To-day's The Day

Georgina Council is having another Special  Council Meeting today at 12.30 p.m.

The plan is to open the meeting in public and recess into a closed meeting. If they choose, they can emerge  and report in public a decision made behind closed doors.

The agenda states the purpose of the meeting is to receive advice from a solicitor, They won't report the advice. That's subject to solicitor/client privilege. But they might report a decision they made as a result of the advice they received.

The deluge of information that poured into this blog in the last couple of days indicated the Mayor had talked about legal action against the R.O.C. project consultant.

That was odd. Quite unusual.It may not be a fact. Or, it could be the subject of  solicitor/client advice at the meeting. Or it could be about the Mayor's personal law suit against a resident being paid for with public money.. Or it could be about something completely different that nobody outside Council and staff knows anything about.

 Council can  schedule a special meeting , have a discussion behind closed doors and come out and report  a decision  made in private  without providing any reason for the decision and with no hint of what they planned to discuss and decide beforehand.

I don't know what will happen. Only what could. When you listen to the claptrap from government about  openness and transparency, you will know it is.what it is.

I learned in a budget note this year that all treasurers in York Region meet to discuss how they're going to fix the  price of water.   None of those meetings are open.I didn't know till now they were doing that.I couldn't attend the meetings.

In 2010, they reported a 10% increase in the price of  water  every year for the next five. Councillors accepted that. The Supreme Authority had decreed.  No questions were asked. Well some.... but nobody pays  attention to the old girl..

Except, we are told the Region is planning to have an audit . It's not clear whether it's a financial audit. It may be a water audit because part of the reason presented for increased water charges is water loss.

It's not clear why the region would have water loss. They are responsible for water supply.Municipalities are responsible for  distribution.  It used to  mean the region pumped  it out of the ground into reservoirs and the municipality distributed  it throughout the urban areas.

I discovered something else from the notes. Only twenty-five per cent of the water we use comes from the ground supply. The rest we buy from Toronto and Peel Region.
It's  about four years since  the Region constructed  a standpipe on Bloomington Road near Bathurst Street to  receive water through Richmond Hill from Peel Region. We were told  a minimal amount would be drawn to augment our own supply in periods of hot dry weather when the demand for water peaks.

At some point in time apparently that ceased to be a fact. Nobody told us. Implications from the new information are not immediately apparent. Except one.

It means treasurers in Peel Region likely have meetings together to determine how  to fix the price of water. Toronto probably has half a dozen treasurers who  huddle to do the same thing.

Then , maybe, they inform the Region of York. which in turn  meets with all  local treasurers to determine what the new rates will be and  finally Councils are informed and a Bylaw is struck to fix the new rates.

In 2010 in Aurora  the increase was 12.2% and in 2011 another 12%.

We are told  the Province has decreed water must  be self-sufficient. As if it  was ever anything else.The Province certainly never at any time subsidized the price of water.

A reason  offered by Aurora's treasurer for increased price of water is the Provincial edict that all kinds of  new chemicals must be added to water to prevent another Walkerton tragedy.

If anything happens  and water becomes dangerous,municipal Councillors can be held liable and sent to jail.

Now there's another  implication  The threat has hung  over our heads like a noose for several years. Yet  at some point  in the last four years, we know not when,  we ceased to be responsible for seventy-five per cent of the water we use. We buy it from Toronto and Peel. They are responsible.

And there's anotherimplication.  Development only happens if a municipality can provide hard services which are water and sewers.

Now we find we do not in fact have the hard services.. We hauling  water  from Toronto and Peel and trunk waste water to Lake Ontario.

We've been  sending waste water to Lake Ontario for the past thirty years.

We've been living a lie.

The Region is responsible for the water supply and treatment of waste water/. They inform municipalities of  their allocation  and how many building permits can be granted.

The Region is  two billion dollars in debt.They collect  billions   in development charges from developers. which are supposed to cover  the cost of providing hard services.

How did they  get into that amount of debt? What  portion of that  debt is being charged to metered water users in Aurora. People are using less water from the tap than ever before and prices are rocketing.

Aurora's Mayor is our solitary  Regional representative His contribution to the Aurora debate on the price was "water is the best bargain we get"

It must be nice to be so easily assured. I am not.