We went round the table four times last night to be sure everything that could be said was.
Councillor Gaertner and Pirri were not there and Councillor Sandra had to leave for a prior commitment.
Residents from the neighborhood were there but not as many as Tuesday. Nor did they seem quite as volatile.
The Town solicitor had a full report on costs and implications of filing an injunction against Bell as well as other information,I did not know. He left nothing out that we needed to know.
I wish you could have heard it. Or read it.
First an injunction is heard in a Federal Court. I may not have details entirely accurate. There wasn't time for a written report .
Injunctions are a specialty area of the law. They are seldom successful. Lawyers who handle the specialty are not eager to take a case that has little chance of success. The arguments ,such as damage to health, need to be proven in court. A team is required to undertake the task. The cost would be $150,000.
There are twenty cell towers in Aurora already. I did not know that. I do not know when they were erected. I never heard a word about them and I've been on Council for the last nine years plus.
Which means no-one else has made a great noise or at least not enough to be heard.
Yesterday's blog post said twenty residents had been notified by Bell. Actually, it was ten.
I am often stunned by what I hear in Council. I comfort myself with assurance the place is full of residents. Some are there to listen and make sense of what they hear .
Comments to yesterday's post certainly indicate awareness in the community.
Councillor Ballard wants to spend funds to get a second opinion from another lawyer. My God, the man is at least as obsessed with lawyers and imaginary crimes as his mentor.
Who would have thunk it?
He said he could not support spending $150,000 on an injunction then argued in favour of proceeding along those lines.
Councillor Gallo simply could not imagine how the process could possibly cost that amount. I had to bite my tongue at that point. The night before Councillor Gaertner thought it would be a simple matter of filling out a form.
Councillor Sandra was steadfast in her support of ab injunction no matter the cost. . The applause was light and only came from her corner of the room.
The tower is complete. All that's left to do is flip the switch.
Councillor Thompson thinks we should use $100,000 instead to pay for the tower to be moved .someplace else. He didn't say where. Maybe some less prestigious neighborhood..
Councillor Abel fully supports that idea.
Councillor Ballard urged allocating $4,000. to investigate staff to determine who was responsible for what. It's not clear what what is.
Apparently the latest circulating scuttlebutt is that bribes were accepted to accommodate Belll's
evil plans.
Picture fair maiden tied to the railroad by black cloaked and hatted and curled mustachioed
Landlord and train fast advancing.
Councillor Ballard likely did not make that accusation but he has certainly plowed the field and continues to cultivate to sow the seed for such a completely implausible and totally offensive suggestion.
The tenor of e-mails received from people signing with professional credentials has to be read to be believed.
The end decision was not clear. I think the Mayor is directed to meet with Bell to discuss options with the threat of an injunction in one pocket and a hundred thousand in the other to move the tower to any other location as long as it's not there.
You know, one of the things a politician must avoid is arrogance.. It is definitely a potential pitfall when one has been engaged as long as I have
But I have to risk it and tell you there are times when I feel like an adult sitting in the middle of a sandbox surrounded by pre-schoolers, each feverishly occupied building the best castle in the sand.
Thursday, 25 April 2013
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15 comments:
MOVE IT??? My God this is NIMBY as can be. I live in the McClellan/Bathurst area. There is an ugly water tower (with cell antenna) in my neighbourhood. Can we move that too?
I do not even know why this is an issue other than Ballard drive down Bathurst on a Sunday morning and he saw something that was not there before.
It seems to me that Bell did what they were supposed to do. They received approvals from everyone that they needed to get. Leave it alone.
If those in Cranberry do no like to look at it, perhaps we can raise two large towers on the east side of Bathurst and stretch a big sheet between them. On the east side of the sheet we can paint blue sky, trees, grass, etc. On the west side we can paint "AURORA" in big letters.
Do I have the following clear?
Please have the Town Solicitor's report published on the town's website so we can have the same understanding that those present last night now do.
If an injunction needs to be filed in a Federal Court by a lawyer or lawyers specializing in that area, and if they are not eager to take a case that has little chance of success, and if the issues need to be proven, and if the cost for such action would be $150,000. I cannot understand why Council is seriously considering this approach.
How did 20 cell towers come to be built in Aurora, where are they, and why was there no outraged objection from our residents? Why now on a tower sited in King?
And on what grounds does Ballard wants to allocate $4,000 to investigate staff to determine who was responsible for what? You say that you don't know what what is. Does anyone? Is this simply going to be a Ballard initiated witch hunt to pin some poor staff member to a display board. What does the CAO have to say about this new low in labour relations?
From what "source" does the subject of bribes arise. This is a criminal matter. Just look at the investigation in the city of Montreal. Do we want something similar in our town?
Politicians must avoid a lot of things, arrogance is merely one. Some others are gross ignorance, stupidity, putting one's feet in one's mouth, repeatedly, and surely malicious mischief whose synonym is malfeasance.
The inmates have taken over. Head for the hills everyone !
You’ve got to be kidding. (I see I'm not the first to comment in a similar vein).
Councillor Ballard is leading the council astray.
There’s got to be better causes to fight for.
I can understand that the neighbourhood has to deal with change, but there’s probably more risk to people using their own cell phones than this tower.
It’s titled as a “mega-tower” woo… what do then call the CN Tower.
In a couple a months people won’t think anything of it. It will just be part of the landscape. I drove past it last evening to see what the big deal was about and almost missed it. Really what's the big deal about. It's not like you can use it as a new Aurora landmark. "Oh, I live over by the cell tower". "Oh, really, where? Which cell tower?"
Councillor Ballard labels the tower with a caption of “a once idllyic vista is now ruined for dozens of home owners”. Really… time to get over that. What if it was a new subdivision going in there, well there goes the neighbourhood, there goes the idllyic vista. What about all the development straight across Aurora of what used to be farmland, meadows, forest and nature. Now that was a vista, no one seems to care about the thousands of home and people that are being “intensified” across Aurora and the loss of that vista.
This is NIMBYism at its finest. Everyone wants cell coverage though don’t they.
What’s Bell going to say… we followed all of the regulations, did everything that Industry Canada said that we needed to do, we covered all of the bases with King Township, the tower is up. End of story.
Does anyone really think it’s going to move. Unless it can be proven that it is a grave danger to life and limb, forget it. Lawyers are the only ones who are going to benefit. But… but… C. Ballard is there to lead the fight don’t forget it at re-election time. He went to bat for that neighbourhood. Do some at the Town think they can “buy” a move with $100k. Has common sense been thrown out the window?
Unbelieveable…
I’m surprised though that C. Ballard has published some negative comments (to him) on his blog about this affair. (we’ll probably soon see those disappear). Mark my words this is going to be another checkmark on Ballard’s list at election time as to his perceived mismanagement of Aurora and why a crusader such as himself is needed to right all of our wrongs.
I guess I step back I have to see the bigger political picture. At times our representatives have to look like they are listening and helping and finding solutions so that in the end they can then say “sorry, we tried our best, but it just couldn’t happen”, full well knowing it was a lost cause from the start.
What is the source for the $ to fund this attempted injunction? Taxpayer dollars, of course. From where? It better not be Hydro Reserve Funds. Once again we are placating a bunch of demanding nimbys.
What a delicious irony!! A council elected to end stupid & wasteful lawsuits is proceeding to launch one of it's very own ! And, to add insult to injury, they have the audacity to try & blame it on staff!!
You couldn't write this shit !!!
I say hire some lawyers at any cost. Don't be intimidated with facts such as it is not in our jurisdiction and is really of no significance. Show Bell we mean business with high priced lawyers. Our Mayor is never concerned about balancing the budget and making sure we pay dearly for our water so why worry about the costs now. And what about hiring another law firm to dig into the staff issue - who said what to whom and when?
Suggest Dawe and Humphries get together to handle this one.
You make a lot of good points, 11:33 AM. We should also try to see things from the King Township side - we shared a common, rural landscape, and now those residents are faced with Aurora's suburban sprawl on their doorstep.
Did the majority of council stop in at a pub to hoist quite a few on the way to the meeting?
That is the impression one gets.
Is that red-headed woman suffering a severe case of Spring fever?
The two most steadfast male members want to spend $100,000 to relocate the tower. I assume one would have to go through a complete set of hearings, applications, public meetings, dismemberment and reconstruction. This will surely take some time and will only happen if Bell is forced to relocate the tower, something they just might find objectionable. And their pockets are considerably deeper.
I might support this last suggestion if funds are removed from display cases and heritage park studies. Has anyone bothered to look at these "priceless" remnants in their display cases as were presented as an add-on to the agenda of the last regular council meeting?
"Lawyers who handle the specialty are not eager to take a case that has little chance of success"
Wrong, Lawyers fancy themselves specialists in just about everything they do and the good ship Aurora has much past history where Lawyers were very eager to take a case they couldn’t win , West Hill comes immediately to mind ,Oh and what about that kooky code of conduct which hunt , the list is endless
Well, you sure can't expect King to ask about any new plans they have for that land in the future. We have become a joke with the other municipalities. Mayor Dawe has joined Mayor Gross on the list of mayors who REALLY offend their residents by casting suspicions on staff. It is good for him that Mardi Gras is over.
7:57 You can leave your ignorance at the door. That piece of property was privately held until sold for an outrageous price a few years back. It was never Township land. Landowners can make a tidy sum either allowing a tower on their land or selling the land needed. As far as being a joke, I don't find it very funny that our ex mayor and her pack of cronies create huge amounts of unneccessary chaos for our council and citizens. THE DRAMA HAS TO STOP. And it is not the fault of our mayor. He has put up with enough chidish antics at council meetings to last a lifetime. Those councillors should be ashamed of themselves.
6:45 AM
Was that where that super fruit market used to be every summer? Truly an event to take the kids there & let them do some selecting on their own knowing it wouldn't impact too badly on the budget. I did note in passing that there were no receipts or even a cash register but grinned because it was a great place.
The farmers stand was on the adjacent property.That market was the biggest scam going. The couple that used to run it rented that property for years, selling produce bought in bulk from the food terminal and repackaged as fresh and farmed locally, which most was not. He made a killing, filling quart baskets full of fruits and veggies not even in season. Great cash business!
9:13 PM
Thank you. I did notice the trucks at the back but they were in such bad shape that they seemed to be part of the scenery. I was trying to teach the kids about sales taxes then & that place was quite different as there were none. Heck, they didn't bother about re-packaging - we took our own bags. But, on a positive note, it was a great place for seniors on a really tight budget to get fresh stuff for what they were willing or able to pay. Several times, I saw the man just wave off their money.
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