Surprise Party

Council has a surprise party planned for you
 We are going to spend a couple of hundred thousand  or more from
Council's Discretionary Reserve Fund   That's the new title for the Hydro Sale Asset  Reserve Fund. Or to be precise, the interest earned from the Hydro Asset Sale Reserve fund.
The Mayor said, the money is just sitting there because we don't know how to spend it and it boggles his mind that  some members of Council aren't excited about spending hundreds of thousands  to honor  the town's sesquicentennial. That's a hundred and fifty years for the less erudite among us.
A  progress report on plans for the celebration was considered at the General Committee Meeting last night.
It was a vigorous discussion. It bore some similarity to the recent vote on exercising the termination clause in the Culture agreement.
Councillors Thompson and  Humphryes argued against  the recommendation but when the vote was called, they cast their  votes in favour.
I need to  tell you what is planned because you are not going to receive an  opportunity for input.
The recommendation is to hire a part time  project manager  at a cost of $70,000.
The plan is for the celebration to start  in January and finish in December with  events throughout the year. No budget is set for the project. No outside limitto spending.The recommendation to be decidednext Tuesday is remove $100,000 from the Hydro fund just to get the ball rolling.
A  staff  committee will work with the $70.000 geezer and plan everything for us.
The big advantage of having the guy on the payroll is he will be able to suss out grants, process successful applications and we will get funds handed to us hat will more than make up for the cost of his service.
We have to start it now because we can't apply for grants until we know what the grants will be used for.
The project was not budgeted in 2012. But that's alright because we are using up  an asset that's just sitting there. It's not like spending real money. It won't  really show as an expenditure.
After all, once it's spent, there won't be any evidence it ever existed.
I was being admonished by  the Mayor and Councillor Abel and Pirri for being without fervor for the project.
"You just don't want to honor  the town's history" they said.
Yes they did. They said that.
It almost left me speechless.
Mais non, mes amies. Ce n'est pas vraiment.
If the Queen's Diamond Jubilee  can be honored  over a long week-end with a Flotilla on the Thames, Fireworks over Tower Bridge, a concert with Sirs Elton John and Paul McCartney, a Lord Mayor's Luncheon at Westminster Palace, a  Service at the Abbey,
 procession in  the 1902 landau complete with Royals in top hats and tails and ladies, except the Queen, in the silliest hats imaginable, escorted by the Queen's Household Cavalry, accompanied by a military band of one or other of The Guards, a  modern gun salute,  Rousing Three Military Cheers for the Queen , final appearance on the balcony at Buckingham Palace by the Queen and  heirs apparent,  for the Royal Air Force Fly Past.
If a long week-end of spectacular events to honor  the Queen's Diamond Jubilee,( 60 years),  is good enough for 1.5 million  wildly cheering, enthusiastic spectators in attendance and billions more on television, I think a long week-end should be  good enough  to honour fifty more years of history, in a town of fifty-five thousand people of Aurora. 
I'm telling you now because they're going to set it in motion with 
$100,000 of  the hydro money, without as much as a by-your -leave, on Tuesday  at the  next Council meeting.
If you have anything to say about it, you'd better speak now or forever hold your peace.