"Cowardice asks the question...is it safe? Expediency asks the question...is it politic? Vanity asks the question...is it popular? But conscience asks the question...is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because it is right." ~Dr. Martin Luther King

Friday 9 March 2012

Another Airy-Fairy Notion

 We had an extra Tuesday in February. . We used it to discuss York Region's changes  to our Official Plan.

The Region has inserted a modification   requiring  the town  to increase  taxes in the amount of 1% the Capital Budget ; " for Public Art"

The Capital Budget in 2011 was $12.6 million .

The Capital Budget in 2012 is $22,277,500

The Capital Budget is not a static figure.

It fluctuates.

What do people sitting in cubicles, gazing at the ceiling in the regional building have to do with the reality of  providing services and financing same within a municipality?

Why should they have anything to say about what people are or are not willing to support through their taxes.?

We spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on consultants, on the pretext, we are consulting with the public to determine  their priorities, in planning, recreational services, strategic plans for the next thirty years,(assinine) and after months of paper pushing,meetings, hundreds of hours of staff time and endless baffle-gab, we publish massive documents filled with pretty pictures, coloured graphs and all of the  paraphernalia we use  to persuade ourselves  and others  that  something meaningful has been accomplished.

It's the way of the modern world. 

We spend months deliberating  a budget, hundreds of hours  more  high-priced staff time and end  it with grandiose pronouncements of  "efficient fiscal management"

To be informed after the fact, by nameless  persons,  in hidden spaces, gazing at the ceiling, having nothing whatsoever to do with real life that  we need to add 1% of the Capital Budget to provide for  Public Art.

Our  substantial finance department  is not invited to comment.

And if that doesn't blow your mind, we have three Councillors who are one hundred per cent, in support of the requirement.

Councillors Pirri, Gallo, and Ballard are   gung  ho.

Only Councillor Abel expressed aversion to the Plan

Mayor Dawe did not say NO

The Official Plan Review was conducted with the usual foo-fer-a. All  required meetings were held to obtain public input. So that in the end, we could say with aplomb, The Town of Aurora Official Plan is officially endorsed by the people. 

So far as the community is concerned, public input into any plan, tends to come from the same half dozen residents, each with a specific interest. And of course property owners. with a business  interest.

At no time  in the process  was there a hint of  public demand  for the town to raise taxes to buy public art.

Councillor Pirri said;

"Councillor Buck, you have lived here a long time and raised your children here. I would like to live here a long time and hope to raise my children here and I am in favour of art in public places"

 Councillor Pirri left out  the fact he still lives with parents. He has no children. He  has yet to learn of the responsibility of providing for a family's needs.

Or the responsibility, after that task is completed, of being self-sufficient ,on a limited income, while paying out half one's income in taxes to various levels of government even without paying for art in public places.

Since the Councillor sees fit to make the comparison, it seems only fitting for a similar comparison to be made right back at him.

But I digress.

I might as well.

The idea of adding to the tax burden to buy public art is preposterous.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Evelyn, I agree with much of what you write about here and the positions you take.

But lately it seems to be one complaint after another. Is life that bad all the time?

Anonymous said...

PUBLIC ART - SOME FAVOURITES

1. A certified true copy of the original notice of motion that the former caused to be issued to commence her $6,000,000 defamation suit, suitably framed.

2. The former's notice of discontinuance of the same suit, suitably framed and bearing a red sticker - sold.

3. Inaugural address by the former dated December, 2006, running to seven pages - promises made and never kept - triple triptych frame plus one dangling bit.

4. One Oath of Office, blurred and faintly legible, in keeping with the spirit - suitably framed.

5. Charter of Rights and Freedoms with a bold "X" slashed through from upper left to lower right and then obverse - putrid little frame held together with Scotch tape.

And I challenge other readers to add their favourite public art.

Anonymous said...

To 4:44 Pm
How about all those cancelled cheques from the bay street lawyers who siphoned 100s of thousand out of our treasury for the repeated and failed attempts to stifle the West Hill developers.

Or better yet the Toronto Star photo op of the former decked out in heels in the middle of West hills Golf course site proclaiming riotousness for a few culled trees

or better still a framed and gilded version of the bumbled letter to the minions complaining about the evil and vicious Councilor Buck and her so called an dun founded violations of the sacred code of conduct

anyone else want to wade in ?

Anonymous said...

Right on Evelyn .when the boy grows up and faces real life and all that goes with it, it may bring about a new perspective on what tax $ should be paying for , The Region should stuff this nonsense you know where and stick to pumping shit and water, they have a difficult enough time as it is keeping that straight.
Aurora Council better reject this notion Now!!!!

Anonymous said...

Me, too.
The cancelled 'personal ' cheque made out to the defendants in the non-Defamation case, tear-stained and smudged, unsuitably framed. Hanging in the entrance to Jonathan's with the Snap Aurora papers.

Anonymous said...

I erred with reference to triple triptych - should have been a double.

Or let it stand and insert three pieces of blank paper depicting former's usual state of mind.

Anonymous said...

In the Media Division, you could feature Christopher Watt's classic film ' Working Girls ' taken on the evening of the election of Morris, St. Kitts and the Jam Lady soliciting votes at Yonge and Wellington. Still available in his archives.

Anonymous said...

Pirri will shake out of this. He has considerable respect in town and will occasionally goof. There is no excuse for Gallos' comprehensive excuse for funding ALL projects associated with THE ARTS.
" I LOVE THE ARTS! "
Wouldn't recognize Art if it bit him.

Anonymous said...

A Still Life, very still, of Al Wilson's Chair surrounded by unread papers and poison-pen letters. Self-framed.

Anonymous said...

In the document section, we will be fielding a team of experts to locate the long lost electoral signs of Dawe and Buck, last seen being loaded into vans by 2 teenagers and one older male. Believed location is a rumoured dump site on the Oak Ridges Morraine.

Anonymous said...

A faded copy of the letter to the former from the first Integrity Commissioner's lawyer, demanding a cease and desist from harassment of his client. Framed in battered brown wood, glass cracked and held together by Scotch tape

This shortly after he was fired for finding that the complaint lodged against Councillor Buck under the noxious Code of Conduct was ill-conceived, ill-presented and wholly political in motivation.

Thus spake Zarathustra.

Anonymous said...

I would think and hope that artists working and living in the region would be only too willing to donate representative samples of their art to municipal governments to be put on display in appropriate public places.

A form of self-promotion, leading to additional commercial sales.

Everyone wins.

Anonymous said...

Might we have a giant black board in the Town Park? Kids could write on it during the day. At night, repentant creators of chaos could scurry in to scrawl the apologies that they do not have the courage to offer in the cold light of day.

Anonymous said...

What percent of the current budget is already being pissed away every year on Public Art at the ACC? Oh, I forgot. Public Art is for the public , and the ACC is priced well above the average family's abilities.

Ripley NOT said...

Can you believe the Jam Lady is the new Chair of the Farmers Market Executive.

Ripleys Aurora instead of a museum please.

Anonymous said...

A finger painting done by the Mayor.

We know which finger as she used it artfully on many citizens.

Anonymous said...

How about a suitably framed copy of Grace's resignation letter, also tear stained, but for different reasons.