Some might say Phyllis Morris and Evelina MacEachern are liars and hypocrites. Apparently obsessed with their manic egos, they have held Aurora’s Council hostage to their deranged approach to government. The vaunted Transparency and/or Accountability that were promised in their respective campaigns for office in the 2006 Municipal Elections were a complete fraud.
They co-opted four of the stupidest possible councillors to act as their surrogates in following along blindly the path laid out for them.
It appears that Morris and MacEachern embarked upon a mission to destroy the very Transparency and Accountability that marked their election campaigns. Instead we have a repugnant Code of Conduct for Council and an unnecessary Integrity Commissioner.
When the Code of Conduct faltered, the Integrity Commissioner reported on the charges laid by six members of Council against Evelyn Buck, to the effect that they had no merit and were politically motivated. His reward was his unceremonious firing.
The town recently entered into a contract with a new Integrity Commissioner, a former politician now practicing law. It is doubtful that this replacement has anywhere near the academic and professional qualifications of our first Integrity Commissioner. And up to $60,000 is allocated for this activity. Time and events will tell.
Seemingly, Morris is personally responsible for the expenditure of hundreds of thousands of tax-payer dollars, many completely wasted, in hiring a substantially larger bureaucratic staff, renaming and restructuring senior executive staff titles, positions and responsibilities. Has this streamlined our local government? No. On the contrary it has created a larger body of personnel whose sole task appears to be to do her bidding.
It is likely that all of these changes have led to staff concerns; many reports comment about the fear of staff for their jobs. It is inconceivable that the town’s employees are at a higher level of morale than they were when the Morris-MacEachern juggernaut first rolled into town. If staff morale is negatively affected it follows that the level and efficiency of their work will suffer significantly, and consequently impact upon Aurora’s residents.
Our town doles out hundreds of thousands of dollars of public purse dollars to various non-elected Committees; The Historical Society, the Arboretum, the July 1st Parade, the Farmers’ Market. These groups do what they wish with the town’s ‘generosity.’ They spend the money with no accountability to anyone. This is not the way to run a government whose promised objective was Transparency and Accountability. If a public company operated this way it would be subject to the scrutiny of the OSC in Ontario, to the SEC in the U.S., and possible prosecution by each.
Many residents feel that vast amounts of taxpayer dollars have been spent stupidly, whether in financing losing and futile OMB appeals or in needless internal investigations supported by a claque of lawyers whose sole interest is running up their legal fees. Many residents are of the opinion that these parasites care not for what is right or in the best interests of the town. And the bills are approaching $750,000, if not more.
Why do we set aside money every year to buy recreational land when it already exists? Instead we are selling off much of Aurora’s public lands, adding the proceeds to the millions of dollars already in the town’s “savings” account.
We will be cash rich and land poor and the land that we will eventually have to purchase will be twice or more as expensive as that of four or five years ago when we already had a huge cash balance in the bank.
It is felt by many that a request should to be sent to the Information and Privacy Commissioner and the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing to conduct a forensic audit of the books of the Town of Aurora in order to identify those areas where public money has been gratuitously squandered with no possible benefit to the town and its residents.
A similar audit should probably also be undertaken to determine just how political decision-making in Aurora occurs. Are decisions made by members of Council or by hired lawyers?
To Morris and MacEachern a Code of Conduct appears to be a license to abuse.
AUGUSTINIUS
Aurora Citizen 