{"id":10619,"date":"2015-05-06T18:19:41","date_gmt":"2015-05-06T22:19:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=10619"},"modified":"2015-05-06T18:19:41","modified_gmt":"2015-05-06T22:19:41","slug":"town-hall-needs-to-step-up-communications-with-residents-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/town-hall-needs-to-step-up-communications-with-residents-council\/","title":{"rendered":"Town Hall needs to step up communications with residents: Council"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

As complaints rolled in over the renovations of the Aurora Family Leisure Complex, many residents and club members complained over a lack of communication over what was happening with the Industrial Parkway Facility \u2013 and that is just one gap that needs to be addressed at Town Hall, according to Council. <\/p>\n

Councillors unanimously approved a review of Aurora\u2019s corporate communications policy last week, citing a number of potential shortcomings in the system. In addition to the Aurora Family Leisure Complex (AFLC) example, other issues were, according to Councillor Michael Thompson, inadequate communication over Council nixing the heavily-promoted, controversial Clear Bag garbage program earlier this year, and the decision to not proceed with reducing the composition of Council following last fall\u2019s referendum vote.<\/p>\n

In his dual notices of motion, Councillor Thompson not only called on Town Hall to \u201ccreate awareness\u201d of the final decisions on clear bags and the referendum questions, but also lay the groundwork for a wholesale review of the Town\u2019s Corporate Communications Policy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I first came to Council [in 2010], there was some discussion around the table in terms of priorities and things you would like to see,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor myself, and some other members who are here, we all stress the importance of communication, that we really wanted to see communication enhanced and be a significant strategic pillar with regards to how we engage and interact with our residents. During my time here, there has been some challenges with regards to the communications with residents. I don\u2019t feel we\u2019re meeting their expectations.\u201d<\/p>\n

As such, the Corporate Communications Policy will be before Councillors at the Committee Level for review this week. Adopted in 2011, Councillor Thompson said many of the tenets within it are outdated and in need of revision. Communications is a \u201cvital strategic component\u201d of any Councillor\u2019s job in serving the residents and a better plan needs to come through. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere are so many things we can adopt into the plan to help broaden the scope, but when I look at the plan, I look not just at the avenues which we take to communicate with residents, but our website and all these different initiatives,\u201d he concluded. \u201cHopefully by the end of this term, we will all be in a place where the residents are much better informed, better engaged, and active.\u201d<\/p>\n

No objections were expressed around the table, and the motion was duly seconded by Councillor Tom Mrakas. Speaking in favor of the motion, Councillor John Abel said the word \u201ccommunication\u201d often comes up in daily interaction with residents.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems to be at every issue we\u2019re talking about,\u201d he said. \u201cWe commit considerable resources to this department. We want, as a Council, to address what we perceive as shortcomings and how we move forward and how to better enhance the need to communicate with our residents.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was a view shared by Councillor Wendy Gaertner: \u201cI have been talking about increased accountability and transparency for many years, and anything that supports that I certainly will support.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the other motion to communicate out the results of Council\u2019s decision on the referendum and Clear Bags, Councillor Thompson said these were issues residents were particularly engaged on and, when push came to shove, there was no formal communication outside of local media, to communicate Council\u2019s final decisions to residents. For Councillor Sandra Humfryes, this is an example of a \u201cloop\u201d that needs to be closed.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur communications department has the qualifications to take that information and close the loop,\u201d she said, referencing the Council Highlights package made available to the public a day or two after each bi-weekly Council meeting. \u201cItems that get shut down and don\u2019t move forward are no longer communicated and that needs to change. I am looking forward to a fresh perspective looking at [the Corporate Communications Policy] and utilizing all tools in the communications industry on how we can communicate out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Added Councillor Thompson: \u201cWe work for the residents. We need to let them know what is going on. If we\u2019re not doing a good enough job, let\u2019s fix it.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As complaints rolled in over the renovations of the Aurora Family Leisure Complex, many residents and club members complained over a lack of communication over what was happening with the Industrial Parkway Facility \u2013 and that is just one gap that needs to be addressed at Town Hall, according to Council. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-2Lh","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-23 22:59:11","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10619\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}