Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "A Pox On The Joint Facility":
15:26 shows his or her ignorance of the topic.
The Hydro Building is not being used by the cadets only. The building is the armoury for a Canadian Army Militia Unit. The Queen's York Rangers. When I was in the militia, there were parades 2 nights a week (usually Tuesday and Thursday) and most Saturdays. Some weekends there are full weekend exercises. The cadets would have their parade once a week.
The building is used to store vehicles, weapons, ammunition as well as office space, parade space, etc.
I am not sure about the QYR, but there is probably a number of full CAF staff attached to the unit as well and they use the building space as their workspace.
What difference does it matter how many hours it is in use. It is no longer available.
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How much or how little QYR uses our building is not of much interest to me as an Aurora Councillor.
It's a federal responsibility. I'm content for the feds to take care of their business.
An Aurora Councillor's responsibility is to do the best for Aurora residents.
A space needs study, done after Hydro was sold and Power Stream vacated , recommended the property nut be sold. . It should be kept and used for town use.
The building housed twenty-seven jobs and had an assessed value to produce $69,000 a year.
No decision was made to sell .
Neither was the building declared surplus.
It was occupied by the parks department.
No public statement was made that the building was available for lease.
No opportunity to compete for the advantage.
The town did not sell the building. For a time we used it to good advantage for parks and other purposes.
In the same way Church Street School was slyly diverted from its intended use, the Hydro Building was leased to the Federal government.
QYR had adequate accommodation in the Armories drill shed , It was built and used a hundred years for the purpose.
It's still there.
We own the hydro building.
The Feds are another level of government
There is no moral imperative to honor that lease.
Responsibility for Aurora is ours . The Federal government shares that responsibility
I see no reason why the lease for the Hydro building should not be terminated and the Rangers go home.
An Aurora Councillor who holds otherwise is more concerned about QYR and votes they might lose than they are about votes they won in the last election to represent the town's best interest .
We did not burn the bridge behind us with a property lease .
Possession (ownership) is nine-tenths of the law.
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Wednesday 22 January 2014
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12 comments:
It is usually difficult to get rid of a sitting tenant [ note the Centre ]. That being said, there does seem to be very little activity in that building, certainly not such as that comment stated. No rangers appear on a regular basis, none came to help during or after the storm. Since Councillor Ballard seems not to be enthralled with the current plans and is very proud of his relationship with the Rangers, perhaps a simple question about how the rental is going would remove any confusion ?
Pssst ? Did anyone ever consider the Armoury ? They are just paying a flat fee for unused real estate.
"There is no moral imperative to honor (sic) that lease."
Um, how about a legal one?
Possession (occupancy) is nine-tenths of the law.
Your sanity is most welcome. But you are caught between 2 warring factions both claiming to have a ' vision ' for Aurora. eg 19:33 & 19:34 for the one side.
They are equally committed to this election. I'm afraid it is going to take quite a while to sort it out .
The postponement of your case was duly noted.
Do take care.
If anyone on council doesn’t or can’t see the merit of terminating that lease. Please don’t bother putting your name on the candidates list. If there isn’t any possible way to terminate the lease….we can take it back over in 6 years (2010), when the lease is up. Wait 6 years? or spending $20 + million?.. Geez….I wonder what the residents of Aurora would choose? To buy that “right price" building and not consider this was shameful
Ownership is ten-tenths of the law.
The Reserve Hydro Fund was just that. A reserve to benefit all of the residents of Aurora. The recent storm would have been a perfect examples of how it should be used. There would have been no confusion or controversy. Instead we have nasty, expensive turf wars that leave taxpayers gasping. It is all so sad.
Woulda. Coulda. Shoulda.
That armoured personnel carrier has driven away...
20:31
Correct.
Members of Council seem to be well intentioned, but naive. Naive when it comes to expect residents to express an opinion about just about anything, including the two multi-million dollar projects presently under consideration, the joint facility and the Heritage Park.
The public is aroused by an issue or a thing that can be identified as a matter of personal interest, often very small in the broad scheme of things.
During this term a few were able to stoke the fires of something that became huge, out of all proportion to the town. One was the Culture Centre agreement, that saw a virtual mob seize and hold the council chamber hostage to an outpouring of vitriol. This was totally unnecessary and a symptom of irrational behaviour. The same end could have been achieved through civilized intercourse, and ultimately could have resulted in a better and more meaningful agreement.
And who can forget the three-time delegation to Council in connection with the camel in the park? This was total lunacy and wasted hours of Council and staff time, with, in the end, no change taking place. A firmer hand at the tiller should have been able to control this better.
More recently the three trees occupied an inordinate amount of Council and staff time over a matter that had originally been handled with dispatch by the Director of Parks and Recreation. Unfortunately the feelings (rights?) of a few neighbours hijacked a simple administrative matter and created an expensive mountain where the smallest of molehills had existed. This should never have been permitted, and in the end the first decision was also the last, the only logical one.
Trees seem to be a sacrosanct subject, as witness the ad nauseam discussion about numbers and size and public and private property, including golf courses. A golf course is designed for whatever degree of difficulty is desired in combination with a pleasing aesthetic. Usually these represent investments of several millions of dollars and the operators of these facilities are aware of the need to care for the grasses and the ponds and the trees. They usually have experts either on staff or in a consulting capacity. For a town council to dictate to the owners of a golf course how many trees may be removed and of what size yearly is really none of the town's business and the inclusion of golf courses in the new tree by-law is simply wrong.
The town is embarking on another ill advised project, a downtown Heritage Park on Yonge Street involving a potential real estate site of some 4.2 acres that contains a National Heritage building, in dubious condition and a couple of other houses, one of which has been boarded up and empty for 20 years. It is suggested that this project could be feasible if at least half the funding ($5-$6 million) could be dug out of the provincial and/or federal government. Considering the state of the finances of these two I doubt they will be sending over a cheque via courier anytime soon. And if Aurora is going to have to finance what could be a $20 million joint facility it may find it difficult to find its half.
The point of all of this is that the populace of Aurora, as is the case pretty well everywhere, is not interested in this sort of stuff. People want their garbage collected, the snow ploughed from the roads, water, heat and hydro, parks, a safe environment in which to live and raise their children, and all of this at the lowest possible cost. They simply don't follow the blogs and the newspaper.
How many people turn out for publicized public meetings to provide input into anything? How many people even bother to vote?
There, you have answered my question.
Beacon Hall is an Audubon member. They comply with those guidelines. Their activities are subject to 2 boards, one for the Golf Course and a second for Condo residents. Their trees are husbanded well. The Council tree by-law is simply grand-standing like Morris' clothesline nonsense and her claim to bury the wires on Bayview.
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