Sunday Oct.5th at 2p.m.an All Candidates Meeting will be held at Aurora Town Hall.
Organized by Aurora Library staff it represents the community as a whole. It has been conducted this way for many years.
I know very few candidates. As a participant, I will be focussing on my own campaign.
People will tell candidates what they expect.
"Don't be telling me why I shouldn't vote for the other fellow. Tell me what I need to know about you"
I don't want the blog used that way. I hear the Scuttlebutt. It adds nothing to the process.
Wednesday's meeting produced a couple of surprises by way of questions from the floor.
John Gallo referred to his children and stated family needs are a priority.
It was an odd thing to say. There are family sacrifices when one commits to serve.
A question from the floor suggested he had missed meetings because he puts his family first. He stoutly defended his position.
The weird thing is, he didn't miss any more meetings than anyone else. Once his daughter broke her collarbone and another time was school graduation.
The second answer that brought my chin to the floor was when both candidates said they supported police checks for candidates. What experience led them to believe the elective process would be improved by police involvement?
The Police Act of Ontario prohibits political involvement by members of the force.
Toronto's Police Chief 's contract has not been renewed.
He ordered helicopter surveillance on the City's Mayor. And produced a video showing the Mayor in the posture of peeing behind a tree and putting four empty liquor bottles in a plastic bag into a garbage receptacle.
Toronto's police department is thousands strong.
They have power over people's lives. They carry weapons that kill.
Without the community's respect, they are powerless to maintain law and order.
Without their respect for the rights and dignity of the individual, our rights are worth nothing.
Why would candidates for the position of Chief Magistrate in a town like Aurora be willing to surrender the right to be a candidates for elected office without first being investigated by the police?
It is never going to happen.
That the question was asked and answered as it was, is concern enough.
Sunday, 21 September 2014
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16 comments:
I do not like the idea of a police check. It opens a can of worms about past instances of all sorts and how far back in history one can go, I know one individual who sat on council who was taken to the cop shop ages ago and had to wait until someone came to drive him/her home. Would that set off alarm bells now ? With no charges laid ? Probably.
It was a totally SAFE response. Very PC & careful.
In regards to police checks - I can see where some may say what is someone trying to hide if they disagree. And yet who or what is to be done with the information if something does arise. This can open a whole can of worms as the information can become political fodder for the opposition. Is a candidate currently disallowed by law to run if anything is on their police check?
That is not in the Municipal Act. It might even be illegal.
Totally stupid. Are we going to be getting a list of how many demerits someone has wracked up since getting a licence ?
And then there will be those who cry "If you have nothing to hide there shouldn't be a problem!" The next thing that will be required is a reference from a judge. Ridiculous
It was a loaded question - both candidates rolled over. Pity, that.
Did someone really think this had anything to do with running the town ?
What is the format for this meeting?
The Show and Tell for the candidates to fill a vacant council seat had a 3 minute speech by candidates, a question or two from councillors with one minute to answer each of these. As I recall there were 14.
Now there will be double that. Just on their own they will fill the first row of seats.
I doubt if anyone is going to have time to form an educated opinion about most of the candidates. But that won't be necessary for 8 of them - incumbents. Will they be in their customary seats around the table or lumped in with the virgins?
Will they try to justify their performance in the term just ending, or will they make promises for those future things that they were unable to accomplish?
So we are really meeting only 20 newbies.
Decisions. Decisions.
A small mathematical error on my recent post.
There will only be 7 incumbents for council seats, so 21 newbies.
The 8th, like the squirrel in The Ice Age, decided to go for the big nut.
So we complain when a member of council does some that is illegal, immoral or other wise bad. But, we do not want to subject those potential members the check by police? We ask volunteers for coaches, scout troops, etc. to submit to a police check.
What's worng with asking a potential officer of a multi-million dollar corporation to have a police check to see if they have any criminal convictions. To the anal-retentive, we are not looking for traffic infractions.
21:36
You are still wrong. One of the sitting councillors is a temp.
There will be 6 incumbents and 22 others.
@10:28
That makes it much easier ?
what about write-in candidates?
14:00
what about write-off candidates ?
14:21- Now that's funny :)
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