Recorded in the minutes of the March 24th 2009 Council Meeting, is an announcement by the Mayor, of a Fundraiser for the July 1st Parade at the Aurora Legion. to be held on March 26th. The annual event had been organised by a sub-committee of the town's leisure services committee. Councillor Ron Wallace had been chair of the committee. Volunteers were its backbone.
The last fundraiser had proceeds of $11,000 or thereabouts. Part of the evening's entertainment was a silent auction of donated items.
The St,Kitt's woman, new chair of the July 1st committee, came to a budget meeting and stated the parade budget was $12,000.
The record of March 24th council meeting, notes a letter received from St Kitts and a motion by Councillor MacEachern to increase the amount for the parade from $8,000 to $10.000.
Subsequently, no proceeds were reported from the July 1st fundraiser on March 26th.No financial accounting of revenue and expenditures provided.
Questions were later posed on the Aurora Citizen Blog. My impression was the silent auction was the issue. Those who made donations wanted to know the auction had been a success.
No answers were provided.
The organising committee was a sub-committee of council. I felt the town should be able to provide answers. My own efforts to follow the money produced no satisfactory answers.
Instead St Kitts came to public forum of a council meeting and was given carte blanch by the former Mayor, despite the solicitor's attempt to prevent it, to heap unfounded and unsubstantiated allegations of wrong doing against a councillor ,moi.
I was accused of making allegations against her family business on my blog and she publicly vowed her intent to file a complaint under the Code of Conduct with the newly appointed Integrity Commissioner..
I have done a search on the Citizen Blog, to re-discover the questions posed by citizens at the time. With no success. Anonymity prevails.
Therein my dilemma.
I would appreciate receiving any information on the topic.
Nothing serious turns upon it.
But it would be useful .
Can't help with specifics. But there had to be something there that we were not supposed to discover. Every time you or anyone else raised that subject, an attack was launched that was totally out of
ReplyDeleteproportion with the questions. And never were answers provided. All you received was bluster and fury. The same reaction will probably greet your new post.
i don't know how it could help you but for me that was a turning point. I began to notice what a small group of people were doing and didn't much like it. My neighbours felt the same way. From that point on, everything having to do with St.Kitts and certain councillors was viewed in a different light.
ReplyDeleteYou might be able to check out the other Blogs. I suspect that all the Blogs received a boost in readership about that time. That didn't pass the sniff test and suddenly there was growing concern in town.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that in Aurora's recent past elected officials have sued the citizenry for defamation, elected officials have sued other elected officials for defamation, but not yet has an elected official sued a citizen for defamation.
ReplyDeleteYou should have gone after the bitch at that time.
Hard do do anything now. If someone can provide you with the information you are seeking your lawyer might be able to advise you.
You would certainly have a lot of support.
Somehow our cultural activities - the July 1st parade is as much cultural as it is entertainment and an opportunity to express pride in our country and community - seem to have been kidnapped by a small group of ego maniacs whose sole purpose seems to be self-aggrandisement while spending tax payers' money with little accountability.
The latest self-congrtulatory full page add in this week's Auroran simply carries on the tradition.
Here are a few from when it was hosted on Blogspot, I think the last link might be what you are looking for.
ReplyDeletehttp://auroracitizen.blogspot.com/2009/05/state-of-volunteerism_14.html
http://auroracitizen.blogspot.com/2009/05/when-is-invitation-not-invitation.html
http://auroracitizen.blogspot.com/2009/04/transparency-and-accountability-in.html
Aurora is a unique "sin city" -
ReplyDeleteIt has no drugs, it has no sex, it has no gambling.
It does have municipal politics.
What does this mean?
Aurora is a unique "sin city" -
ReplyDeleteIt has no drugs, it has no sex, it has no gambling.
It does have municipal politics.
What does this mean?
3 January, 2012 1:27 PM
===========================
How very naive.
Go to any of the Aurora secondary schools, they have police patrolling the hallways looking for and finding drugs!
Look into the local paper or the internet. "Escorts" advertise their sexual wares - $200 per hour. Operating in local homes and hotel rooms.
Lotteries and bingo are the tip of the iceberg of gambling in Aurora. I am sure you know a person in a football pool.
If anyone thinks that Aurora's municipal politics are more serious than the above, you have your priorities out of wack. Municipal politics serves as comedy relief to real issues in this Town. The pied piper of correcting the wrongs of the past council leads you all to the river. Let's start fixing the problems of now instead of dreaming of what could have been.
Christopher Watts has 40 archived items on St.Kitt's and heaven knows what they contain. Might be what you need and a laugh or two at the end of the day ?
ReplyDeleteI remember. It was as if the donated items has just disappeared into some dark hole which raised suspicion about who had purchased them, Most of the complaints were linked to accounting, or lack of, what appeared to be excess spending, the exclusion of the usual volunteers and the inability to find anyone to answer questions.
ReplyDeleteMuch like what we hear swirling around the Cultural Centre. And I never heard an accounting from Ballard about what the items donated to his fundraiser produced. We aren't out of the woods yet.
Evelyn,
ReplyDeleteI'm sure you have already reviewed these two topics from the Aurora Citizen regarding this issue:
http://auroracitizen.ca/2009/05/14/see-it-yourself-then-decide-yourself/
http://auroracitizen.ca/2009/05/14/the-state-of-volunteerism/
Apart from being mentioned in the fullpage ad the Cultural Centre took out in the Auroran Sher has fallen into cultural obscurity.
Should be interesting to hear how the Christmas Aurora Dream made out without her.
When there was a furious refusal to answer any questions , the first red flag indicating fuzzy book-keeping went up and they have never been able to get out from under it. I think that was televised so it simply never went away and quite a few people got snagged in the ensuing cover-up.
ReplyDeleteAt Ballard's "Gala", there were so few in attendance that you could place a low-ball bid on an item in the auction and pretty well get what you wanted. So those ones were sold but didn't bring in what he might have expected.
ReplyDeleteYou might need to prime the pump with date of auction and location. Matt M knows most people in town and maybe could assist if this is important,
ReplyDeleteTo Anonymous 3 January, 2012 8:11 PM
ReplyDeleteCorrection.....
Matt M thinks he knows most people in town. He doesn't know me.