"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

Sunday 27 October 2013

Too Good For Politics

I was eating breakfast and pondering the question I posed.  Who messes with that stuff. ...awards and acclamations?

I recalled a proposal  during the terms before last; Aurora  should enter the Communities in Bloom competition.

the proponent had approached the hotel and received a commitment for accommodation for the judges. All the town needed to do was pay the $12,000 fee to enter.

Several towns and cities in Ontario were into  spectacular public floral displays.

Oakville, Burlington,Brampton. Richmond Hill where  the rose is in the town  crest and is their floral emblem.That level  of excellence came from years of investment and experience.

Aurora  could  not place  with such competition.

Another thought entered my  head.  Each year I argue against a budget item  of $10,000. for membership in  the Canada Institute for Excellence.

This week we've been hearing that motions moved and seconded and debated in Council  were senseless and designed to embarrass some poor helpless  innocent individual.

Well. you know, entering  a competition  designed by a distant institution , making an application for an award of excellence. Paying $10,000 a year for membership in an elitist organization, to become eligible  for  such an award , I think that's embarrassing.

It is affectation.  Empty ,frivolous, foppery. Flim-flam in the extreme . A pile of meaningless twaddle.

If any such assessment could or should be made, I think municipal employees. would be the ones to judge.  Not the ones at the top.

I  would be content to be assured  good town  employees   feel  secure in their  jobs.








4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Like the group of Festivals who awarded their own members.

Anonymous said...

'Aurora could not place with such competition.'

Not with that kind of negative attitude, no.

Anonymous said...

I felt something was out of whack when, during the last budget discussions, staff simply announced that staff had done all the reductions that they were going to do.
And they got away with it,

Anonymous said...

Councillor Ballard once stated that Aurora residents paid no attention to municipal politics if taxes were kept low & the snow was cleared quickly. My snow is cleared promptly. He seems to have forgotten the first item in dealing with the budget.