Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "A Step in the right direction":


What exactly was the problem with the site on which the AFLC was built?

Reference is made to "the same geological area."

Is there a sub-soil condition? Was this a swamp many years ago?

It would be nice to know this.

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Stick a pin in a map of Aurora  and  it will likely hit a  natural spring or  quick sand.  

1963 was the first  time I ran for Council. It was also Aurora' s Centennial. The original library building was the town's Centennial project. The late  Councillor Jean Moffat was chair of the
Library Building Committee.

On the night of the Inaugural Council Moffat told  the audience how she had fought for a basement in the building but couldn't get any support.

The reason? Soil conditions.

Aurora Community Centre  opened in 1967.

It had to have a  floating concrete slab to provide  support for one corner of the building.

The swimming pool in the Aurora Family Leisure Complex  literally  fell through the bottom and had to be re-built , at least once.

The  addition to the AFLC required extra  funding because  of soil conditions.

The site for the Joint Facility edges into the flood  plain  calling  for cut  and fill. It will be monitored by the Conservation  Authority which will dictate requirements as they find them .

The area abuts the Arboretum . From experience we know the soil to be sandy. 

A second access and egress  to te site is required  because of the main entrance being on a curve and a steep incline  slopes down to the yard.

To people who  have lived in Aurora  for any time, none of this is new. The ravine runs from north to south of the town and beyond.  The site is in the ravine. Whether it was once a swamp, I do not know. But unstable soil conditions is just a reality we live with. 

There are  those who observed extraordinary pumping activity  during construction of  the current library .

I wasn't a member of Council  at the time of construction  so I don't know the story and  I 
never found anyone willing to admit to problems. 

All of this experience and knowledge of the geological nature of the town,  was always good reason to use the former hydro site for our own purpose. What we had on Scanlon Court   was equally safe. 

There was certainty . 

No guess work required.

Included in te current $18million  price tag is the cockamamie  fqcility for treating melting snow. 

We  spent $300,000 for "swing space"  and prearing for additions to the Town hall  hich ae mot now happening. Having been nixed by Council. 

We could have invested that money in a snow melter and been a lot further ahead. 

At the end of this month  we wl ave an extra yard waste collection. Allthe usual rules apply. Branches must be cut to a certain size and bundled, 

We re talking about fallen tree limbs and branchesalready substantially snow covered iand frozen to the ground.