Anonymous said...
What exactly is a Visioning Statement?
Is this what happens when one sees an angel or a Saint or some such manifestation and tells about it?
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A description of an elephant. A horse designed by a committee.
Visioning statement is like a bolt of lightening,after numbers of people, led by consultants ,have a variety of meetings and share thoughts about what they would like the town to look in, usually five years time. We review our Official Plan every five years to ensure it is still current.
The last time the Strategic Plan was updated,, we took the previous one off the shelf, dusted it off and looked to see if anything needed to be changed.
It didn't. The town's aspirations remained the same. Nobody was surprised. It wasn't a crystal ball. Just a sensible outlook.
Council, staff and interested citizens spent some time together
talking . Spent no money at all to speak of.
Every time a staff recommendation came to Council the report noted how the recommendation reconciled with the Strategic Plan. It usually did. That was the point of the Strategic Plan. It was a path to follow to achieve the objective. Everybody kept their eye on the ball.
When the new CAO came on board, reference to the Strategic Plan disappeared from staff reports. I asked why. I was informed Council had not adopted the Strategic Plan and it was a way of making staff reports shorter.
That was a puzzlement. The Strategic Plan is adopted by Bylaw. We don't re-adopt bylaws every time there's a change in Council.
Reference to the Startegic Plan in staff reports was the only visible sign we had one and it meant anything.
It was at that point,I stopped trying to make sense at first blush of anything seen or heard .
The Mormac Duo were having meetings in the Mayor's office until two in the morning, planning the town's future between them. NO input was welcome. It was never immediately obvious what they were up to. Whatever it was ,they could always count on the support of the remainder of the gang of six. Even if they had no more idea of the plan than the rest of us.
Anyway, that brings us to last year and the first year of the current Council. The majority of whom were new.
The Strategic Plan process was to be even more ambitious. We would plan strategically for thirty years instead of five. That would show how serious we are about designing the future.
Never mind that it would be totally unrealistic.
It would require the services of a consultant and it only made sense the enormity of the cost would match the size of the project.
So we adopted in the budget an estimate of $85,000.
It apparently sounded just about right to our widely and vastly experienced members of the new Council.
The Visioning Statement is what we holler out to the world what we think about our town to encourage business to locate here and nowhere else.
We are innovative and sustainable. Neighbors care and business thrives.
It seems at times the deniznes at the town hall never leave their offices.
They must drive up or down the 404 , in along Wellington Street. certainly not on Yonge Street to notice vast empty spaces with grimy windows and dusty entrances . Or Victoria Street to see the
shabby old public buildings .Or Bayview to see new but vacant
industrial buildings.
They must be hoping a Visioning Statement will do what a drive through town to recognize tell-tale signs would not.
The terms Ivory Tower and Lilliput take on new meaning in Aurora to-day.
Colour me stubborn or bone-headed but I just keep on hoping the Councillors will realize who is pulling their strings and come to resent it. Once that happens, the traces of spine which Aurorans sometime see on rare occasions might become more common. It would be great to hear about Council Initiatives. We are all heartily fed up with Staff Initiatives.
ReplyDeleteStaff initiatives are not bad per se. I mean, we pay lots of money for professional staff, who's careers are based on the management of municipal administration. If they did not come up with initiatives based on their experience and expertise, I would be concerned. Do we expect rookie councillors to be experts in the machinations of municipal administration?
ReplyDeleteThat said, council is ultimately accountable, and should be comfortable with staff initiatives, and should not be afraid to question them, and to satisfy themselves that they reflect what the taxpayers want and need.
Maybe we should throw in the odd angel or saint or manifestation, into our Visioning Statement.
ReplyDeleteWith a good bit of imagination we might even be able to design and build a theme park, multi-religious of course.
If we build it, they will come!