A SNOWBALL'S CHANCE IN HELL

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "GUEST POST": 

Maybe we could adopt the Admiralty Flag too. 
It is all huff & puff. The OMB is not going to change itself. But I do think that Mr B might be vulnerable if the conservatives can get their act together. 
Posted by Anonymous to  Our Town and Its Business at 26 April 2016 at 11:02

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The OMB did not create itself. It will not transition itself either. Just because Councillors  and a bunch of nimbies think it should. 

The Board was created after municipalities were organised. Because a job needing to be done was not being done properly. 

Every  time Tom gleefully announces another town has endorsed the Aurora's resolution, the full scope of abysmal ignorance of the history of government in Ontario is displayed. 

 

Before settlement, transit was by waterways. Mrs. Simcoe wrote a diary. 

Then trees were cut down,logs trimmed and laid side by side to form corduroy roads. They still exist under original  arteries . Currency was British Sterling.

Post offices  followed roads  and were placed at intersections for widest  convenience. 

Settlements grew around them.  Aurora is  typical. Councils were created to manage local services.

Mostly roads. 

In the early days government was by trial and error. Councils were dominated by local business .  

They were responsible for education. 

Of typical colonial mind-set, children of the well-to-do were sent to boarding schools in "the old country" . 

Councillors were not keen on educating the children of factory workers. 

Boards of Education were created. Responsibility for funding remained with the Council. 

During the depression, some  Councils borrowed to fund their operations , then declared bankruptcy to escape paying the bills.  

The OMB was created with authority and for the purpose of controlling municipal debt and stop bankruptcies. 

A hundred years went by, regions replaced counties and  borrowing authority was transferred to  Regions. Huh!

Planning Boards were separate from Councils because politicians could not be trusted to make sensible  planning decisions. Politicians whined about non-elected bodies making decisions and municipalities having to foot the bill .

Responsibility for Property assessments had to be  taken from them as well.

When Regions were created,the  municipal councils became the planning board .A Planning Act was passed and implemented with regulations. 

In Aurora, decisions that might cost votes were avoided and a  petition is now  circulating to deprive a class of property owners the right to appeal .

A million dollar price tab liability is due to land on the town's doorstep. 

 The simple solution is to prohibit the  right to appeal and btw, stop building , making  a living for themselves and a few thousand tradesmen and sustain the provincial economy. 

The solution is simple alright but simplistic is better. 

It has a snowball's chance in hell of succeeding.