Council voted to recommend to Council, the contract for the Notice Board be awarded to The Auroran.
The staff recommendation was not accepted .
The debate took a couple of hours. Several resolutions were put forward and failed to gain sufficient votes.
The final vote was five to four and based on information before us.
The Aurora has a higher circulation. The price was equal within a fraction of a percentage. The Banner's "Readership Audit" was two years out of date and that balanced off the fact the Auroran didn't have one.All other aspects were equal.
Various compromises were proposed. Councillor Pirri moved we give both newspapers a contract and double the cost from $30. to $60,000. That got a seconder but not enough votes.
The Mayor moved a deferral for eight weeks to allow time for a readership audit. I seconded that as a compromise, but it didn't fly.
Councillor Gallo suggested we were trying to tweak the numbers to get the result we wanted.
He impugned our motives. That is against the rules.
I may "rise on a question of privilege" or not.
The Councillor moved the staff recommendation, it didn't pass.
The Mayor moved extension of the existing contract until the 2013 budget is approved. Probably nine months from now.
In effect it would be the same as the resolution just defeated.
Councillor Abel moved and I seconded the Auroran be awarded the contract.
A friendly amendment requested the Aurora to carry out a readership survey.
And that carried as well as the main motion.
The vote was five to four. Councillor Pirri,Gallo,Gaertner and Ballard opposed.
Next step is for the recommendation of Council in Committee to be approved at Council next Tuesday.
Now is the time for people to influence the decision by letting Councillors know you support their decision.
Don't bother telling me I should vote to double the cost of the service.
When it comes to spending mine or other people's money, the only thing that drives me, is value for the dollar.
Wednesday 5 September 2012
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11 comments:
I am surprised at Councillor Pirri's vote. Doubt if he reads the Banner. The other 3 must have their own reasons but figuring them out is not worth the effort on such a nice day.
That is a good example of why ALL council meetings should be televised. I cannot figure out how the debate about whether of not to renew the Banner contract could have taken such a long time. There cannot be a lot of votes in wasting that money - had to have been another reason for so much opposition to moving to the Auroran. Surely not old animosities?
The Auroran has given Councillor Ballard plenty of free publicity & seems to try to present a balanced view of Aurora events. Come on, Councillor, do you think that the Banner would print letters from your dog? Toby would approve of not pouring more money down that drain. You did have him say as your Face book friend that he disliked how high his taxes were, did you not?
Perhaps there's additional value with The Auroran.
I realize that not everyone may have access to the internet or even use the internet and that the notices are I assume also published at the Town's website.
But one of the advantages of The Auroran is that is it also fully published at their website and it is done so simultaneously with the print version. i.e. the web version is generally out on Mondays around 5pm. I don't believe the same is true for the Banner as it has selected articles published but not the full paper. Many times I read The Auroran online before it is delivered.
It would seem that council made the right decision to go with the Auroran but lets clarify a couple of points.
The Auroran is a free publication.
As far as I can tell about 20,000 copies are printed.
Since there are no subscription numbers we have no idea how many people actually read the thing or just toss it in the blue box.
Therefore we can only guess at circulation.
Distribution is not circulation.
They also have a rudimentary form of web site.
Does anyone know how many people have registered?
Also. Throwing a copy of the Auroran in the general vacinity of my driveway is not "delivery" - it is littering - just like the Banner used to do before I stopped them. It took several phone calls and six months but it stopped.
BTW - that goes for catalogues and phonebooks too.
Finally - the Banner needs a kick in the pants - it's really awful
The Auroran has never charged for home delivery. Since they have switched from delivery via Canada Post to carriers, my delivery rate has been hovering on the south side of 50%.
Like Tim says, by throwing the thing on my driveway in the rain, or before the 6 inches of snow falls does not get it into my hands.
I think that both local papers are a prime example of you get what you paid for. Since Ron got out of the business however, I will admit that the Auroran is a better read. It is not filled with the same authors writing to the editor week after week.
Why can't Brock offer a PDF version that gets emailed to you?
Don't piss of the Banner.... they might get their parent to run a smear campaign like they did against Ford, Ornge or Marineland!
I agree that turfing something in one's driveway cannot be termed delivery. Nor is it any judge of readership. But that is irrelevant to the question before Council. Fudged figures cannot disguise the obvious fact that the Auroran actually has readers while the Banner serves no useful purpose. It merely belongs to a chain which has sewed up the rights to publish the calendars of a large # of towns and flogs pages of ads to increase revenue even further. It is a rip-off which makes one wonder how that argument about continuing to use it could have taken any time at all. Just when you think there is an item which could bring consensus around the Council table, something like this happens & we can see that we haven't progressed very far from our bad times.
Perhaps one of the bonuses of The Auroran is that the pdf version is always avaiable on their website and it is published simultaneuosly with the print version. I know that everyone may not have access to the internet but it would seem like with The Auroran you are getting more for your advertising dollar as it is both print & web. The online Banner has only select articles and not the whole newspaper.
I'll admit to a little wandering but the point is how can they decide to spend $30K when they have no idea how many people they're reaching?
Subscription rates are the only way to acccurately gauge readership - the assumption being that if you've signed up to get something you're most likely using it.
Neither publication, as far as I know, can supply such numbers.
And no - "everyone I know reads the Auroran" anecdotes are not numbers.
I have lived in Aurora for over 17 years. I can't recall the name, but there was another paper prior to The Auroran and it did not last long.
If I was sitting around the table and a question of which paper to spend my corporation's dollars came up, I would have to pick the Banner. It has nothing to do with editorial content but strictly a nod to a publication that has historically been able to do the job.
The Banner has a distribution facility in Aurora. They have a tried and true carrier system (my kids have delivered it in the past). The Auroran used to use Canada Post to get delivered. They have recently changed to the child-labour method. I personally had to call them about getting it delivered, they did not have a carrier signed up in my neighbourhood. How many more areas are like that?
If I am paying for a service, I want to be sure that I am getting my money's worth. I think the Banner is better suited to do the job.
I still think the Auroran is something of a hobby paper that could close up at any time.
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