If I Were a Writer of Fiction

I swear I would not be able to imagine many of the scenarios we see in the Council Chamber. Last night's meeting was a prime example. It was a comedy of errors.

I had been the presiding member at the previous Tuesday's Council in Committee Meeting. I do not believe the presiding member should participate in debate. So I didn't. The theory is the chair should exercise impartiality.

I did indicate I would reserve my comments for the Council meeting which I did...last night.

Items I called for discussion were two separate recommendations of the Traffic Safety Committee.I had barely begun , when Councillor Granger called a point of order. Mayor Morris supported the point. Councillor Collins Mrakas asked if the Mayor was ruling the point in order. If so, she challenged the ruling

In the ensuing melee, the mayor promptly declared a recess and left her seat.

Rules require a recess to be moved ,seconded and approved by council.

If the presiding member leaves the chair, a meeting is automatically adjourned It cannot be re-convened until proper notice given and an agenda published . But no matter.

After a few minutes , the mayor moved back around the table and stopped at Councillor
Collins Mrakas' place. Turning from the cameras in seeming smiling congeniality, she said;

"People can see right through you, you know"

The Collins in Mrakas is Irish. The reaction was swift but quiet.

The Mayor took her seat and the meeting continued with the usual histrionics.

When we adjourned, something else happened which has become normal practice since before Lucille King left the town's employment.

Normally, Councillors McRoberts,myself and Councillor Collins Mrakas leave the Town Hall promptly at the end of a meeting. By the time I climb into my car and look back, no-one else has followed..

Last night I was slightly tardy in my departure. I noted the mayor and the inner circle of power were waiting. I lingered...still no move.... I left.... and peered in the window, my nose pressed to the glass. They had clustered and were lost in discussion.

Do you know, any time a majority of Council is present in one place carrying on a discussion....
that is a council meeting which has neither been publicised nor has the agenda been disclosed.

The really weird thing is there probably isn't one among them who understands that..

What Are the Poor People Doing

I wondered at a recent sumptuous banquet

There were seventy-five tables in the room. Each seated ten. Tables cost $25ks. Guests were politicians in the main . Hosts sponsors were developers, banks, legal firms or other entities expected to benefit from development.

The purpose of the evening was celebration and support of the Arts in York Region. The Arts did well that night.

The dinner was fine .Centre piece at each table was a piece of art. Twenty dollar tickets purchased by guests went into an envelope and a draw was held later.Another fifteen thousand or so easily slopped into the kitty.

The night's take was probably satisfying. But a piddling amount compared to the revenue pouring into York Region in lot levies. Multiply that by the Regions surrounding Toronto and figures must be counted in billions. All of it reflected in the price of homes and business premises.

I was guest at another banquet in Toronto a couple of weeks later. It was in "celebration" of a
particular political career. It was more sumptuous with a higher level of political involvement. I fancy funds were the objective. .

Among thoughts that went through my mind while I watched the room being worked by the movers and shakers, was what, in other part of the Province, without development charge lot levies or banquets are people doing to raise funds for their various needs and causes.

Of course I know the answer.

They do without. Or have heavy and lengthy discussions about whether or not the facility is essential or sufficient to justify adding the cost to the tax bill in the form of a debenture.

Just as we did before we had much development to speak of and lot levies were $250. When we built the Aurora Community Centre to replace the arena which burnt down one night in a brief and spectacular bonfire.

Following which, for several years, parents rose earlier in the early morning to drive further to wherever spare ice could be found ,mostly Bond Head and King City.

Prominent citizens were appointed by Council to a committee to solicit input from groups about what should be included in a new facility. They subsequently reported.

Whereupon, weeping and gnashing of teeth were heard throughout the land. The town could not possibly afford to pay for all of that.

The Committee quit. A Council Committee was struck and produced a less expensive hybrid that did nothing to satisfy the groups who had enthusiastically participated in the initial process.

We did build a state-of-the-art ice arena with comfortable seating and heating for thousands of spectators anticipated for our Junior A Hockey games. The facility brought the community to-gether in a way that no-one could have imagined. It was completed the year of Canada's Centennial when spirits and national pride were high. Nowhere higher than here in Aurora.

We paid for it by debenture.

It's how things were accomplished without development levies. It's how people still do it where there are no easy pickings.

In answer to a question frequently heard, it's how we will do it again, when the town is all built out and development charge levies cease to flow.

Debentures of course are debt.They carry interest rates. Which fluctuate with the economy. Much like a house mortgage.

The principle is the same. A family needs shelter. Money is borrowed and interest paid. When the mortgage ends, the house is owned free and clear. But while being paid, it provides shelter for those who live in it.

When I first became a Councillor, the town still had a debenture for the Sewage Treatment Plant. I noticed a payment from Collis Leather in the first budget I saw.The first one to break a million.

Clerk-Treasurer Bill Johnston explained Collis Leather and The Town had partnered in constructing the treatment plant. The tanning process created problems which could only be handled by a sewage treatment process.

As a result, Aurora was ahead of most municipalities with a sewage treatment process. It meant people had flush toilets. No more privies to tip on Hallow e'en night. No more new cess pits to be dug on a regular basis.

I imagine it was a welcome amenity though likely some complained there was nothing wrong with the old way of doing things and about the debt and increase in their taxes .

My point is, debt is not necessarily bad. It allows for an equitable sharing of cost while enjoying the amenity.

With development charge levies, the whole community enjoys facilities while new home-owners pay ninety-per-cent of the cost. Existing home-owners pay a ten-per-cent share.

Development charge levies are not the only hidden tax burden on new home-owners.

But when a buyer makes the serious decision to purchase a home and take on a mortgage, they have no idea they will be forever paying property taxes on taxes hidden in the price of their homes. They don't want to know. They need to believe their decision was a good one.

That puts the onus on elected representatives to ensure equity in taxation.

Ha!

Fat Chance!

Not while there's a fatted calf to feed on.

Three Posts back

I talked about my problem of discerning between town business to be discussed behind closed doors and that which should not.It was never a problem until this term.

The issue becomes more obscure once discussion has ensued. Things said are not recorded.

There is no audio record. Discussion cannot be referenced. It becomes simply a matter of he said/ she said.

Councillor Collins- Mrakas recently moved to have meetings audio-taped . The idea went down the tube with the usual lop-sided vote.

The Province recently passed regulations to permit a citizen to demand an investigation of in-camera meetings if they appeared not to be in accordance with regulations . How would a person know that?

Aurora teamed with several other municipalities to appoint investigators. There didn't seem to be a point. The agenda identifies the issue. The vote is all that's recorded in camera and if it needs to be confidential to protect the town's interest it cannot be revealed.

What a rigmarole that is.

I posted my dilemma about the last in-camera meeting. Five and a half pages of a six and a half page memorandum, stamped private and confidential, were already in the public record.

I attended the meeting because questions I had on the last page needed answers before I could determine the matter needed closed door discussion.

There was advice from a solicitor which is generally considered solicitor/client privilege.

On the other hand, I am still searching for the council resolution giving the precise direction which required advice from the solicitor. I remember direction but not precise wording .

A review reveals the issue was considered at a public planning meeting . Council received a staff report setting out the position to be taken on an appeal before the Ontario Municipal Board A pre-conference was already scheduled.

Neighbouring property owners were opposed to the development. Staff advice was set aside. A lengthy resolution, penned at the table by Councillor Evalina McEachern was adopted.

Information was received that the neighbours intended to request the OMB to authorise a Consolidated Board Hearing. A resolution was passed giving Town support to the neighbours' request.

The Board turned down the request.

The neighbours appealed to the Divisional Court. The Town supported the appeal.

Evidence presented to the Divisional Court indicated the OMB did not have authority to grant a Consolidated Board Hearing. Regulations were cited by the lawyer for the developer.

The Divisional Court suspended the proceeding and directed the OMB to consider evidence of regulations denying authority to the Board to grant the request.

The OMB did that. They accepted evidence of existing regulations prohibiting them from ordering a Consolidated Board Hearing. How could they not?

The request for such a Consolidated Board was once again denied.

Three legal proceedings have been undertaken. Experts attended as witnesses. Expert and legal fees were incurred by the developer and neighbouring opponents.

Legal fees to the Town; $135 thousand .

Nothing was accomplished.

Zero...Zilch....Nil...Nada...Amen my friends.

Still ahead is an Ontario Municipal Board hearing of potentially two weeks duration and an estimated cost of $200 ks.for legal fees . Expert witnesses will increase the tab significantly. The Town's interest must be protected.

I think legal fees will be a fraction of the cost.

I also believe you have a right to know. To my mind, there is nothing about the public being informed in this particular matter that jeopardises the town's interest.

A Learning Experience

Since the eighties, Aurora has provided a briefing for councillors at the beginning of every term.

The last I attended was at Nottawasaga Inn; close enough to encourage attendance but far enough to keep people together for the complete session.

All members of Council were expected to attend. Seven department heads were required to attend

Experts in Municipal Planning and Law were retained to deliver lectures in their particular field .
Friday evening started with a meal together in the dining room and ended around ten p.m.

Saturday started at eight-thirty and also ended at ten p.m. All meals were taken together.

Friday and Saturday ended with a social hour. The CAO schlepped the bar in boxes to the hotel. Whatever we had was at liquor store prices. Most of it came back to the Town Hall. It must still be there. I haven't seen it since.

Sunday was scheduled to end with lunch.

Not much of the week-end was left for rest and relaxation with the family. .

Each department head briefed councillors on matters outstanding in their particular department. There was time for questions but the schedule was kept. A lot had to be accomplished in a limited time.

The program was prepared by senior staff. prior to the election. A deal was negotiated with the Inn. Total cost was in the area of $10 ks.

We didn't get full value that last year. Three Councillors refused to attend. Councillors Morris and Gaertner felt it was not proper. The price was the same anyway.

If one more councillor had decided not to attend for righteous reasons, the whole thing would have had to be cancelled but the price would still have remained the same.

A deal was a deal. A contract is expected to be fullfilled.

We had six new councillors elected last time out. They were not provided with the opportunity to be briefed. Mayor Morris stuck to her guns that the exercise was not proper. I believe the argument was that the exercise should be conducted within town limits. But that didn't happen either.

On the other hand , as a member of York Regional Council, The Mayor took full advantage of the opportunity to be briefed in her new responsibilities at the region by much the same practise in Aurora for at least the previous ten elections. .The Mayor took the precaution of requesting Aurora Council to authorise her attendance at the region's orientation for new councllors. They did.

Now we are having a discussion in the community about the need for Councillors to have formal credentials to qualify for election to Council.

Little detail has been provided about how that could be accomplished. Who would provide the education? How would it be paid for and who would decide what might be necessary to fullfill
the role of spokesperson for one's neighbours.

Why is it not part of the school curriculum for students to learn public service is a worthwhile endeavour?

A Carpet of Gold

Almost all the leaves are off the maple. It happened differently this year. All week long, night and day they drifted softly into place, in layers, to cover the ground below like a carpet of gold.

In the evening ,in the dark, the pale ghostly shapes have floated silently past the windows.

No breeze disturbed their fall.

The maple next door, not twenty feet distant ended the season differently. A third turned strawberry pink in August, gradually deepened to red then russett and finally dark brown.
The rest of the leaves went from green to dark brown and many still remain on the branches.

Gardens have been different this summer. I noticed last time I was out on my scooter, dahlias were exceptionally beautiful. The variety of shapes and colours in the dahlia family are always spectacular. But mostly, in Canada they do not reach full majesty in their height, size and shape of blooms.

Except this year. I came home in wonderment. Then I realised. We had a wet cool summer.

It was an English summer.

We had legendary English gardens. The more modest snap-dragon is still producing colourful flowers and they have re-seeded themselves from the previous summer three times now.

So winter may well have had a part to play.

Secret & Confidential

I wrote this last Sunday afternoon.

I have spent the last hour re-reading' several times, an item on the Closed Session agenda for Tuesday evening. It's a memorandum recounting various applications and decisions made in the matter of the Westhill Development project.

There are seven pages. Each one is stamped “Confidential” and “ Privileged and Confidential Legal Advice.” There are three attachments and four maps with Application File Numbers.

Applications are not private . Once filed, they are in the public record.

There are dates of O.M.B. Pre-Conference Hearings. The O.M.B. does not hold hearings in secret. Decisions are public documents.

There were two Committee of Adjustment applications, hearings and refusals. All public.

There was a Divisional Court proceeding. The Courts are public. I've sat in on trials. Anybody can. Decisions are in the public record.

Official Plan Amendments and Zoning Amendments were made in 1999. They evolved into Appeals to the Ontario Municipal Board because of failure by the Municipality to make a decision.

After the March 4th Public Planning Meeting, a request was made to the O.M.B. by four neighbours , for a Consolidated Board hearing. The Town supported that petition.

It was refused. Twice . Both were public decisions.

The first was appealed to Divisional Court who referred back to the O.M.B. It was refused again.

Since March 4th, none of this activity has been publicly reported to Council though a couple of updates have been presented in closed session.

Tuesday's closed session item is to receive further privileged and confidential advice in the form of three options for continuance.

At this moment, I do not agree this discussion should be in closed session.

Why the public should be shut out of the decision-making process.

Or how that it can be seen to be in the public interest?

Confidentiality

I have challenged an item being on the agenda of an in-camera ,or closed session, as it is now called, to no avail. The Mayor simply directed the question to town solicitor Christopher Cooper who affirmed his opinion the matter did belong behind closed doors.

With six votes securely in the mayor's pocket, there is little point in arguing . There are more serious matters to contend. You have to pick your battles.

A councillor does not function under the authority of the Mayor or the town solicitor. The solicitor has the responsibility to advise Council and it is a serious one. In the past, on far more significant issues, advice has been frequently dismissed.

If I do not perceive the town's interest at stake and alternately, if I see the public right to be informed being frustrated, it means I must make my own decision. I am not bound to secrecy where secrecy is not protecting the public interest.

There are a couple of complications though; there's a clause in the Code of Conduct which specifies information obtained in closed session is not mine to disseminate to the public. It's one of the reasons I do not support the wording of the Code.It's also the reason an agenda must be approved by council.

The second is that the issue is not always clear before the discussion. Sometimes I am home before I think; Hey, wait a minute, why was that behind closed doors?

It happened after the last closed session and another is coming up on Tuesday's agenda. .

The last one was a request from Roger's cable to make a new arrangement for filming council meetings. Currently a big truck rolls up to the town hall entrance Three huge cameras are unloaded, heavy cables laid into the council chamber, camera operators set up inside and a person operates inside the truck.

Apparently there's a better way of accomplishing the same purpose. Rogers can install five cameras in the council chamber. A station can be established in the room behind the chamber for an operator and his equipment.Audio and visual production could be improved.

Equipment permanently installed, one operator instead of four or five,better audio/visual
production . What could be wrong with that?

When I came back on Council in 2003, a frequently voiced opinion heard around the council table was Council was the least watched local program. Little value was given to the service.

A strongly argued opinion would be dismissed as " performing for the cameras".

On the other hand, no-one ever suggested Aurora Cable should be invited to make themselves scarce.

I heard about a complaint against Aurora Cable once because they did not adequately project the sound level of applause received in response to a councillor or candidate's comment. But that's only hearsay.

The service is provided at no cost. But now Rogers needs something from the town. They are proposing to install valuable equipment and to protect their ownership they need to have permission and an agreement.

I don't see that needed to be a closed discussion. I do not see the town's interest jeopardised by public discussion of the request.

But it was. Some members felt there may be an opportunity here and that was sufficient reason to huddle.

Well you know, sometimes the logic escapes me.

The Leaves Are All Gold

Every one is the same. The colour in the light is so intense, it momentarily hurts my eyes when I look up at them.

Stirring the Porridge

I was doing that this morning and it occurred to me there is a bit more information I can provide on the litigation matter against Ms. Morris,MacEachern,Gaertner,Granger,Gallo and Wilson.

They were served separately as individuals on September 8th.

There are two clauses . Clause A relates to the statement published under the direction of the six, in The Auroran and The Banner and online of both publications.

Clause B. states.

The article contains defamatory and malicious statements concerning Buck which were intended to discredit and disparage her as an elected public official .In their natural and ordinary meaning, the above words were intended and understood to and by innuendo mean that Buck is an incompetent Councillor who is unfit to properly discharge her duties as an elected official and who has been found to have acted unlawfully and unethically, contrary to the Council Code of Conduct.following a thorough, impartial and full investigation.

That's the complaint each has to respond to and when they do and it becomes a public document, as is the one above, I will report that one to you as well.

The Agenda

It's Saturday afternoon. I've just taken a second look at Tuesday's Agenda. Business matters for Council's attention become more sparse as the weeks go by.

September's Public Plannng meeting had one item on the agenda. It was appearing, for no known reason except council recommendation, for a second time. October's Public Planning Meeting has been cancelled. No applications have been forthcoming.

In-camera agenda items become less legitimate, to my mind. Items being discussed behind closed doors do not all merit confidentiality.

In a normal Council, the issue might be discussed but with the inner circle of power in power, there is little hope of rational discussion and less of a reasonable outcome.

On Tuesday, two officials from Lake Simcoe Conservation Authority are making a presentation re: Item 2. Sheppard's Bush Conservation Management Plan.

According to the agenda , the plan is not being presented by said officials .

The plan and agreement are being recommended in a memorandum on corporate stationery from the "Desk of Councillor MacEachern". No explanation provided. No desk identified.

The Memorandum introduces a 67 page report providing an inaccurate history of the property since it came under the ownership of Ontario Heritage Trust .

It lists names of those involved in the work of preparing the management plan and agreement.

The list does not include the Councillor 's name.

Not does it include Jim Tree,Manager of the town's parks department which has actually maintained the property since it came into public ownership.

Neither Heritage Trust nor the Conservation Authority has ever had the personnel resources to do the job.

The Town's Director of Leisure Services Al Downey did serve on the committee.There is no reference in the report to council direction for the work to be undertaken and reported. Without that, the presentation would not be within the scope of his authority.

The memorandum is not submitted under his name.

No indeed. It's Councillor MacEachern's name.

The Town is paying a consultant to review our current administrative organisation. Terms of reference would not likely have included anything to obscure the line of jurisdiction between the political body and the administration.

Yet there it is. A 67 page professional report presented "From The Desk Of Councillor MacEachern"

Things just keep getting weirder and weirder.
.

Litigation News

There's none.

I am mindful of what I learned when I initially asked in 2008 for the town's legal costs from our former Treasurer.

First he gave me the actual cost of George Rust D'Eye's services for the purpose of "investigating
a leak from the confidentiality of an in- camera meeting".

There was a tie vote, broken by the Mayor, to refuse to sell land at the appraised value to the Regional Police as a site for the Regional Headquarters.

It happened in September. The story came out in November in The Auroran. It must have been a slow leak.

Mr.Rust D'Eye's advice, no investigation results noted, cost a total of $16,200. That was before The Code of Conduct was written. I couldn't find Council's authorisation for that. The Mayor has said several times however, it was written by Mr.Rust D'Eye.

When I asked again for legal costs, the treasurer, gave me invoices for several months. A couple of things stuck out in my reading.

Different hourly rates are charged depending on who is handling what. E-mails and phone calls are charged by minutes that add up to hours. .

There was a fifty-five minute phone call from the Mayor on one invoice which would have cost close to $700.That was a really expensive and secret chit-chat.

Consultations; when a lawyer comes out to meet with council the fee is $5,000.

Remember the post I wrote about no other municipality in the region having any member of council dealing directly with external legal services.

Now you know why. Neither costs nor anything else can be controlled with councillors having free access to legal firms appointed on the basis of fee for service?

Mindful of how easy it is for costs to mount, I do not make unnecessary phone calls. I figure if the MacDonald has anything I need to know or act upon, he will call me.

My daughter who works in the city, acts as my courier.

I haven't heard a whisper around Council. But that's not surprising.

The only change is one made conspicuous by absence. There is a distinct reduction in abuse against myself on the Aurora Citizen Blog. It helps narrow down the source of those anonymous contributions.

A citizen has been trying to obtain the legal report said to support the complaint against me. He has filed a Freedom of Information request but the Town could not provide what they do not have.

The last action in the matter, is that six individuals and two publications have been served with Notice of Intent.

The Auroran and The Banner did what was needed to shift the burden from their shoulders.

That's all I know. Probably because, at the moment, that 's all there is to know.

Broke My Own Rule

When I realised I had misstated Councillor Bob McRoberts's vote on the Mosaic lighting issue, I thought I'd better go back and check the record.

To my everlasting shame. I discovered I had misrepresented Councillor Collins-Mrakas as well. The vote against the arrangement was six to three. The three being Councillors Bob McRoberts,
Collins-Mrakas and myself .

A reader pointed out I had not made the parties to the agreement clear. The two parties agreeing to share the cost of hooking up private lights to the public system to have lighting for a private space, were Canadian Tire and the Mosaic Town House Complex.

The town's part in the ridiculous set-up is to supply free power.

Councillor Bob

Mine was not the only vote against the Mosaic Lighting issue. Councillors Marsh and Collins Mrakas did vote for it . They were persuaded the safety of the residents was a factor and the Town was responsible.

Councillor McRoberts was not in favour of it from the beginning. But Bob tends to be very canny and careful. That's not a failing. But in this Council, if you are too canny and careful, it's easy for your voice to be drowned out.

It wasn't that way with Bob on the Mosaic issue. The agreement that eventually came before the Council had the two parties paying half of the $10ks to connect Canadian Tire lights to the
public lighting system

The annual cost of power coming from our system to theirs,was in the single digits. Bob pointed out if they split the cost of power it would take several decades to spend more than the $10k it took to break out the cement to run the power through. Why wouldn't the parties simply agree to share the cost of power.

At one point, I pointed out anybody else doing that would be charged with stealing. People in the UK do stuff like that all the time. It's different culture. Different political history.

Sometimes people can't see simple simply because it's so simple.

When the Irish were dying of starvation during the potato famine,there was no shortage of food. Only potatoes. People were allowed to die because there were no potatoes. No potatoes to eat. No potatoes to sell.They had no means to buy anything else. So.... they died.

Or left Ireland in their thousands, to go across the Channel to the UK or the Atlantic in leaky boats to New York.... as refugees.... not from a famine.... from a society that didn't care...from a place where they would hang a seven year old child for stealing a loaf of bread.

In the Mosaic lighting issue, the Mayor vowed, "when people come to me for help, I am going to help them, no matter what".

The rest of Council didn't have anything memorable to say. All that was needed from them was their acquiescent vote. Which as yet, they have never failed to deliver.

Yet Another Example of Weirdness

A letter was circulated to Council recently from a former resident of the Mosaic Town House complex on Murray Drive. It was initially received by Mayor Morris.

The former resident of the complex , informed the Mayor in writing, whom she had recently met at the town park, of the appreciation of current residents of the Mosaic, for lighting, courtesy of Council, from the town's street supply to the emergency exit from the Complex.

The complaint against Canadian Tire's decision to turn the lights off at ten-thirty in the evening
was brought to council's attention on the eve of the previous election by a furious resident.

The resident was advised the solution to her problem was not in the town's hands. The lane was not town property.

Proper planning seeks to avoid land locking properties. Exits for fire and emergency vehicles are always contrived.

The election over, the Mayor's Chair in new hands, the resident returned, more confident on this occasion. A courtship promise may have been made.

On site meetings were held between the Mayor, town staff ,Canadian Tire and the resident, with the intent of finding "a solution" to "the problem".

The numbers grew. The Town House Board of Management became involved.

On one of the repeat occasions the matter was on a council agenda, staff advised, many hours of had been spent doing legal research into property titles, at considerable expense to the municipality. The property had been discovered to be the subject of a tri-party agreement.

Canadian Tire and The Mosaic Complex being two of the parties, one might imagine both parties were privy to the details of the tri-party agreement but neither chose to share.

Twenty-seven pages of dispute resolution mechanisms in the agreement were discovered by town staff.

Their advice was emphatic. The town had no role to play in the matter.

No matter. Council continued to play.

We now know from the appreciative former resident who ran into the Mayor at the town park and felt compelled to put her appreciation on the record on behalf of the current residents of the Complex,(stop for breath) three lights from the Canadian Tire parking lot are now hooked up to the town's street-lighting system for a supply of power from the town as opposed to Canadian Tire.

It is a minimal annual cost, we are told.

The principle of using public resources to provide for private convenience has been established by the Mormac regime.

It's one of those decisions not to be further discussed once made by Council according to the Code of Conduct written by George Rust D'Eye with input no doubt from the Chief Magistrate.

With the exception of course when Council is being congratulated.

When the vote was cast it was eight to one in opposition. Still is.

Mestrinaro

The name should be familiar. At the beginning of the term, Mr. Mestrinaro and two neighbours came repeatedly before council to argue they knew better than staff how rules and regulations are interpreted.

As residents of Ridge Rd they had concerns about Aurora Cable's three windmill turbines on their property.

Town zoning permits the turbines on the property. Cable equipment is so fine -tuned it was being damaged by brown-outs in power. ACI needed a stable energy supply and they erected the turbines and had power storage on a trailer with wheels to provide it.

Mestrinaro argued they were not opposed to turbines. That would have been difficult considering the religiosity of environmental concerns at the time.

They claimed instead they were concerned about dangers of storage and that the trailer did not conform to zoning.

Back they came again and again. Each time the Mayor permitted the challenges to staff. In particular, Chief Building Official Tesh Van Leeuwen and Planning Director Sue Seibert.

After months of harassment, ACI said;

"Enough already We are not attending any more on-site meetings with any more officials on the pretext of finding a solution to the problem. There is no problem."

With a final shot, Councillor MacEachern moved a resolution requesting staff to write a report giving the definition of the word "storage".

The Chief Building Official followed that direction. She wrote a report providing three dictionary definitions . It was received without comment.

Councillor MacEachern and Mr. Mestrinaro were tandem candidates in a previous election.

Who knows the influence on ACI's decision to sell the operation they fostered so carefully over more than forty years. They were a valuable contributor to our town's social and business community. They are missed.

Subsequent to that episode Mr. Mestrinaro was appointed, four votes opposed, to the Committee of Adjustment. The Committee is a quasi-judicial body required to make decisions on the basis of evidence which must be solicited and provided by the town's professional staff.

Mr. Mestrinaro appeared again before Council in Committee on Tuesday. He had made a bid for a second contract to provide a service to the town. .

Being an elected or appointed official does not prohibit a person in business from making a bid for town business.

However, it is required that such an official must stand well back and exempt themselves from influencing the award of the contract

Mr. Mestrinaro was successful in his first bid to manufacture the metal supports for picnic tables and benches.

He was not successful in the second for metal support for bleachers which are tiered seating

For obvious reasons, Provincial Regulations require such manufacture to be constructed by a company with proper credentials for doing so. Documentation is a requirement under the contract . It was not provided.

Mr. Mestrinaro is apparently convinced he understands the town's procurement policy better than town staff. Nothing would satisfy him but that once again he should take his argument to a meeting of council- in- committee.

Which happened on Tuesday .

With the result it will be recommended to Council that staff be directed to write a report for information of Council outlining the requirements of the Town's Procurement Policy.

The prohibition on an elected or appointed official from participating in a decision resulting in a pecuniary benefit was apparently not perceived as a problem in the case of Mr. Mestrinaro.

Last time I pointed out the impropriety of Mr. Mestrinaro's repeated attacks on the competence and authority of the town's professional advisers, Councillor MacEachern erupted in outrage that a town citizen would be so disrespected.

The Majestic Maple.

Green is fading as I write. Leaf tips are turning gold. That means they will fall without ever having been red.

The red on the tree next door has turned from russett to brown. The sky is grey and overcast.

Oops the light has changed. The gold is glowing.

A Continuation of the Thought.

After the war, the U.K. government raised the school leaving age to 15.

The significant aspect of leaving school was not the end of learning.

It was the clear cut-off point for childhood. Everything changed then. Young people got jobs. They didn't earn enough to set up on their own households but they were contributing to the household.They had new respect.

I was probably ten when Anna Murphy, who lived on my street turned fourteen and left school. Anna and her older brother Peter were the only children in her family.

The first Sunday after, Anna set out for church. Her new shoes had a small heel. She was wearing stockings. The hem of her coat was woman's length. She wore a stylish hat and carried a handbag.

The week before she was wearing flat shoes, socks , knee length skirt and a beret.

Anna had a new adult wardrobe. Childhood was over.

A few years ago, Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyer had a series of conversations on PBS Mr. Campbell was a Professor of World Religions.It was a life-time study. He was eight-four when he died. Which he did not do until he had completed his book on the subject.

In one program, he tallked about how young men in primitive cultures had to complete certain severe and dangerous trials before being deemed to have become adult.

It wasn't necessary for girls because physical changes were evident in females.

Moyer asked if Campbell thought the trials were necessary. Campbell said;

"Well look around you.( in New York) Look at the subways, the vandalism, the graffitti, the senseless crime . What is the average age and sex of the people in jails?"

His point was, such behaviour is unknown in cultures where a line is established when a boy to is recognised as a man.

It made a lot of sense to me.

I don't think my children or my grandchildren benefitted from childhood unnaturally extended by dependence due to prolonged education.

I don't believe they were as well educated .

My grandchildren don't even know how to hold a pencil properly. How can a person write properly, if they don't know how to hold the instrument. Does the keyboard make writing irrelevant? I don't think so.

Skills are acquired with discipline. The same goes for teaching skills. Discipline is a subject in itself.

I think the artifical extension of childhood and the unnatural burden on parents, creates underlying resentment . It 's the real reason, we have aberrant behaviour in youth.

I've had that thought for a long time.

It feels good to say it.

I doubt anything useful will come of it. Entrenched attitudes serving a powerful sector in society are hard to budge.

Still... one never knows where a seed might take hold.

Recollections

I started school in August 1932. Classes began at nine o-clock and ended at four in the afternoon. There were two ten minute recesses and a lunch break of one hour.

A single County Board of Education governed Catholic and Protestant systems.

Primary school was six grades. Secondary School was five. Legal age for leaving school was fourteen.Successful completion of third year Secondary earns a General Certificate of Education. I'm not sure certification existed then.

At five, I was dipping a pen into an inkwell,placing my thumb and forefinger over two holes in the pen stem and sweating over the formation of letters to the standard expected by our permanently sour headmistress, Sister Alphonsus. Blots and smudges were the bane of my existence.

We read aloud,learned religion,literature, spelling, grammar,drama, history,geography arithmetic,art,knitting sewing,gym, choir and The Latin Mass in Plain Chant.

History went back to Queen Boadicea and her Chariot, Alfred of the Burned Cakes and another fellow who learned a valuable lesson while hiding in a cave, watching a spider spin his web.

We learned of wars and Kings and Queen's and a poor opinion of Good Queen Bess, a Protestant, while her cousin Mary,Queen of Scots and a Catholic, was close to sainthood.

In geography, we learned of colonies, continents,countries,capital cities, major rivers,mountain ranges,surrounding oceans,the Gulf Stream and climate,natural resources and manufacturing industries.

Sister Alphonsus was an art teacher. Our Art classes were of serious dimension.

We were a working class community. The order of teaching nuns were not. We were taught God loves the poor and it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter heaven.

We were not encouraged to aspire. If lessons were mastered we went on to the next class. Standings were not circulated. Obviously, if informed we'd done well, we might have had ideas above our station.

The poorer,the grimier a student,the more physical abuse and degradation was his lot. Gratuitous cruelty regularly contradicted the Message of Christ.

In Secondary school, our subjects were advanced. We had mathematics with geometry and algebra , French and Latin languages and science in a laboratory.

Compositions changed to essays. Reading plays and novels and writing poetry was English. Figures of speech were the last formal lesson I recall and the word "Onomatopoeia" stayed in my head ever since.It is a word derived from a sound.

We had lay teachers as well. But Nuns were in charge, They founded the school in my mother's time.

School was not a fun place to be then either..

University was the next stage. Few students were expected to advance from St Mary's Primary School. It wasn't because university was too expensive.The only criteria was competence. It was because most families could not or would not support a student beyond the legal requirement.

Then again, many career skills, like nursing, were acquired by doing and attending lectures and taking exams during off duty.

Formal school was not necessarily the end of an education. It was a foundation for learning.

I don't think it's the same now.

Nor do I think it's getting better.

A student with access to a computer can learn independently and hide the deficits.

It is so

The Corporation is not invested in superstition. So I would say anyone who wants to change their house number can apply.

It doesn't necessarily mean the request will be granted.

The police and particularly the fire department are invested in correct addresses. If a change in numbers will likely cause confusion in finding an address in an emergency, the request will not be granted.

I don't know what the application fee will be but it won't be returned if the request is refused. It will be to cover the cost of processing the application which will have to be done to determine whether or not it will be granted.

The Town will likely be in the media's radar for a while watching for other weird and wonderful windmills we tilt.

And you know, when you are looking for something ridiculous, you quite often find it, even when it's not there.

Prohibited clotheslines is an issue in point. They never were.

Say It Isn't So

It isn't so. People in Aurora can not automatically change their house numbers to 4 because of a superstition.

At some time in the nineties a policy was struck that the town would not consider changing an address specifically from the number 4. There is nobody around who knows why that policy was struck.

On October 13th, Council approved the removal of the clause from the policy.

Now people can request the number change. If circumstances permit, such as existing spacing of street numbers and all the normal agencies do not have an objection, the request may be granted.

An application would be needed and that involves a fee to cover the process.

People do know their street address when they buy their homes.

Aurora gets about ten requests a year while Richmond Hill and Markham get hundreds.

The current policy targets the number 4. Staff recommended the change to provide equal consideration for all numbers.

Council approved the report without discussion. The details above did not emerge for that reason.