Publish or Perish

It's a familiar phrase. On Tumultuous Tuesday, as well as The Budget, a hundred pages of documentation supporting a lease council had never set eyes on but was expected to approve and three memos from the Mayor, several delegations were on the public agenda. A Professor, invited by the Mayor, came to suggest Aurora councillors and candidates in the last election had sold their souls for campaign donations.

The Professor has published a study of ten GTA municipalities.The Mayor caught wind of it. He concluded from his research that growth and development in the GTA is entirely in the hands of development corporations and construction unions.

Well, Silly Billy, of course it is. Developers finance . Unions construct...not just houses, office buildings, shopping malls and factories

Municipal infrastructure in the GTA (outside Toronto} is financed by developers and constructed by unions. . Ninety per cent of the cost of town edifices are paid for with development charges. Vehicles and equipment, necessary because of growth, are bought with development charge funds. New home-owners have higher assessments because of hidden taxes in the market value of their homes. They pay higher taxes than owners of older properties.

The beautiful new Richmond Hill Arts Centre on Yonge Street was likely financed in good part with development charges and donations from developers. . The Magna Recreation Centre on Wellington Street is financed by debt re-payment from development charge revenue and a two million dollar contribution for naming rights by Frank Stronach, an industrialist and a developer.

The new baseball diamond in this year's budget will be ninety-per-cent funded from development charges

For several years, Joe Lebovic, a developer has contributed $10k each year to the Aurora Arts and Culture Fund. Most other fun events in the community are funded by sponsorships of various business enterprise.Developers provided funds to help pay for the Aurora Senior Centre.

The Mayor's guest professor claims favourable planning decisions in the GTA are directly the result of campaign donations to candidates. He just can't prove it because planning votes are not recorded. Aurora was not one of the municipalities he "studied" but he expressed confidence findings here would be the same.
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His hypothesis is only interesting because of the limitations of its scope.

Councils are required by law to make planning decisions. To escape the accusation a
favourable vote has been bought and paid for by a campaign donation, if there has been such a donation, which is not against any law, but must be disclosed.... means a politician would be wise to vote against every application, regardless of whether it conforms to the various planning instruments employed and paid for by the municipality.

Some regularly vote against, regardless of legal cost to the town for defending the indefensible before the Ontario Municipal Board. A councillor or mayor might even be wise to be absent from planning meetings where there's a hint of opposition to a proposal.On the one hand, assure a developer of support over a private lunch and then fail to show when the decison is made and votes are counted.

But the Professor's invitation was not about the merits of his findings. It was about the campaign that never stops in Aurora. It was about gearing up to fight off potential rivals with contrived accusations of malfeasance. Before our very eyes, using a business meeting of the municipality, we have seen the sleight of hand...on camera already.

A naive Professor bringing up statements on his lap-top of election expenses and donations of a variety of campaigns in the GTA , has no idea of the chicanery that goes on in a municipal campaign or how he himself was duped into participating in a particularly odious stunt.

Bless his pristine little white cotton socks.

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