I keep meaning to explain.
Council uses a consolidated agenda process.
It means a resolution can be put forward for an entire agenda to be approved without debate
The onus is upon Council members to call items they wish to be discussed.
A smooth, well-oiled Council could conceivably and consistently approve entire agendas without ever uttering a word pro or con.
The corporation could function without a ripple.Pretty much like operating behind a screen.
Never a hint of disagreement or anything untoward.Not a clue of what's going on.
Unless of course, residents set themselves to the task of reading and comprehending the agenda each week to satisfy themselves that all is well.
Council hasn't completed an agenda since May.Before June agendas were relatively sparse.
One meeting was held in July and August.
The town hall is closed from December 24th until Jan 2nd or later, depending on week-ends.
Business gets suspended again for the March break .
Then ,there's the family day long week-end and other statutory holidays to be accommodated.
Last year we adopted a customer service plan. Newmarket and Whitchurch-Stouffville had done it already.
A person with expertise in accessibility resources was transferred to the job of manager of the new customer service division.
A youth liaison officer, without experience.of accessibility issues was transferred to manage of accessibility resources.With an increase in pay.
Yesterday Council received the following e-mail:
Mr Mayor and Councillors,
I was dismayed last Friday, August 24th, when I
called the Town in order to seek information on a very discouraging situation
that has developed in our area of Aurora. Homeowners have not been looking
after their properties and/or the Town property in front of their properties. I
was told to speak to the By-law Department and the receptionist kindly connected
me. I was, in fact, connected to the department's voice-mail. The message
stated that my (obviously very unimportant) message would be responded to within
two business days!!! Two business days‽‽‽ What if the matter required
immediate attention? Unbelievable!
By Wednesday of this week, I was
despairing and left a message for Mr.----. No response there either. R-----
called ------- and finally managed to speak to her. ----- required
specifics. R----- obtained them and gave them to me. I was awaiting the
response to my phone call.
The response finally came today, five, yes,
FIVE (5) business days after my original call. Who is responsible for this poor
service to the citizenry of this town? I gave the information to the person who
called and he promised to act on the matter.
Who is responsible for
making certain that the town does not look like a slum? Is it the by-law
department? the parks department? or who? Does nobody drive around town or
notice the unkempt boulevards around town? Are there no inspectors? If not,
why not? Please let me know.
I look forward to receiving answers to my
queries as soon as possible.
***********
I have no answers .
I have asked the same questions.
Street sweeping is contracted out. It's done twice a year.
We own a street sweeper, relatively new, purchased the year before I asked , at a cost, I believe , of $187,000.
Don't hold me to that figure exactly.
I was told the sweeper might be "down" . That might be the reason catch-basins are filled with litter after a deluge .....left like that until the wind blows the stuff about again ....until the next deluge when everything gathers again in the same locations.
The procedure for me to deal with such matters is to bring them to the attention of the appropriate director.
I did.
Friday 31 August 2012
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3 comments:
We do try to read the agendas, Evelyn, although there was one that was just a joke. You knew it was impossible to make even a tiny dent in it.
If you could simply slip stuff through, why the heck did the Morris meetings last into the wee hours? That was one of the things that alerted Aurora residents that something was fishy about their operation. A store owner commented, " Those .......were there half the night." Since he did not seem the sort to use such language, I wondered who the ...... were and why the meeting should be so long.
From tiny seeds like that, their end would grow,
ABRAMOVICH WINS BIGGEST PRIVATE COURT CASE IN BRITISH HISTORY worth some $6.5billion
Quoting from the judge, Mrs. Justice Gloster in a lengthy summary of her judgement:
"On my analysis of the entirety of the evidence, I found Mr. Berezovsky an unimpressive, and inherently unreliable, witness, who regarded truth as a transitory, flexible concept, which could be moulded to suit his purposes.
At times the evidence which he gave was deliberately dishonest; sometimes he was clearly making his evidence up as he went along in response to the perceived difficulty in answering the questions in a manner consistent with his case; at other times, I gained the impression that he was not necessarily being deliberately dishonest, but he deluded himself into believing his own version of events."
Does any of this sound familiar?
There are inspectors and by-law enforcement officers. We had two at the door one lovely morning. They were reacting to a complaint from THEIR staff about our anti-parking rocks on the verge. So they do have people driving around on various bits of business. Our infraction certainly did not involve an on-going eye-sore or a danger.
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