"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

Thursday 11 April 2013

Council's function and staff function is not the same.

I don't see as my role or the taxpayers' responsibility to provide commercial entertainment .
Santa Claus  Parades , Easter Egg Hunts and July 1st  Parades and Picnics  are an exception.
As a community, we provide stable, consistent and happy childhood memories. I think it's worth doing.
Summer Concerts in the park bring  people together and help  cement a community.
Blocking neighborhood use of a public park  for a commercial promotion is not my idea of
public service.
The town's experience of dealing with a festival huckster and supporters are not conducive to a repeat performance.
The episode was and is still degrading to the town and needs to be put behind us.
There is a  policy to  permit events in town facilities.
Two presentations were made to Council on Tuesday.
The dates  overlap.
It is not my function,as a Councillor, to discuss or decide merits of an application .
It's an administrative process .
To be handled by staff.
I voted  accordingly.


9 comments:

Anonymous said...

An Observation
We are trying valiantly to watch that Council meeting and have managed only to get to the discussion about staff expenses. Can't handle too much at one time. Our Council, with the exception of Evelyn - who seems hard pressed - is totally lacking in humour. It has become a group who pick away at each other trying to score points when they were elected to work together to clean up the town's business. I know - we use the tools we have available but there was such hope and expectation at the last election.
I am very grateful that attending Council meetings is not my job.

Anonymous said...

Sleep?

Anonymous said...

Right, 6:41 PM. The last time the entire lot were smiling was in that photo from one of the original Lucid presentations & we later learned how superficial that was when the smearing & back-stabbing began.

Anonymous said...

Christopher has a post up asking about the background of the pet graveyard in Aurora. I don't know how to contact him so will hitch a ride here, please, Evelyn
That site is the 2nd of 2 established by Toronto Vet Alan Secord for the pets of his clients. I think the other might be in the Markham area & it has already been taken under protection by a municipality.
So we might not be the first for recognition but I think ours is larger & covers a longer time frame.

Anonymous said...

What would Aurora do without C. Ballard? Why he's singlehandedly nailed Mayor Dawe to the wall over $56 of expenses for beer in 2011. Dawe should be impeached, run out of town or at least the council chambers. The sky is falling, the sky is falling. There's principles and then there's C. Ballard - the upholder of open & transparent government. Yes, what would Aurora do without C. Ballard? The way Ballard is acting you would think that Dawe's guilty of a SLAPP or something. Good thing we have other councilors looking after the bigger concerns of Aurora.

Anonymous said...

Councillor Ballard is a first-term councillor with pretensions above his station. Maybe now he will remove that childish poll about alcohol expenses from his comatose web-site.

Anonymous said...

11:19 you have successfully once again dredged up a reference to Morris in a completly un-releated topic. Way to go !

Anonymous said...


Cllr. Sabre seems to be suffering from extreme mood swings, or is it just boredom?

He virtually defames Mayor Dawe for having plotted against his predecessor. What politician seeking office doesn't plot against his/her opponents? This is not a love-in contest.

And then rambles on to bash our mayor for having spent $56 on beer (in ONE year) while entertaining potential business people considering a relocation to Aurora. Is the mayor required to get a written statement from his guest(s) by way of confirmation that the meeting was related to business?

Sabre has contributed nothing positive to this term of council other than confirm that he is part of a conspiracy of three who are out to screw up every issue that arises.

He should really be taken out in the early morning mists to a field where sabres have been used in the past, bent over so his bum is up and given twenty of the best, flat side to.

Anonymous said...

Unrelated 12:55pm

How about the use of Town funds?
It seems that C. Ballard acts as if one incident never happened and certainly defends it and yet for the current Mayor the $56 is all the outrage. It wasn't illegal use of funds or imbezzlement.(If the Mayor needs to be repremanded so be it, but let's keep it in proportion and don't hit him with a sledgehammer). But I think that's the only way C. Ballard knows how to operate.

By the way - You are the one directly stating Morris - but I guess that just proves how closely her name is associated with it. (From your response I assume you'd like it to be put in the past and forgotten about.) In what other context do you suggest I have used?