Councillor Gaertner is taking a pounding for her comments on the merits of the sale of 22 aces of town property..
Tha Aurora Banner editorialised on the Councillor's comments.
The Aurora Citizen re-printed the editorial and joined the public flogging.
Chris Watts stepped up to take his turn with the barbed whip this morning .
I do not agree with the Councillor's position and said so during the public debate..
But the Councillor's view is not entirely without merit.
Twenty-two acres is twenty five per cent of the parcel.. A substantial part of the building is warehouse space. Warehousing does not provide the number of jobs as other uses.
400 jobs cited are not new jobs.Employees will transfer with the operation.
The numbers will swell town employment statistics. Future opportunities are possible.New employment opportunities are welcome.
But I am mindful of the size of the parcel. Job numbers are not the best they could be.
I have since learned a trail link on the edge of the property has been removed. Apparently Bulk Barn insisted.
My enthusiasm is somewhat dampened.
I do not believe the town is a supplicant.
I resent Council was not consulted.
This property deal is not a simple transaction. Over six million dollars are estimated to service the entire parcel of eighty acres.There is a sharing of costs with Bulk Barn.
Land contours are having to be changed substantially
Part of the property is in the Oak Ridges Moraine.
The servicing plan requires the parks department to be turfed out
once again. .
Part of the property has been used by parks department for years. To turn trees into mulch, compost grass clippings, ,accommodate a small tree nursery and sundry other parks functions.
We no longer have the former Hydro building yard. Need for a new location is critical.
So the big brave fellows out there beating drums and Councillor Gaertner mercilessly, need to get hold of few more facts before charging to the top of the knoll with swords and voices raised .(mixed metaphors be damned)
Bulk Barn is welcome. It's good news. It's not spectacular.
22 acres is a sizable chunk out of 80 acres.
6 million (estimate) for servicing is a substantial amount.
The only advantage is jobs.We need to ensure the objective is realized to the full. Benefit is measured against cost.
Otherwise, we shall have surrendered land needed for our own purposes for a scheme that's a dud.
I'm not yet dancing around the Maypole on the village green. I hope we are managing things properly.
Councillor Gaertner exercised her authority and took a position.
I commend her for that.
Now to change the subject let me pose a new question.
At what concentration and decibel level does fair comment turn into bullying and intimidation?
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"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
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8 comments:
"At what concentration and decibel level does fair comment turn into bullying and intimidation?"
There goes the needle on that damn irony meter again!
There is an old story about a traveling preacher who claimed to heal the sick & cast out demons. One hot night a woman came up onto the stage and had a fit after which she fainted heavily on to the boards. When people rushed to help her , the minister thundered, " No ! Leave her lay where Jesus flung her! "
In Gaertner's case, she seldom writes her own lines. So what the community seems to be venting is anger at where her script writers have led her. They should have known the reaction and did nothing. Oddly enough, while it sounds personal, no one considers her to be an individual responsible for her own actions.
Just a guess, but she isn't really the target. Still, she got herself into the pickle. Leave her lay.
Whatever the merits of the deal, & we will find out, I don't think any slack can be allowed for Councillor Gaertner. This is a woman who has consistently backed the spending of thousands of dollars for a ill-advised legal witch-hunt by the former Council. She endorses the continued drain on the Town towards the Center and expressed a desire to cut funding the the Library. They can have at her for all I care.
All three levels of government own substantial chunks of real estate, some of it located in areas designated for ultimate commercial use, some of it for the creation of provincial or national parks.
Without having seen the entire property along with the development proposed by Bulk Barn Foods, it is impossible to comment on its suitability for its ultimate use.
It has been stated that the company will employ 400 people, including many in management, both at mid and senior levels. A substantial portion of the building will apparently be allocated to warehousing. Since this is intended to be a distribution centre, considerable warehousing is required.
I don't care what uses this land has had in the past. Turning trees into mulch and composting grass clipping do nothing to increase Aurora's tax base and revenue. If Aurora needs land on which to grow trees for mulch and store grass clippings for compost, I suggest the town go out into the country and purchase 100 acres of land fairly close by, half or more covered in trees, the rest open. The mulching and composting could be carried on, even enlarged into a potential revenue earning undertaking.
Governments don't create jobs to produce goods and services. Governments create jobs because of the demands of society and of our place in the world as a nation. There is little trickle down effect except to pay for the things used by governments, from vehicles to stationary, from computer systems to road salt, and even to fighter jets.
Entrepreneurs have built our roads, out railways, our airports and our subways and buses. They have established businesses that produce everything from soup to nuts to hydro-generating stations and nuclear power plants. Our hospitals and our universities have their genesis in the business world, for that is what has constructed these, granted in part with government(taxpayer) money, but so what.
The food we eat, the clothing we wear, the homes in which we live and the cars or trucks that we drive are all produced by business. All of these require warehousing as an integral part of their operation. If business didn't exist we would be back in the Middle Ages. But then there would be no blogs.
Everything has a price. It is certainly essential to study every single aspect of any proposal of the size and scope of this one. Let's do it constructively, competently and completely. Let's also recognize that there are trade-offs. Value can be ascribed to these. At the end of the day do the pros exceed the cons?
Our part of southern Ontario is bursting at the seams. We clamour for more and better commuter service, better and more affordable housing, better hospitals with less wait time, a better education system with fewer students per class - the list is endless. But this takes leadership by the three levels of government, something that is completely lacking. There should be no more single-family detached house or row townhouse building permitted in southern Ontario. We have to build up, not out. Land would be saved and the necessary services would be greatly reduced.
I do not intend to answer all of your points on an individual basis; I do not have the time or inclination for this task. But I could.
As for your defence of Councillor Gaertner, you refer to a "public flogging."
If everyone were honest they could say the following about everyone and everything: "But the Councillor's view is NOT ENTIRELY WITHOUT MERIT."
Are you awarding her 5% or 45%? This makes a big difference.
Councillors Gaertner is a drain on Council and on our town. Her conduct on Council, her speaking abilities and her understanding of issues and the Rules of Procedure are in my opinion below 5%. But there is still just a little bit of merit. That's like saying mulch or compost have some merit, which, indeed, they do.
If one were to take a tractor & mower onto the area below the water tower and simply cut the growth, there would be all kinds of good stuff for mulch. It was crop land. As far as I know, Aurora already owns the land. Use what we have. You could plant plenty of saplings up there. Clearing the land once a year would be good and the planting need not interfere with all the action up there. There even is a deserted apple orchard - if the trees are dead, clear them and use the lumber. Aurora needs to look at what it has instead of what it has on its wish list.
If the Banner is roasting Councillor G, the powers-that-be, and still are to some extent, have determined she is expendable. We need do nothing.
Where is this Bulk Barn facility going to be?
Whose stand do you think she took? Her own or that of her puppeteers? I don't think she is actually capable of forming her own opinion, let alone articulating it without notes or prompts.
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