The agreement allowed Culture Centre Board Meetings to be closed and apparently no records kept.
It allowed deliberations to be secret.
It allowed terms to be interpreted to mean the board could shut out the Historical Society and the museum from the building.
It no doubt recommended the Historical Society be compelled to surrender an agreement which protected hundreds of thousands of investment and interest in the building.
It called for quarterly release of funds from the town based on filed a certified, not audited,financial statement to the town's Treasurer.
No obligation upon same official to report same documentation to council.
The agreement requires an annual increase from the town of 3%, regardless of revenues generated.
No solicitor represented the corporation in the matter of the agreement.
Reason given? none on staff at the time.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent during that term on external legal services to prosecute this and that, in total futility and failure that produced not one iota of benefit to the community.
On Tuesday, Mayor Dawe stated in a Council meeting that he had regularly attended meetings by invitation of the board, while sworn to share nothing he learned with the Council to which he is sworn to provide leadership.
He stated he had spoken of the need for Council representation on the board and of receiving a peremptory refusal.
Throughout, did the Mayor never discover the name of the Board's legal counsel ?
Or engage in discussion of a legal nature?
How could he not? The entire question is one of legality.
Was that why the Chairman of the Board had to be flanked by two officials providing cautious whispered answers to questions asked?
What was the real fear of the clause giving twelve months notice of termination in accordance with the agreement?
Methinks. more answers need to be forthcoming.
Wednesday 7 March 2012
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6 comments:
This is all BS.
The three agreements should be terminated with cause and the present Council should appoint an interim Board of Directors including Councillors Abel, Humfryes and Pirri, with other members coming from the community at large.
Kubla Khan - Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The first five lines:
"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea."
Ring a bell?
Ozymandias - Shelley
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".
The beginnings of culture lie in sounds we made, trying to communicate with each other, and these became words and then stories, that were handed down through the generations. Crude drawings on cave walls were the prelude to art, and the reed flute the forerunner of what would become a symphony orchestra.
In our town today there exists more blatant ignorance about culture, its existence, its "home," than my simple common sense mind can absorb.
It sounds like a small group of the "in" people have decided to form a rather exclusive club, where, at their meetings there are no records kept, everyone is sworn to secrecy, and all the while this club is the recipient of $500,000 in cash or value of taxpayer money, without account or explanation.
This is one form of "corruption" that cannot and must not be allowed to continue - there are several meanings to the word, so pick the one you feel most appropriate.
What will occur over the next nearly three weeks, and what will surface on March 27, will be interesting. It is hoped that in the best interests of the entire community that common sense will prevail, and that this latest disgrace will be laid to rest.
The poem above can be read and appreciated, or it can be interpreted; however the reader wishes.
It is in reality that one finds the truth, not in appearance.
This thing has escalated beyond belief. What first appeared to be a scandal now looks as though there are criminal offenses involved. All Aurora council can do is cut off all funding at an emergency Council meeting .It can be done if Walmer can field a meeting in one day. DO IT NOW
I am not qualified to suggest the remedy. Aurora is sick to tears of lawyers. But we need expert help, the police, the CRA, law Society. Someone reading out there should direct us at this stage. We are in over our heads , only capable to stopping the flow of good money after bad. DO IT NOW
The ACC is had better change its whole approach if you ask me. The old school tactics of attacking and biting the hand that feeds you doesn't appear to work too well.
I'm all for canning the ACC board if they don't change their whole approach and pronto. We could do that, or cut public funding, take your pick.
The terms of the contract as outlined by Councillor Buck suggest to me that the ACC was negotiating from a position of strength with no one apparently looking out for the town’s best interests. A ridiculously biased contract was signed and anyone that tries to suggest otherwise is underestimating the ability of the public to see the facts for what they are.
As far as I can tell, this is just more of the same divisive, self serving and hostile politics that we have come to expect from the same crowd (and their small band of supporters) as we turfed from Council in 2010.
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