she really enjoyed all of the turmoil. What new directions have been charted? Where are the details of this success? What is the “public record” that she is credit for as being “the most capable in a decade?”
  2. “Our town is remarkable! Aurora is quiet neighbourhoods, heritage homes and nature trails.”   No mention of traffic jams at Yonge & Wellington or at the GO Station on Wellington or that Aurora has urban sprawl.
  3. “Aurora is for everyone!”   Wasn’t the Mayor the one that commented that low-cost housing isn’t needed in Aurora. It is for everyone that can afford to live here now and in the future with rising taxes.
  4. “Aurora has grown stronger because we respect and nurture new ideas. Your local government is better because it has become more open, accountable and fiscally responsible. With fresh energy, enthusiasm and commitment, we have developed a clear vision of how to further enrich our community.”  ??? more open, accountable & fiscally responsible? Where’s the proof?
  5. “The New York Times wrote: “Aurora is exactly the kind of hip, upscale, well-educated town where conflicting values are put to the test.” You would need an US paper to quote as the Canadian papers with local knowledge have not printed favourable reviews of what’s happening in Aurora.
    (Editors addition:  Knowledgable readers know this is related to a New York Times article that appeared on April 17, 2008, headed “A Line in the Yard: The Battle Over the Right to Dry Outside”  Is this what our election is all about? Or is this possible mis-leading to people not fully aware of the context)
  6. Reference www.phyllismorris.net/About-Phyllis-Morris (About Phyllis) “Mayor Phyllis Morris is known for her integrity, energy, positive attitude, sense of fair play, genuine concern for people”   It’s all depends of course on your perspective.
  7. “Phyllis Morris was elected Aurora’s first four-year Mayor in 2006.   “Of course emphasis has been placed on the “four-year”. Come on, really??  Is that what you are calling your accomplishment? Well somebody had to be the 1st.
  8. “Mayor Phyllis Morris has consistently demonstrated her leadership skills by identifying issues critical to the Town and rallying the community, councillors and staff to find solutions.”   From what I have read I would question her methods of “rallying”. It would appear more like “it’s my way or the highway” in how she deals with issues.
  9. “In areas such as the environment, town planning and heritage preservation, she is often at the leading edge of what is happening in politics in Canada and the world.”Really?? That’s putting it on a little thick. Mayor Morris is “often at the leading edge of what is happening in politics in Canada and the world”. Wow that’s stretching it! I don’t seem to seeing her on national news etc. Is she taking personal credit for all of Aurora? She doesn’t include any examples. Is it perhaps a couple of heritage awards and the “line laundry” issue but of course no mention of the code of conduct fiasco.
  10. “As an elected official, Phyllis’ key goal has always been to facilitate the public’s access to the processes of government, so that her constituents’ needs are heard.”   This seems to contradict the many requests for information that other Aurorans have issues to Town Hall and the numerous closed sessions of council.

What’s your take on all of this?

Posted in Election 2010, Integrity, Leadership | 59 Comments »

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