Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "The Solution Is Imminent":
Tool/potting shed for the arboretum?
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This comment reminds me. The Arboretum group bought a prefabricated shed with the first year of $100.000. grant. They also let a contract for weeding flower beds.
The shed cost $47,000 or thereabouts. The next year somebody backed the tractor into the door jamb
I tell you to create relevance and because I heard an Arboretum member has adamantly declared "not a penny more for the Petch House"
Another year's biggie was $75,000. worth of landscaping on a slope from the back of the Family Leisure Complex. Big rocks transported to the site and lots of soil replacement.
The Arboretun are a small group of volunteeers with ambitious plans to create something beautiful in the ravine that ends at the Petch House. They've probably received half a million dollars and spent it with never a quibble from the public.
The Historical Society receive an average annual grant of $70,000. . Nobody outside of the Society has any idea how its spent.
The Culture Board receives increased funding every year. ;this year just about $400,000. They have free use of a facility that cost millions to renovate for another purpose, All utilities and maintenance are provided . The Board self-selects and meets in secret .
There;s never any hesitation about doling out tax funds.
I could go on and on listing dissipation this way and that. I will.
Two "studies " cost more than was spent restoring the Petch House.
The Strategic Plan Study cost $80,000. The Heritage Designation for the S.E. District cost $67,000.
Nothing is seen to have been accomplished that could not without them.
Petch House is real.
What about legal fees to advise on rudimentaray decisions ? Cell tower erected with legal authority
for example. Should we go to court to compel a developer to sell land for a fraction of its value
for purposes unknown.
Consult fees for a $ multi millions fantasy heritage park, gifting land to a university, an all-season facility for a private tennis club,
I do not suggest funds spent on Petch House are either trivial or irrelevant.
I do however suggest it's the tip of the iceberg.
If we can't control profligate tax and spend practice in this small Ontario town and we don't ,why should we expect discipline at the higher levels ?
It's my question for the day.
Tuesday, 13 May 2014
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3 comments:
I have no answer to your question. All we small fry can do is carefully direct votes to those we believe to be deserving. Even then we can mess up royally.
Actually I have an understanding of how the Aurora Historical Society has spent grant money over the past 4 years.
That's not to say that it was easy to gain such an understanding. Their website is a joke, reports are usually only provided to the 20 or so odd in attendance at their annual general meetings and they are not as comprehensive as what is provided to council their primary funding source.
From the society's own recent history I have no idea why council was so complacent in continuing to hand over, now $70,000 in the 2014 budget cycle when the AHS has jettisoned the Aurora Collection to the town and significant problems with respect to sustainability were highlighted prompting council to agree it "needs to have a discussion".
No discussion has taken place since the budget back in February. No discussion is in sight, as the Mayor seems to be expecting it only to take place if a notice of motion is made, failing to provide the leadership to bring one forward himself.
If the Petch House is the tip of the iceberg then the Aurora Historical Society is the Titanic. $70,000 lifeboats aren't going to do anything to alter its course.
If the arboretum people have not husbanded the money they have received or taken care of the buildings and equipment that they were given, it makes no sense to even consider them in assigning a home for Petch.
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