"Cowardice asks the question...is it safe? Expediency asks the question...is it politic? Vanity asks the question...is it popular? But conscience asks the question...is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because it is right." ~Dr. Martin Luther King

Thursday 17 May 2012

Queries Unanswered

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Sudden Clarity":

I didn't see anything about you on the jazz fest website. Did they take it down? Any links?

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I didn't see it either .I only heard about it. So I can't tell you how to find it. I don't know what was said .
I'm not interested in anything  said by people who have mastered the art of exploiting public  resources for  private advantage while  representing their purpose as charitable fund-raising and community well-being.
I don't expect to be held in high regard when  my opposition is expressed in as forceful a manner as I know, to  the Town allowing public resources  to be exploited that way. 
 I expect, after the public discussion and  revelation that  no fee is paid for use of the park, no right to fence the park off from public  use or to  lease space in the park  may be assumed, the festival organizers will be advised to cease and desist those practices.
Similarly, in response to another query about  negotiations between the town and the governing body of the Church Street School, I cannot provide any answers.to that query either. . 
 I cannot conceive of an  acceptable  arrangement to be arrived at that will allow that board to continue to manage the facility to my satisfaction, on the basis of how it has been managed to date, as well as the  disrespect shown to the town's authority or the  people whose taxes  have been  used to finance the operation without their consent.
So I think  whatever  they are talking about is a waste of everyone's time. I would have withheld the funds from January1st 2011.
I  refuse to accept that  transferring a million and a half  dollars of public resources to a body without accountability on the basis of  a flawed agreement ,could pass the test of  government regulations or municipal auditing. 
 If such free disposition of tax dollars is permissible within all the checks and balances, then as far as I am concerned, there is no fiscal integrity in the system.
If the decision is up to politicians  who believe the only way to electoral success is  massive giveaways of public funds, our affairs are indeed in desperate  shape.  .

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

All of your reasons are sound. But residents are going more by the fact that those operations simply do not pass the sniff test. It is up to Council to deal with the specifics.

Anonymous said...

Has the Jazz group provided Aurora with copies of it's
liability insurance? Is the town protected if something goes wrong while that fencing is in place ?

Anonymous said...

Please note that all of the events this weekend go off without a hitch and without any aid from the Culture Vultures. We have to get them in perspective. They do not supply Aurora with culture or fireworks - they just cost money.