"Cowardice asks the question...is it safe? Expediency asks the question...is it politic? Vanity asks the question...is it popular? But conscience asks the question...is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because it is right." ~Dr. Martin Luther King

Thursday 31 January 2013

No Blog In The Sixties ,,,by Golly

Stephen Somerville has a column in The Auroran this week about  a ward system.
Councillor  Pirri has given  notice of a motion to create wards and reduce the  size of Council as well. 
Somerville is in support,. He has something  to add. Term limits for Ontario's municipal Councillors. Like American Presidents. 
Incumbents shouldn't be able to get re-elected just because their names are familiar.
In a previous term, Somerville  had a personal interview and wrote a column on all members of  Council with the exception of myself.
A person notices stuff  like that.
I thought it signified a  pre-occupation with  his own callow years.
I couldn't have said that in the sixties. Didn't have a blog.  
Timing of the motion is interesting. 
Usually it comes up closer to an election. 
Usually by new candidates who want elections to be easier.
They don't want to have to  put in the work or the finances or compete against incumbents with reputations and experience.
Aurora  is no more than the size and population of a city ward. Considerable chunks of it lie in the Oak Ridges Moraine, Flood Plain , wood lots , land under control  of Ontario Heritage and other  lands under  control of  Oak Ridges Moraine Trust.
We have seven golf courses. 
Estate lot areas with an average of one house on a minimum of two acres . Some are four acres. 
We are a small urban node with vast unpopulated areas  which are never going to be populated.
But none of that matters to the boyos. They argue voter choice  should  be  restricted.
It should be limited to one two at most, for a  third slice  of the municipality.
It's an interesting concept. 
To make it easier for new candidates to displace incumbents by  relieving the voter of the burden of making a wider choice.
What a burden that is having the freedom to choose? 
It sort of resembles comments in response to my factual observation in a blog that Coincillor Pirri might  find it easier to  make decisions on spending because he  doesn' pay  property tax.
The Councillor's furious anonymous defenders recommended  more Coucillors like himself and less of those  like  me ,who want to keep town business  in the sixties and have never been liked by any Councillor in any previous term served. 
Talk about a two-year old, in a temper tantrum. screaming and  kicking his heels on the floor, because Mum won't give him a popsicle before dinner.
In the sixties, there would have been  no venue for  me to say things like that.  Blogs did not exist
But they do now.     
   
    

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Poor Stephen. His heart is clearly in Newmarket. Last election when the returns were coming in he was up there supporting a couple of friends who had been elected. He also often manages to be ' on the road ' when important events, like funerals, occur in Aurora.
The ward system came up before. Meeting at the Town Hall to discuss. I think less than a dozen showed up. It is like hauling council to the schools. An expensive, unnecessary idea.

Anonymous said...

But, you had a venue with your "Buckshot" column in the Banner. What couldn't you say in it?

Anonymous said...


Stephen Somerville's column is usually a complete waste of paper, and thus unnecessarily a tree killer.

His predictably puerile observations are best ignored.

If Somerville and Paul Pirri are engaged on a ward hunt I hope that they become the hunted, rather than the hunters.

Just think: it might be procedurally incorrect for a person from the south end of town to ask a question concerning the north end of town to a councillor from the east side.

"Sir or madam, if you want to ask a question concerning the south end of town you must direct it to the councillor from that specific area. No other councillors are allowed to comment." So might say the Mayor or Town Clerk.

Wards. Bah! Humbug!

I think that there should be term limits for columnists - at most two years. Bye, Stevie.

Anonymous said...

WHAT??? How can The Auroran (a paper that seems to be the gold standard for Evelyn's Buckaroos) miss the mark by having Stephen Somerville write for them?

His column is an "EDITORIAL". He is expressing an opinion - his opinion.

Who are you to say that his opinion is a waste a paper? Perhaps your opinion here on this blog is a waste of electrons.

As far as Ms Buck contention that Pirri cannot speak to taxation issues I say pish-posh. Anyone in this Country that pays income taxes ultimately pays taxes to the Town through the way higher levels flow down revenue, so your arguement that he does not pay taxes is without merit.

I think wards in Aurora is a good idea and I also think that term limits is a good idea. We need to evolve and without term limits there is no evolution.

Anonymous said...


2:41 PM

My opinion is that your grammar needs work.

Should be "wards are a good idea" and "term limits are a good idea."

Possibly you need to evolve further.

I am fine just as I am.

Anonymous said...

Does anyone actually read Stephen Somerville's column?