Posted by auroracitizen on October 14, 2009
Last month we published a post Focal Point on Roger’s Cable should be interesting Wednesday night…. that spoke of the program on Rogers Cable by Nancy Coldham dealing with Municipal Governance.
We understand the show is scheduled for tonight. The program starts at 8:00 p.m and you can call in at 1-866-715-1010. You can also contact Nancy via email <ncoldham@cggroup.com>
We expect that both Vaughan and Aurora Council will be prominently featured.
Posted in Code of Ethics, Integrity, Leadership, Town Council | 2 Comments »
Posted by councilcop on October 7, 2009
The recent post (Comparison often Highlights Differences) regarding the Toronto Star story that covered the issue of “doctored” council minutes in Mississauga and the recent Toronto Star coverage about the great divide on Aurora’s council got me thinking. We know that one of the main issues that triggered the recent wrath of Mayor Morris and the G6 was the reaction to the delegation from a resident of Snowball by the name of Sher St. Kitts and all that has ensued subsequently. Councillor Buck dared to suggest that the minutes were “doctored”, so you be the judge of the following facts, as we know them.
A motion from Councillor MacEachern resulted in Council waiving procedure, despite the fact that they did not have enough votes to do so. The resulting motion clearly states that Council should “allow the comments (of Ms. St.Kitts) to be introduced as part of the record.” I also understand that the Roger’s Cable video of the meeting clearly shows Sher St. Kitts handing her comments to the Town Clerk. However the resulting council minutes accepted by Council as capturing the essence of the meeting (provided below) do not include the specific comments made by Sher St. Kitts for some very strange reason. Instead we were told by the Mayor that the CAO, the Town’s Solicitor and the Town Clerk all agreed that the summary of the comments included in the minutes captured are sufficient. On that front I would like to clarify what “undirected harassment” in fact means.
I also understand that when you listen to the tape, the motion that was read by the clerk and voted upon was NOT what Councilor MacEachern originally moved and Councillor Wilson seconded, therefore I am somewhat confused how this could have been permitted to happen.
If procedure was waived in order to allow for Sher St. Kitts approximately twenty minute rant against Councilor Buck when five minutes is usually permitted for delegations, and if council did not technically have the two thirds (2/3) majority required to pass the MacEachern motion and if the motion that passes was not the one initially proposed, does that mean that the Council can arbitrarily decide when a motion passes and what the minutes will reflect irrespective of the procedural bylaws that govern council ?
The minutes do not in fact reflect what transpired or what was required by an order of council to reflect. Furthermore the rules of procedure were also apparently broken in a number of areas which also does not seem to be of concern to the Mayor. If the minutes do not capture what was said or what council insisted be captured, and if the council’s following of procedure is called into question, then I am wondering what recourse the citizens of Aurora have ? Apparently all we may have is the power of our vote in one year’s time.
To add a very strange twist to this tale, it is the very Councilor that was allowed to be verbally attacked in front of her granddaughter who was with her class in the audience, that is fighting for the truth to come out, while the Mayor who allowed offensive comments to be made in a forum that she was informed by the Town’s Solicitor was inappropriate for such comments, who has tried to justify the gross and flagrant manipulation of procedure. The Mayor presumably allowed her friend (otherwise now known as “The Lady at the Back”) to attack her advisory on council because the Mayor presumably appreciated the potential political consequences. That captures for me, the essence of our new and improved form of local government.
Despite all of the issues raised above, Council does not want to address any of the issues resulting from the above outlined debacle as per their defeating of the motion noted below and all of this is from a Mayor who insists that she is restoring integrity, civility and transparency to our council’s dialog:
May 26th discussion on “Council Meeting Minutes of Tuesday, May 12, 2009”
Moved by Councillor Collins-Mrakas Seconded by Councillor Buck
THAT the Council minutes of Tuesday, May 12, 2009 be referred to staff so that they may review them in concordance with the tape of the meeting, and revise the minutes where appropriate.On a recorded vote the motion was DEFEATED. YEAS: 3 NAYS: 6
VOTING YEAS: Councillors Buck, Collins-Mrakas and Gaertner
VOTING NAYS: Councillors Gallo, Granger, MacEachern, McRoberts, Wilson and Mayor Morris
Moved by Councillor Gallo Seconded by Councillor Granger
THAT the Council minutes of Tuesday, May 12, 2009 be adopted as printed and circulated. On a recorded vote the motion was CARRIED. YEAS: 7 NAYS: 2VOTING YEAS: Councillors Gaertner, Gallo, Granger, MacEachern, McRoberts, Wilson and Mayor Morris
VOTING NAYS: Councillors Buck and Collins-Mrakas
III OPEN FORUM May 12th — minutes accepted by Council Ms Sher St. Kitts, volunteer and Chair of the Canada Day Parade Sub-Committee addressed Council to advise of her intent to lodge a formal undirected harassment complaint on behalf of the Canada Day Parade Sub-Committee and the Aurora Dream Team pertaining to Councillor Evelyn Buck and advised that she would provide a written submission when it has been formally prepared.Moved by Councillor MacEachern Seconded by Councillor Wilson
THAT the provisions within the Procedural By-law be waived to allow the comments to be introduced as part of the record.CARRIED
To add insult to injury, the Mayor has attacked the professional credentials of our past Integrity Commissioner in order to justify her firing of him after he dared to deliver a less than favorable report and furthermore she has been copied on any number of e-mails sent by Councillor MacEachern at all hours of the night that have been far less than professional or civil. These e-mails are in the public realm and yet the Mayor and Councillor MacEachern seem to feel that they have the moral authority to hold Councillor Buck accountable while ignoring their own apparent indiscretions.
I think these issues should be the first order to business for our new Integrity Commissioner who with any luck will have a well crafted contract with the town in order to protect against wrongful or politically motivated dismissal.
Posted in Code of Ethics, Integrity, Leadership, Town Council | 3 Comments »
Posted by auroracitizen on October 7, 2009
Ad renews attack on Aurora mayor’s leadership
Published On Wed Oct 7 2009
Gail Swainson Urban Affairs Reporter
A second anonymous ad has appeared in a local newspaper demanding the resignation of Aurora Mayor Phyllis Morris and her council “minions,” and the production of a detailed list of expenditures for “extraordinary” legal issues.
“In order to rid ourselves from the arrogance on council, people will have to come forward and stand for public office,” said the ad, which ran in the Auroran last week and was sponsored by a group identifying itself as the Aurora Coalition.
The ad questions Morris’s leadership and asks why council spends “untold hours” in “secret meetings accompanied by lawyers.”
The first ad ran in late August in the Auroran, a lively community paper run by Ron Wallace, a former local politician. It called for Morris and five of the eight sitting councillors to be turfed in the next election.
Last week’s ad is the latest volley in an escalating battle between two warring factions on council.
The infighting crystallized in July around the firing of integrity commissioner David Nitkin after he rejected a complaint lodged by council against Councillor Evelyn Buck, led by Morris and her supporters.
The complaint said Buck posted “unmerited” comments on her blog accusing city staff of not following proper council procedures.
Morris’s office would not comment on the latest ad. Buck said she doesn’t know who is behind them.
Posted in Code of Ethics, Integrity, Leadership, Town Council | 3 Comments »
Posted by auroracitizen on October 5, 2009
The Aurora Coalition has published their third ad in a continuing series. Of interest, this one has increased to a full 1/2 page which may suggest that financial support has increased.
The initial focus of this ad is the lack of teamwork demonstrated by this Council, in spite of promises by Mayor Morris in her Inaugural Speech that we would see an improvement versus the Jones era. An era in which she was the major contributor to the dysfunction — some might suggest as a strategy to aid her own chances of election.
The ad goes on to highlight the legal costs that have been incurred by this Council for reasons that have little to do with the management of the Town and demanding a detailed statement of expenditures for these expenses.
Both these issues led to a question about the Accountability and Transparency demonstrated by this Council and a final suggestion that the only way to “rid ourselves of the arrogance on Council” will be for people to come forward to stand for public office and then get the vote out in 2010. The have also provided an email address where they can be contacted at auroracoalition@gmail.com
Posted in Community Input, Integrity, Leadership, Town Council | 25 Comments »
Posted by auroracitizen on October 4, 2009
The second ad in response to the lawsuit by Councillor Buck has appeared. First we saw an ad in The Banner. This past week, The Auroran ran an ad titled Statement of Explanation.
Unlike the Banner ad, it did not offer an apology to Councillor Buck, it actually deflected the blame back where it belongs — with the party that placed the ad. The Auroran takes the position that it simply ran an ad they accepted in good faith “considering the Town is a good customer of The Auroran and a government body as well” and “One would assume the comments made by the Town were correct”.
In other words, the government should be trusted to follow the rules. Fair enough.
The Auroran is seeking indemnification from the party that placed the ad — the Corporation of Aurora.
The ad goes even further and states that The Auroran’s lawyer had reviewed Councillor Buck’s blog and had found nothing that would be considered critical or disparaging to staff or that was outside the duties to which Councillor Buck had been elected.
It would appear the only response outstanding is from Council. Although their refusal to remove the complaint from the Town website using a procedural twist to prevent this will certainly be included in any further legal activities.
Posted in Integrity, Leadership, Town Council | 11 Comments »
Posted by auroracitizen on October 4, 2009
In many aspects of life, comparison provides a good foil for seeing the strengths and weaknesses in a particular product or service. The same applies to leadership. In politics, various leaders are often compared to make a point.
Here’s an interesting article from he Star that serves to provide an illuminating comparison. http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/703650
Mississauga Council has recently had to deal with a conflict of interest declaration by Mayor McCallion. The interesting point of comparison is the handling of the assertion by Carolyn Parrish that the minutes had been potentially ” doctored”. You may recall it was a similar comment by Councillor Buck that led to the entire Integrity Commission complaint and subsequent firing of the Commissioner the day after returning his opinion on the matter.
In Mississauga’s case, when faced with the assertion by Councillor Parrish — they reviewed the videotaped evidence and acted on it. City council voted 6-4 to order a judicial inquiry into the Mayor’s role in the proposed land deal. Councillor Parrish, regardless of her motives, was not accused of inappropriate comments. The facts were clear — the minutes did not reflect what happened in the meeting. She merely brought the discrepancy to light.
In Aurora, Councillor Buck, put forward a similar – and in many respects far more neutral comment – and when faced with the video evidence — 5 members of Council voted to have her charged under the Code of Conduct.
Even when faced with the hard facts that the public record did NOT match what the video clearly showed to have happened (i.e. a recorded vote was taken and did not appear in the Minutes), Aurora Council blustered and continued to pretend it didn’t happen. And went on the offensive when held to account by one of their own members.
Well folks, minutes are supposed to capture what did happen — not what should have happened. Just because you acted badly, doesn’t mean we should just pretend it didn’t happen. Responsible adults accept responsibility for their actions. Even David Letterman understood that. Trusted leaders are held to an even higher standard.
It is interesting to see the disparity. Once again our “leaders” have shown their true colours — and this has only been more clearly illustrated by comparison with another municipality.
James sums up his article “No Mayor should expect a free ride after such a contravention of the rule. Not even in Mississauga.” Well he should make a visit to our fair city. The rules are being re-written for the benefit of Mayor Phyllis Morris and her faithful side-kicks.
Posted in Code of Ethics, Integrity, Leadership, Legal, Town Council | 3 Comments »
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;
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 »
Posted by auroracitizen on September 25, 2009
Recently the ads seem to be more interesting than the articles — and sometimes more telling about what is really happening in our town.
While our local media seems to be taking a “wait and see” attitude that doesn’t offend the current slate of politicians, the mainstream media has been more critical.
Then the Coalition for a Better Aurora placed the first of 2 ads that condemned the actions of Council.
Now on Page 15 of The Banner on Sept 22, we see an ad from The Banner that apologizes for running the ad titled “Statement from the Town of Aurora”.
It goes on to say “The Ad contained allegations of inappropriate conduct by Councillor Buck relating to her weblog. The Ad did not set out Councillor Buck’s position in response to the allegations. Councillor Buck denies the allegations made against her in the Ad and denies that she has acted inappropriately.”
Then it formally apologizes with “The Banner regrets any harm that may have been caused by the publication of the Ad.”
It would seem to be a logical conclusion that this ad was run in response to the lawsuit filed by Councillor Buck. It is interesting that a sophisticated media publication, with all their lawyers who defend freedom of speech etc, were so quick to see the error of their behaviour.
Even with the rights of Freedom of Speech and integrity of news stories that newspapers rightly champion and fight for, they have written an apology because (we hypothesize) they recognized that allegations without proof are inappropriate.
Council, in their rush to condemn should also have known better. If the news media see that the ad should not have been run, what will the result be for the Town when they have used suspect procedural manipulation to maintain the ad on our Town website simply to prove that they can.
Councillor MacEachern has again demonstrated her feelings towards Councillor Buck have caused her to lose sight of why she was elected. And the rest of the gang have just gone along.
The Banner has accepted responsibility for their inappropriate behaviour. When will Council?
Now we, the taxpayers, have to sit back and watch this Council continue to waste our resources.
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Posted in Integrity, Legal, Town Council | 6 Comments »
Posted by auroracitizen on September 18, 2009
Councillor MacEachern seems to have created another set of rules. See it live starting at 2:52:00. 18 minutes of classic Morris MacEachern.
Decide for yourself if this was a well orchestrated performance. Councillor MacEachern just happened to have her references to the procedural bylaws to support her twisted logic — and the 5 just fell in line! Imagine a vote of 5 against 3 on the Mayors ruling on her Point of Order.
If this was planned in advance, it also puts comments by Mayor Morris to Mr Hogg about this very topic in a different context.
If Councillor MacEachern was sincere in her statements about working as a team, wouldn’t she have raised this with Councillor McRoberts in advance and given him a chance to adjust his motion — rather than trying to embarrass him.
Since when is a Notice of Reconsideration required to remove anything from the website. Based on this rationale, therefore any item that has been approved by Council to be included on the website, The Notice Board, etc. by motion must run in perpetuity unless it is removed by a formal Notice of Reconsideration — unless a specific removal date is included in the initial motion.
Wouldn’t a Notice of Reconsideration mean that they would not put something up. Since it is already up — it doesn’t make any sense. As Councillor McRoberts said, putting up versus taking down are 2 different issues.
Possibly Councillor MacEachern would provide examples where this has been done in the past. Or where a Notice of Reconsideration was used to remove anything that was deemed to be no longer relevant or was outdated.
How about it Councillor MacEachern? As a regular reader of this blog — and you must be since you claim it is unbalanced, and we know you would never make a statement this definitive without personal knowledge — here is a perfect opportunity to provide the balance you desire.
Refer us to the minutes where this has happened in the past.
You couldn’t ask for a better demonstration of the style and quality of character and leadership on this Council.
If you are real glutton for punishment — watch the next section where they dissect the motion to have citizens input on the code. Another classic.
FOOT NOTE: The Banner article
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Posted in Integrity, Town Council | 33 Comments »
Posted by auroracitizen on September 16, 2009
The following remarks were delivered by Bill Hogg at the Sept 15 Council meeting. The video can be seen on the Rogers website — time 17:30 – 23:15. Councillor MacEacherns questions begin at 23:15 – 27:00.
Madame Mayor, members of Council, citizens of Aurora,
My first thought when considering my remarks tonight was to chastise this Council for their recent behaviour — not unlike the comments made by another person recently who publically took a single member of Council to task.
However, after further reflection, I will not chastise since I hold too much respect for the office of Mayor and Councillor, knowing the difficult job your all perform from personal experience and in respect to those who have sat in those chairs previously.
However, I would like to share some thoughts on the current situation.
Like many resident of Aurora my business brings me in contact with colleagues in the GTA. In all my years living in Aurora, I have never before been embarrassed by my community. I now find myself being regularly questioned about the activities of this Council.
People, both in town and elsewhere, are appalled by what they read about the conduct of this Council relative to the recent events and resultant firing of our Integrity Commissioner after his one and only report.
I am regularly stopped by friends and neighbours who share my concerns about the communication by this Council that questions the abilities of an accomplished individual who has had his good name and reputation smeared — to the point that he felt the need to issue a cease & desist notice to our Mayor.
We are disturbed by the appearance of a personal vendetta to silence a single Councillor and bully other critics into silence.
Now most of you know that I served for 3 years with Councillor Buck — in fact we sat side by side in those 2 chairs. With respect to Councillor Buck, she was often opinionated and thoroughly enjoyed a good debate — but her focus was the welfare of the town and its citizens and she always came well educated about the issues.
And while we often disagreed quite forcefully, we confined our comments to the issues and we tried to remain open-minded to hear what each other had to say.
Even her alleged smiting of Councillor Wallace with his own newspaper was simply an entertaining interplay between 2 passionate Aurorans that has been blown out of proportion. I was there. I’d like to assure everyone, No Councillors were harmed in the making of the video.
In that time, Councillors spoke vigorously about the issues and then often retired to a local restaurant to continue discussions on what was best for the town. A sense of unity was developed. Differing opinions were encouraged and debated at Council meetings in full public view not behind closed doors or before public meetings.
Politics in this town has change — and not for the better. In my opinion it has sunk to a new low with these most recent attacks.
Even now when the report from the Integrity Commissioner has been returned and declined to address the complaint because it was deemed ill-formed, incomplete and inappropriate in the way it was crafted because it could be seen as wholly political, the complaint is still published on the website as an official Council communication.
Mr Nitkin’s report seems quite clear on the issue.
Given these facts how can this Council continue to publish a complaint that has been clearly identified as inappropriate? Councillor McRoberts asked last week about this issue and has been forced to put his request into a formal motion rather than Council just taking the high ground and removing the compliant. I hope tonight’s vote will be recorded — and more importantly, I hope it will make it into the public record as was the custom — prior to this term.
I endorse Councillor McRoberts motion for a committee to evaluate the existing Code of Conduct. It has been shown that the Code and the processes associated with it as it exists currently are fraught with opportunity for mis-use.
A review by the public would only make sense.
I recall a number of years ago, another code of this nature was implemented in this town — championed by yourself Madame Mayor when you were a Councillor with ambitions to be Mayor. You included input from the community then. Does it still not make sense to include the community now?
It is time to stop with the politicking and get back to why you were elected — the business of this community. You need to stop spending our tax dollars on issues that are about Council personalities and personal agendas and work together to provide services at the lowest tax rate possible.
Thank you for your time and attention.
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Posted in Integrity, Leadership, Town Council | 3 Comments »
Aurora Citizen 