Last time I was in Richmond Hill, I had to drive up and down Yonge Street looking for the funeral parlor. It was in the same place it had always been but a number of high rise apartment building had been built and the land marks had vanished.
I plan to drive down this weekend . Not because I want to. I freely acknowledge i do not enjoy the change.
Councillor Thompson advises they did the Community improvement thing in Richmond Hill. I need to go and see how it improved the town centre.
When the Region was created, Richmond Hill inherited the B. A.I.F. development. South side of Major Mackenzie Drive and west side of Yonge.
Tax revenue would have multiplied many time over.
Their Hydro was also sold to Power Stream for many .many millions more than ours.
The first wave pool in York Region was in Richmond Hill.
After Hydro was sold Richmond Hill built a Culture Centre on Yonge Street and made a contribution of several million to York Central Hospital.
I logged in to Queen's York Rangers web site last night.
The program is the same as always.
I don't know how long they've had a bus bringing cadets down from Sutton ,Keswick and Sharon.
Of course it would depend on how many cadets there are up there.
Maybe all of them.
Maybe that's where QYR should be located.
By the way, it's not Aurora Armouries any more.
It's Colonel John Graves Simcoe Armouries.
I didn't see anything in the program to indicate why they needed to relocate from the drill shed at the corner of Mosely and Larmont.
They teach cadets to drill, shoot rifles , polish their boots and iron a shirt.
Living accommodation and meals are provided to people who join the army.But that would of course be in Army Bases.
I did hear sometime recently the Government was planning to close down both Armouries and that's why Aurora sprang to their assistance.
The main one is Fort York Armouries in Toronto.
It may be the ability to design and build to our own standards park furniture and gazebos and such at savings of hundreds of thousands of dollars is more of a financial advantage to Aurora residents than saving Queen's York Rangers from the ravages of the Ministry of National Defence.
I believe rent of $31,000. rent is collected. As landlords ,we are responsible to maintain the building Several hundred thousand dollars were spent to meet their requirements. We are not making any money from their tenancy yet.
We do forfeit taxes.
If the building had been sold to the private sector we would not only realize tax revenue . the property would add jobs to our employment pool.and added several million to our Hydro asset reserve fund.
We never did explore that option.
We dealt the potential away when we made the Faustian Bargain with DND.
Who was looking after our interest then?
And who is looking after our interest now ?
I think the potters pay just over $7000 for the old library building plus utilities,
ReplyDeleteWell just don't get blown off the road. That wind is wicked.
ReplyDeleteCorrection: Richmond Hill built a Performing Arts Centre.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteCouncillor Buck:
I wish you would make a motion to change the name of the Aurora Cultural Centre to
THE AURORA CULTURE CENTRE.
The first is grammatically incorrect.
Don’t know what Councillor Thompson is talking about. Nothing has changes except for the Centre of Performing Arts Center and the Tridel condo building. They have huge parking issues that nobody really wants to address. And they along with the Region just added to their misery by approving a “mixed” housing complex with a youth drop in center right on Yonge St. right by the beer store.
ReplyDelete12:10, the pet peeve pedant, is incorrect.
ReplyDeleteA mixed housing complex? Is that like affordable housing? Beside a beer store? That wouldn't go over too well here in our down town. Lucky them and not us I suppose.
ReplyDeleteCllr Thompson's ideas for the Heritage nonsense change as soon as someone points out that he is not using comparable situations. The weirdest one was that we should be like the projects in TO because they have green spaces. Aurora has plenty of green spaces. And is even in some legal tussle to wrest more from a developer for a park not on the Master Plan.
ReplyDeleteYou do know that the Queens York Rangers are more than an Army Cadet unit right?
ReplyDeleteQYR (both in Toronto and Aurora) are unit's in the Canadian Army reserve force.
The RCAC (Royal Canadian Army Cadets) are affiliated with the QYR but are not the same thing.
The whole "kiddies" thing makes me mad. The reserves (which I was a member of a number of years ago) is an integral part of the Canadian Armed Forces. Members of reserve units are called upon regularly to deploy overseas. Just have a look though those lost in Afghanistan and see how many were members of a reserve regiment that had been deployed.
They are not kiddies nor is their job "to play soldier".
Only thing worse than the "kiddies" comments is the disrespect to these men and women that have volunteered to serve.