Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "I Just Realised":
"The contract for the Church Street school was designed to give the former Mayor and friends complete control of the building."
Hyperbole aside, I have a hard time to beleive this. I think that perhaps the contract was drawn up to enable those that travel in the same circle to have a place. They felt that this was their legacy - whether they stayed in power or not.
As a 20 year resident of Aurora, I see a number of "clics".
1. The old timers. These are the residents that have lived here for a long time. They liked Aurora of the 60s and 70s. It was not a bedroom community but a town on it's own.
2. The first wavers. This is a group of residents that moved here in the 80s and created some of the more affluent communities (northwest Aurora), Eldeberry trail, etc. They feel that Aurora is an affluent community and this is the audience that the Cultural Centre is aimed at. This is the group that MorMac appeals to.
3. The second wavers. This is a group that moved in the '90s and they have moved into areas like the south west. These people are not as affluent as the Eldeberry group. They are typically commuters that have moved from the city and were looking for a quieter place to raise their family.
4. The third wavers. This is the group that has moved into the area - typically Aurora east. These are the people that the Sobeys, Walmarts, etc have been built for. Some of these people have no idea where "downtown" Aurora is. They moved here because at the time, the houses were inexpensive (comared to Richmond Hill, Vaughan, Markham).
If council is going to govern the Town they really need to look at the demographics.
For those of you on this blog, where do you fit into the four groups above?
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You have to go back further than twenty years to have a sense of the town's history and demographics.
The first wave in the sixties came for the same reason as the last. Houses were affordable. And I mean cheap. .
The town, like every other community that ever was, had an affluent sector and all the rest.
Who ever Mormac was appealing to didn't care for the tune.
The last wave of newcomers are similar to all the rest. They pay taxes to the Town of Aurora.
They don't need anyone to be advised of the fact.
Like everyone else, it takes a couple of years to break ties with the place they came from;the butcher, the baker ,the candlestick maker.
Grandparents follow and the whole family is together.
The kids will go to school and play soccer and ball and hockey. Parents from different parts of the community will sit together and watch them or coach them and help each other out getting them to games.Kids are the great equalizers.
They will become aware of where town services fit into their lives
and where the shortcomings are and why there are shortcomings..
Leaders and spokespersons will emerge from among them and pretty soon candidates for public office will appear. No-one will suggest they don't have a right. Because they do. The community will accept them because the community always has.
Same as Newmarket. Same as Richmond Hill. Same as every other community in York Region.
All talk of bedroom communities will prove to be a crock.
Friday 2 March 2012
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4 comments:
Could the aim be to just pound the heck out of your Blog and exhaust it and you, Evelyn? Please do not allow them to set your pace, your quotas or anything about your days If they are using people from their infamous e-mail list, they can churn the blog up night and day. Not past them for sure.
Take care; tough times;
Morris’ strongest base of support in the 2006 election came from the power supply issue stemming from the east side of town. This base of support appears to have collapsed in 2010.
New residents to Aurora also likely tend to vote for the incumbent without fully understanding the political landscape, therefore although Morris’ support fell by almost half in 2010 as compared to 2006, I suspect that a significant amount of her support must have come from new residents in the east side of town, or from poorly informed residents.
I am sure that Morris is now likely trying to tap into what-ever support she has remaining after winning only 22% of the vote the last time around, as compared to Mayor Dawe’s 55%.
It will be very interesting to see if she can legally run for office the next time around due to the conflict of Interest Case she faces August 17th, and if she runs, what her remaining base of support might be following no less than three lawsuits and a few political controversies.
Some categorize people as dumb, smart, intelligent or wise.
There was very little of the last two on display at this week's Council meeting.
One definition for "council" is: "group of people appointed or elected to give advice, make rules, manage affairs."
It seems that there was very little of these in evidence either. The entire affair seemed to implode in on itself.
Councillors Abel and Pirri spoke from the facts and from the heart on their Motion, the latter quite cutely forgetting where he was in his remarks.
The Triple Threat made the usual hash of things, drawing attention to the word "dumb."
The meeting got out of control and eventually no one really knew what was being said, what was a Motion, what was an Amendment, what was "Chaos."
It is discouraging to see such an impressive setting built at the cost of several millions of taxpayer dollars turned into a circus.
But have no fear, this matter will be resolved, sooner rather than later. A flawed Agreement can be remedied. This one is and it will be.
No one is attempting to take anything away from the Aurora Cultural Centre. What is required to happen, and it will, is that the Centre will be placed on the same footing as other town organizations - the Library comes first to mind - and will be financially accountable to the taxpayers whose money it is spending.
As Councillor Abel pointed out, with a bank balance of some $200,000 and double the visitors in 2011 as compared with 2010, which should translate into double the revenue, where is the proven need for the Town to fund the Centre to the same degree of some $350,000 as the previous year?
Transparent and accountable - the two buzzwords of recent political life - to which should be added "responsible" - that's what this affair is all about.
All the emotion and vitriol and exaggerated stupidity should be cast aside. The Cultural Centre President, who did not impress by his inability to answer a simple question with a "yes" or "no" and who had to be prompted by Tracy Smith, certainly did not engender confidence in himself. He should sit down with his Board and Town representatives and deal with the real and substantives failings that are contained in the Report dated December 6, 2011, from the Town Solicitor.
If you care about culture, then you should be prepared to care how it is presented, administered and financed.
They won't run Morris again. It will be some 'leader' in business who has likely never left the town or only for short periods, Likely a woman in her 50's with teen-aged kids to hit the demographics. But not Morris. That would be even stupider than we have come to expect. The Senior Editor of the Banner is a possibility. Fits the pattern. Someone posted up here that they " had a vision with a plan".
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