Aurora Citizen

News & Views from the Citizens of Aurora Ontario

Archive for the ‘Town Council’ Category

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »

Both Papers Respond to Buck Lawsuit

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 »

The Lady at the Back

Posted by auroracitizen on October 4, 2009

One has to smile when presented by the latest manipulation by our Mayor.

At last Council meeting, when Open Forum was started, Mayor Morris asked if anyone had any comments. She then refered to the “Lady at the Back” (9:25 of the tape) who was encouraged to come forward and make her comments to Council.

And who should appear — none other than Sher St Kitts, one of the Mayors most loyal and vocal supporters — and an ongoing benefactor of the Mayors support.

One has to wonder if the Mayor has suddenly had a case of forgetfulness and cannot remember the names of her loyalists. Or is this the first public distancing of herself from a person who the Mayor sees as competition for media attention.

Why the silly charade? Does Mayor Morris not know that anyone who pays any attention to the goings on in Aurora is fully aware of the relationship between Sher St. Kitts and Phyllis Morris?

How silly!

Posted in Town Council | 11 Comments »

Rules of Procedure

Posted by auroracitizen on October 4, 2009

Thanks to one of our contributors for this post.

I’m writing this at 7:20 pm only 20 minutes into the televised Council meeting and already the procedural by-law is ignored.  Ms. St. Kitts was once again allowed to appear before Council in the Open Forum time period, simply for the purpose of boosting the Farmers Market, the entertainment, and the ego’s of those involved (again).

Here is the applicable section of the procedural by-law, as posted on the Town’s website (bolding has been added for emphasis).

Section 3 – Order of Business

Open Forum

3.1   Open Forum shall be considered a part of the formal order of business of Council. Any ratepayer of the Town of Aurora is entitled to make a deputation to Council on a matter that is or is not on the Agenda of Council provided the maximum time allotted is five minutes for each delegate and the total time of all delegates for this portion of the Agenda be restricted to twenty minutes.

By-law 4912-07.C

To the best of my knowledge, Ms. Kitts is not a “ratepayer of the Town of Aurora”, but no one, not the Chair, not staff, or any Member of Council raised a legitimate point of order.

Moderators Note: When people who are not ratepayers of Aurora wish to speak to Council or make a presentation, the appropriate channel to do so is though a Delegation — which is arranged through the Clerk’s department. A simple email request is usually all that is required. This gives members of Council fair notice that an item will be discussed which may require some preparation on their part.

Posted in Town Council | 5 Comments »

Downtown Revitalization

Posted by auroracitizen on October 4, 2009

The downtown core of Aurora has long been of concern for both residents and merchants. Yonge/Wellington Street parking has been debated as both essential (to merchants) and annoying (to drivers) for years.

Commercial centres continue to grow — with large pockets along Bayview and out at the 404 —  but Aurora does not have a vibrant downtown core that has reached its potential.

With the recent Thompson’s closing and Liquidation World opening up in the old Price Chopper, what plans does the Mayor and this Council have?

Make no mistake it will take a bold plan. One with foresight and require real collaboration and leadership to pull it off. It will not be easy.

However, if this Council wants a legacy different from “right to Dry”, fired Integrity Commissioners, entire senior staff turnover in 1 term, accusations of favouritism about select volunteers — here is an opportunity.

In her inaugural address Mayor Phyllis Morris stated that one of Council’s priorities was “developing a plan for our downtown and heritage areas, including Library Square” (see full transcript). There is less that 1 year left and we are still waiting.

Posted in Growth, Leadership, Town Council | 10 Comments »

Comparision Often Highlights Differences

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 Royson James in The 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 »

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 »

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.

Use the envelope and pencil icons immediately below to forward this post to friends or leave a comment.

Posted in Community Input, Town Council | 3 Comments »

Ads More Informative Than Articles

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.

Use the envelope and pencil icons immediately below to forward this post to friends or leave a comment.

Posted in Integrity, Legal, Town Council | 6 Comments »

Guest Post: Ageism and Abuse

Posted by auroracitizen on September 19, 2009

“A senior in this town” left the following comment on the post Notice of Reconsideration. We thought it was worth repeating here for its own separate discussion.

This comment does not altogether pertain directly to the topic but I have had something on my mind for quite some time now and Tuesday’s council meeting was a blatant illustration of my concern.

What I observed on Tuesday night and have seen occur with increasing frequency is ageism and abuse. It is insidious and sometimes disguised more heavily than at other times but it IS abuse and ageism.

I have witnessed bullying, particularly by Mayor Morris and Councillor MacEachern. The ageism is displayed as sneering, smirking, condescension and patronizing toward Councillor Buck.

The Mayor and Councillor MacEachern use all methods; Councillors Gaertner, Wilson, Granger and Gallo primarily resort to the non-verbal methods but Wilson and Gaertner are not averse to chipping in with comments too.

I have studied and written papers about ageism in today’s society and it may be the precursor or may often go hand in hand with elder abuse. Ageism refers to discrimination against any age group. I think it is clear that I am specifically referring to the elder age group.

The behaviour on Tuesday night was particularly shameful. Society used to respect, revere and protect the elders of the community generations. It was very clear that six of the leaders of Aurora have thrown their hats in with the modern view and treatment of our elders. How they disgust me when they have the gall to talk about respect and integrity.

Use the envelope and pencil icons immediately below to forward this post to friends or leave a comment.

Posted in Guest Post, Leadership, Town Council | 56 Comments »

Notice of Reconsideration — Where’s the Precedence.

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

Use the envelope and pencil icons immediately below to forward this post to friends or leave a comment.

Posted in Integrity, Town Council | 33 Comments »

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »