Comment to Chris's Blog

I  tried but had no success. His last post refers to the right to dry campaign launched by our current Mayor. You have to read the Chris Watt's post to place the comment

Confusion  about the right to dry laundry  was created  by a member of  the environmental  committee. He  lived in a town house with a covenant prohibiting  laundry lines stretching across the property. It did not prohibit other means of drying laundry outside. 

It applied to end lots ,where such a line  was like hanging  laundry in the front yard simply because the back yard  is exposed to  the street scape.

I  never saw the covenant. It was explained  by Director of Planning,Susan Seibert.

So who listens to the Director of Planning? Well certainly not the Councillor who set up the hullabaloo. The same Councillor who never saw an opportunity to self-promote too good to pass.

Not the media either who  picked up the story and kept it alive They had a different slant . They thought it was a joke. The rest of us were just embarrassed by the foolishness.

Chris mentions a couple of  examples of  hypocrisy.

It's worse than that. The entire administration, Council and staff were complicit.

An environmental committee was created.  It was to be seven members. . Eleven people applied. It was resolved  all of them be appointed.  It's always easier to go along than to say no.

I said no.

Eleven on the committee meant eleven agendas circulated. Eleven people participating. Agendas not completed on occasion. Multiple meetings. Pretty soon the  committee had sub-committees. More space needed at the town hall for meetings. More staff resources. Other groups displaced. More committee reports; paper, energy and eventually increased waste.

It's how Topsy grows. When I say each of us  needs to be  a steward, I am talking about saying no.


One of the first projects the committee  undertook was  a leaflet  to promote  the Mayor's anti-litter day.

A committee member was a graphic artist and  undertook to design the  leaflet  and have it printed.

There was no authority to spend money. The citizen member wouldn't know that. The Councillors did. They didn't say no.

Director of Public Works, staff  resource to the committee, didn't say no. 

When authority for the spending  was questioned,the Director said he had  money  in his budget to cover it.

It wasn't much money  But it was public money. It can't be spent that way.The committee had no budget.

The next year, the committee had   a budget. A new staff resource person was hired. An environmental engineer. To identify environmental initiatives and attend meetings of the committee along with a committee secretary

So, we had the utter senselessness of spending money, paper and energy to create  litter of several thousand leaflets to promote anti-litter day.

When the scheme  for the green bin program came forward to Council , I moved it be referred to the environmental committee for in depth analysis and report.The committee never reported back.

Clearly they didn't see it as an issue of concern.

Aspects of the plan did not ring true. I have not been assured since  its inception.

I believe  stuff is  going on, we are not hearing.Stuff politically unwise to talk about.All we know about is successful collection.

With  a hoped -for-regime- change, the program, in Aurora at least, can be more closely examined by the people responsible to those who foot the bills.