Always Another Question

Comment to Previous Post:

Equally troubling is Rod Northey's involvement. Going back in history Mr. Northey represented the "Save the Village" people of King City in their fight against the Big Pipe.Same tactic.Coming at the issue on different fronts, fighting the OMB,bumpups,consolidated hearings and expert witnesses. Mr. Northey and that group lost and nearly bankrupted the Town of King City in doing so.BTW the big pipe is now in place. Now his act has resurfaced in Aurora. Same fights lost. Expert witnesses. The only question remains will he lead the financial ruination of the Town of Aurora along with our illustrious Mayor.Sadly history has a habit of repeating itself.

Response to Comment:

No matter how many millions are spent, municipalities are not bankrupted because politicians have the power to dip into our pockets and filch however much they spend for whatever crazy scheme they adopt.

But despite millions spent, Mr. Northey did not win the argument against the Big Pipe hook-up to King City.

I didn't pay much attention to the arguments at the time. The futility and cost of the exercises are depressing. I knew the battle was ferocious and the story was being half told.

In the mid seventies,I was member and chairman of the Regional Board of Health.. There were serious concerns about sanitation in the Village of King City.

Rural drainage is ditch and culvert. Ditches regularly tested positive for e- coli from raw sewage.

Residents were literally sitting on top of their own and their neighbors' waste

A hook-up to the trunk sewer from King City was never in the region's plans. From a planning perspective it is not good planning..

Because it was proposed, I knew public health concerns had become critical

As a Regional Councillor. Mayor Black and her Council had to know that also.

A tertiary treatment systems such as we had in Aurora was not an option. The Big Pipe was built to take sewage from Newmarket and Aurora and other regional urban areas and allow tertiary systems to be closed.

All oxygen is removed from effluent from a tertiary system.The water is clean but dead. If there is more effluent than water in a carrying stream, the water in the stream is also killed.The natural balance is destroyed. When the creek joined the Holland river and flowed into Lake Simcoe, the lake was also negatively impacted.

In a flash storm, a tertiary system, essentially three large digester tanks, could not cope with the volume. The gates had to be opened and raw sewage flowed into the creek.The effluvia was something to be experienced.

Over the last thirty years, municipalities have spent millions installing storm sewers to separate storm water from sewage. It reduced volume and costly need for treatment and helped substantially to restore our rivers and lakes to good health. We are not there yet. But it's better than it was.

It has been a huge investment in the environment by all levels of government. It contributes substantially to our tax burden.

The Ontario Municipal Board hears challenges to municipal decisions. Mr. Northey frequently represents citizen at the board. In a Rogers panel show on peaker plants, he was billed as having appeared in thirty cases. I thought it would be interesting to know how many times he had been successful.

How often have clients spent hundreds of thousands of dollars based on his advice, in the case of King millions, and lost the lot.

His efforts on behalf of Leslie Street residents were not successful either, at their cost and ours.

I googled but came up with nothing.

Except.... a Star story filed at 4-30a.m. March 2nd 2008 in the Toronto Star. Mayor Morris and Wallace McCutcheon, a Leslie Street resident opposed to the Westhill application. were quoted.

The story was about the residents opposition to Westhill's development application.

It quoted the Mayor that Council had not decided "yet" whether to support the residents.

It was three weeks before the application was even heard by Aurora Council at a Public Planning Meeting .

The O.M.B. was already seized with the Appeal. The decision was no longer the Town's to make.

Yet the Mayor was out the gate already, making clear her position prior to the application .

There used to be a requirement in the Planning Act that Councils are obliged to hear all arguments prior to making a decision. It's about impartiality. It's the format of the Planning process.

The recommendation received by Council from the Town's Planning Department was the application be approved in principle.The property has been legally designated by the town.

But the last word in the Star story went to our Chief Magistrate;

"When the Moraine is gone, it's gone" she said.

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But Where Oh Where has it gone? I cry.

Half of Aurora is in the Moraine.

Does that mean we have gone as well?

Oh Dear.... Oh Dear... However will we pay the legal bills?.