Noe so blind as those who will not see....

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Neither fish, nor fowl. nor good red herring":

Too many concerns about resources to fund all the projects on the books. No worries, Aurora taxpayers have bags of money. Tax increases are easy. This Mayor and his sidekick (Abel)will need more when these projects go to construction. Lets call it another tax hike to support the future.

Where else can you find a gold plated building to park the Town's dump trucks and snowplows? The truck mechanics best wear business suits to keep up the image.

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A chart  presented to Council at budget time  notes the  high education and income of Aurora residents.

Staff reports advise Council residents expect  high  service levels to be maintained.

A current sercice level report adopted by Council in December notes  cos of services are among the highest in Ontario. Bradford , used as a comparator, is higher.

Bradford ,recently amalgamated with  the Township of West  Gwillimbury is in no  respect a comparator.

The consensus of contributors to the report, mainly staff is  that our costs are higher because our serice levels are higher.

 Nothing in the report identifies a higher level of service to support the contention.

Recreational programs are excellent but they earn revenue that ore than cover the cost..

The consultant suggested a way of reducing costs; eliminate a director's position.

Yesterday ,prior to the budget seesion, I  learned Council  accepted  a recomendation to eliminate 

the position of  Town Clerk. A statutory office.

The decision was  communicated  to the official a week before Christmas.

Of course, you are only hearing  about it now. No doubt it was another one of those items not called for discussion.



Another recent decision saw elimination ofa cerk's osition in the treasury department

A town employee with twenty-six years  service was displaced right  out the door.

The word seeped out and Councillors were informed  by the Mayor the issue was none of our business.
They are on the agenda....open and transparent....but if they;re not called for discussion you  hear nothing about it.

Despite  peculiarly precise advice  to reduce cost of services by eliminating a director's position, the
public work's  2014 budget  increased  costs more than the savings  by recommending five new positions

Three part-time seasonal  employees. One contract position . A supervisory position to cost $75,000 in 2 014, rising  to $105,000 in 2016 .

The Director  informed  Council he is unabe  to cope with the "gap"   in management.

The  supervisory position  was  deleted by a  Coucil vote  of five to four.

Nevertheless,  despite  layers of scrutiny  the recommndation did  reach Council.

Four Councillors , Abel, Thompson .Ballard and Pirri were persuaded.

Damage and other costs of the ice storm  have  not yet ben calculated and added to the  budget.

As noteed by the Chief Financial Officer,  the storm happened in  2013.

Another small idiosyncracy of budgeting in Aurora and for all I know,  in other municipalities, maybe even the Region, cost of road maintenance  iscalculated  on a per capita basis . Not by kilometre.  

Cost to maintain fifty-five  kilometres of road  would  show a  hundred times less by  using population  figures  of fifty-five thousand  as opposed to lineage of roads.

Aurora is a paid -up member of  an Ottawa Institute of Excellence. 

There was excitement  when  we learned  this year,  the town  had made the hundred runners- up  list in the race to  beat  out  all other  Canadian member municipalities .

As employer of  a twenty-six year  town employee , tossed out in the name of organizational efficiency, without as much as a by my leave, I am  singularly unimpressed by the level of excellence
achieved.

I felt compelled to inform  His Honour  yesterday, I am not much influenced by a remote connection to an Ottawa Institute  of Excellence.

For all I know ,it might only have a hundred and one members.

I have a ring side seat in Aurora.