About Ratepayer's Associations

Anonymous has left a new comment on my post "H.E.A.T.":

"The neighborhood has an interest in the Promenade Plan. They will need to speak with one voice. Town policy requires an association to be formed to speak for a neighbourhood. The association will be needed as we go forward."

Is this in fact a policy, bylaw, tradition or the way it been done for years?

Seems to me that it's a cart and horse thing. If you demand that a neighbourhood must be represented by an association before council will listen, you invite the confrontational names (ie. HEAT or SWAT).

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It has been a policy for years. If council is to consider a presentation is being made on behalf of a neighbourhood,there must be documentation to indicate it is so. Logical means for that is to form an association. I believe provincial regulations require it to be registered. A constitution and election of officers are essential to the process.

It wouldn't stop an individual from making a presentation and claiming his/her views represent the neighbourhood. Claiming it doesn't make it so.

Having an association doesn't prove everybody in the neighborhood thinks the same. A majority vote at an association meeting would simply indicate it is the view of the majority.

Even then, it's only a majority of the people present.The neighbours who do not agree with the objective may not choose to join the association. May not even know it exists. The association may be made up of a group with a single objective and not be welcoming to people who do not share their intent.

The group determined that Wells Street School be kept open would not likely have members within who didn't agree with the objective.

A Ratepayers Association might only come into being for the purpose of pursuing a single objective. Naturally, the members would all be of one mind. The association might never be active again once the issue has been decided.

Confrontational names are not invited by the town. People who choose the acronym have to take responsibility for that.

H.E.A.T. is coming to a Council budget meeting to-night to convince the town to put money in the budget for a consultant study to make their neighbourhood a Heritage Neighbourhood.

Somebody made a comment about my being out of the loop in relation to the Culture Centre board of management. It is a correct statement. We own the building. We pay
the maintenance. We provide half a million dollars, inclusive of maintenance out of the town levy. That's two points on the tax bill. But we who are accountable have no influence whatsoever on how it is spent. Apart from the maintenance.

We just hand over the money out of the public purse and sing Hallelujah.You don't even have to purchase your own culture any more. Your municipality will provide it for you.
Now you will all be so much more cultured than you were before. It's a new age in Aurora.