Yesterday

I checked the lyrics this morning for an introduction to this post. But it was just another silly love song .

The Mayor was quite upset yesterday about my reference to the Aurora Promenade Study on Sunday . There was a flurry of e-mail

Councillors,management, and the President of the Aurora Legion were copied .

The Mayor was in high dudgeon.

Extensive research carried out yesterday, shows the number of times the Cenotaph has been referred to as War Memorial and Peace Park.

When it became apparent the Mayor's main concern was to deny the Steering Committee for the Promenade Study were responsible for messing with the name of The Aurora Cenotaph. the exchange ended.

I didn't say they were. I've heard it before. It makes me angry every time and regularly I demand;

Who the Blazes is it, thinks they have a right to change that name? I got an answer once.It doesn't stop me from railing against it.

The Cenotaph was completed in 1924. It is one of the finest in Canada ,as was intended.

It was managed by a board with representatives from King, Whitchurch and Aurora, whose joint memorial it is, until the mid- nineties.

Board members were growing old . Aurora Parks had been providing the maintenance for years An arrangement was made to turn the trust over to the town .

It is still Monument to the Fallen from three communities in the First and Second World Wars. Passing the torch didn't transfer the right to change the name.

So..when I hear it...I roar.

I feel the need.

When I'm not here, I hope someone else will do the same. We must keep faith.

The Mayor is invested in the Aurora Promenade Study. Numerous meetings and much palaver.has gone into the task of envisioning a desirable "Urban Design " for Wellington and Yonge Street, bind it with red tape and hope .... people with investment will come ..... and they will build it.

Well, I don't think so.

The only part of Aurora that isn't developing nicely is the centre block of Yonge Street. There is rigid adherence to the notion there is something sacred about that block.

For half a century, I've listened to the phrase over and over "Revitalise the down town."

We always knew people were the answer. We encouraged old existing homes to be converted to new uses. It has been done beautifully and successfully by people who shared the vision. On Wellington Street , Yonge and on the side streets, small and modest , large and gracious houses have been lovingly restored .

They have a charm today they never had in their heyday.

Planning staff lent guidance and assistance to property owners and the vision of forty odd years has gradually been realised to an extraordinary extent.

So gradual it seems, people haven't begun to notice.

But the key plan has not been realised ... more deliberately than accidentally.

The people are not there. The reason is obvious. Our standard of density is appropriate to another time. Buildings must not rise beyond a certain height. They must be kept in scale with buildings of a hundred and fifty years ago which were modest even for their time.

No matter the cost of land or expense of construction, economic viability will not be considered a factor in Aurora.

Aurora continues to insist blighted sites cannot be turned into vibrant residential buildings, filled with people, to promenade streets and patronize stores , beyond a certain height.

No hundred page study will mask the fact that airheads and eggheads in Aurora have refused to come to terms with reality .

It is not reasonable to expect investment if we continue to block all possibility of return on investment.

I predict.....as long as airheads and eggheads are in the ascendancy and Planet Mars is closer to the Sun, our central block will continue its inevitable slide southward.