"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

Wednesday 18 September 2013

A Farce In Three Acts or More

I swear, if I were an accomplished playwright, I could not have written a more brilliant farce than last night's general committee meeting. It's like aliens have invaded from outer space and taken over the town without a single shot being fired.

Councillor Ballard wanted to know what the Province  intends to do with the Hydro corridor.

"They own it" he said "But when are they going to do something with it?"

Councillor Gaertner  repeated the question a few minutes later. "What is the hydro corridor for?" she asked.

Just last month ,both Councillors, along with the rest , were ready to spend  first $150,000 to stop  a cell tower from being erected in a neighboring municipality that was already up and running.

A couple of weeks later they were ready to spend half a million on a public inquiry to  discover  what villainy had taken place in the town's planning department that allowed the  tower catastrophe to occur.

We  settled for spending  several thousand dollars for legal advice about What to do? What to do?

People in the tower's neck of the wood had to look out their wonderful windows past the hydro lines
and have their view blighted by a simple white structure silhouetted against the blue sky on the other side of a six lane highway with thirty meter  set-backs  and a forest of trees on their side of the road.

Oh Calamity.

On the east side of town we have a power transmission corridor. Thee towers supporting power transmission lines are like  Mechano giants striding across the land carrying the load on their shoulders.  They have been there probably since immediately after the Second World War.

 Gaertner and Ballard  obviously hadn't even noticed.

The agenda item being  discussed was another bureaucratic fiasco that may or may not be worth telling.

gotta million of 'em.

The  next is about our town motto "Aurora. Where businesses thrive and neighbours care"

It's part  of the Town's Strategic Plan that promises to provide an exceptional quality of life for one and all.

I 'll tell you about a man  who is investing two million dollars in  building a home in Aurora and  how

his neighbours cared and he is not exactly thriving.

And  about the exceptional quality of life  provided to that property owner by the Council  that adopted that motto and  that Strategic  Plan.










3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I tried valiantly to fill the play bill. But could not find your ' Wise Man '.

Anonymous said...


This might actually be a good place to mention Maureen Dowd's column in today's New York Times.

I don't know if you are able to extract and post it to your blog, so will quote bits of it.

"On the most deadly day here since Sept. 11, 2001, with the capital reeling over the sadly familiar scene of a mass shooting by a madman, the chief executive stepped to the microphone and captured the heartbreak.

It wasn't the chief executive of the nation. It was Dr. Janis Orlowski, the chief operating officer of MedStar Washington Hospital Center, where three of those injured were being treated.

"There's something evil in our society that we as Americans have to work to try and eradicate," she said, her voice stoic but laced with emotion...."There is something wrong, and the only thing that I can say is we have to work together to get rid of it. I would like you to put my trauma centre out of business. I really would. I would like not to be an expert on gunshots."

She concluded, "This is not America."

Meanwhile President Obama also gave a speech, briefly addressing the slaughter before moving on to jab Republicans over the corporate tax rate and resistance to Obamacare.

The man who connected so electrically and facilely in 2008, causing Americans to overlook his thin resume, cannot seem to connect anymore.

With a shrinking circle of trust inside the White House, Obama is having trouble establishing trust outside with once reliable factions: grass-roots Democrats and liberals in Congress. He is finding himself increasingly "frustrated" by the defiance of Democrats who are despairing of his passive, reactive leadership.

Obama still has a secret weapon: Congressional Republicans, who might yet shut down the government or cause a cataclysmic default and make the president look good."

What is a real concern of mine is the extent to which Canada relies on the United States in very many ways, not the least being trade.

And this president still has more than three years left to serve.

Anonymous said...

There was a comment a few days about Oakland
hall being listed for more than 6 million dollars. That is incorrect. the asking price is ' only ' 3.9 million bucks.