INSIDE AURORA: Predictions for Aurora in 2016

January 13, 2016 · 0 Comments

By Scott Johnston

At the end of last month we looked back at what happened in 2015 in Aurora.
Today, we turn our minds forward to predict what we may expect to see in Town in 2016.
The annual tax increase will be met with cries of joy, because even though it is a few times the rate of inflation, this is Aurora, so we know from experience that it could have been even worse.
The feeling that winter will never end will be supported by February having an extra Leap Year day.
Council’s response to the pending relocation of Magna’s headquarters out of Aurora will be to sigh a lot.
Quantities of dust generated from the construction in the 2C lands will peak on nearby residents’ patio furniture, windows and cars just in time for the start of the annual summer water ban.
Aurora will host as many events for the 2016 Summer Olympics being held in Rio de Janeiro as it did for the Pan Am Games held in 2015 in venues across the GTA.
Aurorans will bask in a rare twelve month period without municipal, provincial or federal elections.
The dandelion will finally be adopted as Aurora’s official flower.
By mid-morning, commuters parking in the closest available spots to the Aurora GO train station will find they’re actually closer to the Newmarket GO station.
Elated by the cost savings realized from allowing more snow to accumulate on streets before they are cleared, the Town will raise the minimum length of grass before it is cut on municipal properties to six inches.
Yonge Street merchants hoping to cash in on the popularity of the current retail centre of Aurora will rebrand their commercial area as “Bayview West.”
Proponents of the newer Town flag who complain that the old one has been reinstated, will be appeased by the flying of the old flag on odd days and the new one on even days. This will eventually become an issue if the Town ends up adopting more than 365 flag designs.
As more condos are approved and built at Yonge and Wellington, it will become faster to walk the 500 metres on either side of this intersection than to drive through it.
Weddings held at municipal venues will be slow to increase in popularity, but will still do so at a faster rate than honeymoons in Town, unless some hotels are built.
Aurorans will learn much more – and in some cases, too much – about their neighbours when the clear bag program for waste pickup is finally introduced.
Joining cell towers and super mailboxes on the list of things that Aurorans agree are necessary, but that they do not want to see in their own neighbourhoods; infill.
Discussions on how Aurora will celebrate Canada’s sesquicentennial in 2017 will consist mainly of “what’s in it for us” complaints about how the federal government is not giving us enough funding to pay for all our ideas.
The first anniversary of the re-opening of the Aurora Family Leisure Complex following extensive repairs will be overshadowed by word that a whole new series of similarly extensive repairs will soon be required.
Junk mail thefts from super mailboxes will become a new trend as people start stealing fliers to burn as fuel to defray rapidly increasing heating costs.
Some of the many topics under discussion as we entered 2016 that will still be unresolved as we move into 2017: a tree bylaw, library square’s future, and what to do with the hydro funds.

Feel free to e-mail Scott at: machellscorners@gmail.com