Wednesday, 6 March 2013

We are not supposed to be landlords

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "A Growing List":

The Rangers have a new home. It is time to decide, sensibly, what to do with the left-overs. As Morris put it so gracefully, " Give the kiddies a place to play ". That was an ignorant remark about the Rangers then and remains so today. All property in town should be inventoried and the excess sold off or rented. Aurora needs in-coming revenue badly.



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Municipalities have no right to be . We exist because  some  services and choices  are best made at the municipal level.

We are not partners with the Province. We are " little brothers"

We can be kicked around. 

Cost of many services are shared with the Province. For fair  decisions ,there  needs  to be some sense of  financial ability.

Not all municipalities are  financially equal .

It's why the inventory of assets was determined to be an important factor .

Holding  surplus property  is  neither wise nor desirable. 

The  landlord  role is equally frowned upon. 

There is no justification for holding property not required for the town's  purpose.  

We   were  using the hydro building for an eminently sensible purpose. 

The parks department was turfed out to  provide a place  for the Queen's York Rangers. 

Many of the former Mayor's friends  were appointed to committees  and  became Chairmen. 

Competent Councillors were bypassed.

Council was disrespected. 

Top level  staff positions were filled without following  the recruitment process required by the Municipal Act.

Staff  were transferred from  the Region to town positions  as  "interim  " and confirmed  on a permanent  basis.

Councillor, More Righteous Than Thou, Ballard  became Chairman of the Economic Advisory Committee.  He  was then  able to claim authority and  aligns himself  with the previous administration.

Towards the end of  the term,  the  former Mayor directed staff to 
 prepare a report on  "volunteers contributions" on various advisory committees. 

And so it was done. . Such a  volume  was  gathered, a request followed for a condensed version.

That too was done.

How many hours of  staff  time it took is not known.

It proved to be  without purpose  in the losing circumstance that followed.         

7 comments:

  1. What a ramble.....

    What does being appointed to committees, becoming Chairs, recruitment processes, etc. have ANYTHING to do with the former hydro building? It appears as though for every subject that puts a burr under your saddle (most subjects for sure), you just rattle off, in random order, all of the things that MorMac or MorMac supporters have done in the past.

    You are not going to be able to get out of this DND deal by suddenly making the building surplus. Who puts these ideas in your head?

    I saw on a blog somewhere a new term for those that are in your corner....

    Buckeroos!

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  2. That former mayor is certainly getting out and about to events around town. She's much more active on Twitter, too. Has she been emboldened by her COI victory?

    Do you think she's considering facing the electorate again?! Some people have no shame, I suppose.

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  3. Is this what is known as "responsible" government?

    Responsible to yourself and your friends?

    It's amazing how much ground a little bit of primordial slime can cover.

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  4. Gotta love it when he uses the Royal " We " for when he was head of the EAC. But we certainly can't claim that we haven't seen him coming this time around.

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  5. 5"55 PM
    I think the idea now is to pave the way for several ' ringers' to run in the next election. I believe I have spotted 2 men & 2 women waiting impatiently in the wings.

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  6. Of course she will run for Council, to be Mayor you have to come first, to get a seat on Council you only have to come eighth. In 2010 5.6% of the votes cast got you that, her special interest groups can stuff that many ballots.

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  7. TO: 5:55 PM

    Question: "Do you think she's considering facing the electorate again?!"

    There is no doubt in my mind that the former Mayor is on the come-back trail. I heard that she was the Liberal delegate for Aurora-Newmarket at the recent provincial leadership convention. What strikes me as funny is that she is apparently the only politician in Canadian history to be tagged with launching a strategic lawsuit intended to silence her political critics and yet there is an MPP who is trying to pass a bill to stop SLAPP lawsuits. I also suspect that there is a concerted effort to critics and thwart the current Mayor and council majority at every corner and your guess is as good as mine as to who is bind all of that. I find the irony of all of this to be amusing.

    I guess we should conclude that our local Liberal association doesn’t seem too concerned about contradictions, political free speech or how our tax dollars are used by politicians, despite the fact that the Charter of Rights says governments can't sue for defamation. There are sometimes ways around silly little things like the Charter and the Code of Conduct if there is both the will and public apathy.

    We will have to wait and see if anyone remembers the past or if we are destines to repeat what I think are past mistakes. I suspect that some people have been scared into silence and who could blame them ?

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