{"id":11393,"date":"2015-07-22T16:28:04","date_gmt":"2015-07-22T20:28:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=11393"},"modified":"2015-07-22T16:28:04","modified_gmt":"2015-07-22T20:28:04","slug":"community-radio-station-receives-tentative-green-light-with-significantly-smaller-price-tag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/community-radio-station-receives-tentative-green-light-with-significantly-smaller-price-tag\/","title":{"rendered":"Community radio station receives tentative green light \u2013 with significantly smaller price tag"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

A new radio station based out of the Aurora Family Leisure Complex to be run by \u2013 and serve \u2013 the community took a significant step forward at Council last week.<\/p>\n

Council gave a tentative green light to \u201cRadio Aurora\u201d, a new community station earmarked for 101.5 FM with the call letters CHRA, last week. While an agreement between the Town and the organization behind the radio station will still need to come before Council, they approved a $10,000 budget increase funded from reserves to renovate a space at the Complex (AFLC) with carpet and electricity to serve as the station\u2019s base.<\/p>\n

Going into last week\u2019s meeting, however, Councillors were facing a staff recommendation to increase the budget not to $10,000 but by a significantly larger $250,000 to create a recording studio complete with sound-proofing. This recommendation was made in error, according to Mayor Dawe.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have had discussions with [Ferguson Mobbs, the leading proponent behind the radio project] going back a year or longer and certainly one of the points that came up right at the start of the discussion was while I thought this was a great idea, I also didn\u2019t think it should be costing the Town of Aurora any money,\u201d said Mayor Dawe. \u201cWhen I saw the report come out last week, I was kind of surprised by the amount, so I spoke with Mr. Mobbs last week, but there has been a bit of a communications gap in terms of what was expected from the Town and what got interpreted back to [department directors]. Really what they are looking for is some space.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, it was this space which spurred significant discussion around the Council table. While Council was uniformly enthusiastic about the idea of having an Aurora-based radio station, particularly one set to be community-based, the idea received some hesitation from Councillors Tom Mrakas and Wendy Gaertner. In his arguments, Councillor Mrakas said it was a \u201cgreat idea\u201d but not having a business plan for the station before them gave him some pause.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is something I would like to see because [this report] identifies no staff or operating costs are contemplated at this time,\u201d he said. \u201cI understand the radio station is saying they are going to be self-sufficient, but unfortunately with all due respect to the Aurora Cultural Centre \u2013 I love them and what they\u2019re doing \u2013 we have done this before. Council has heard before that a place is going to be self-sufficient. They ask for some money up front and the Town is on the hook on a yearly basis for money.\u201d<\/p>\n

Councillors Mrakas and Gaertner were ultimately the two lone votes against the proposal, but Councillor Gaertner\u2019s objections came from a different corner. Information before Council, she said, did not give any indication on any lost income opportunity for the Town in being able to use this space either for its own programming or to rent it out. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Town is growing,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t know if we\u2019re going to have another community centre \u2013 perhaps, hopefully \u2013 but in the meantime this is going to be space we won\u2019t be able to use for our own programming.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nothing is lost, however, because it is space that is not used right now, countered Al Downey, Aurora\u2019s Director of Parks and Recreation. <\/p>\n

For those Council members voting in favour of the proposal, their support came not just from their support of the \u201cVoice of Aurora\u201d overall, but in their view this was ultimately an investment. Eventually, they said, the room in question would need to be carpeted and wired. Not being able to provide the station\u2019s proponents with a fixed location for their operations would hinder their ability to go forward and seek grant funding and finish other components of what they need to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere aren\u2019t any operating costs unless we\u2019re going to count vacuuming the space,\u201d said Councillor Paul Pirri. \u201cI don\u2019t disagree that an operations plan makes sense once we get into that process, but we have been told they are operating strictly on a volunteer basis and really, at this time, we\u2019re just putting in renovations to enable them to go out and fundraise, and to install the equipment to do what they have to do in order to get this up and running.\u201d<\/p>\n

Added Councillor John Abel: \u201cWe\u2019re all about risk and cost and from what I am understanding at the moment, we\u2019re going to put electricity and some flooring in this room. I don\u2019t see a risk at all. We\u2019re not paying for DJs or technicians, so I don\u2019t see why we need a business plan for operations. After a year of operation, we might see that there is something we weren\u2019t aware of, but I can\u2019t imagine what it is. The benefit is what I look at. This is a tremendous opportunity for us at no risk and no cost.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new radio station based out of the Aurora Family Leisure Complex to be run by \u2013 and serve \u2013 the community took a significant step forward at Council last week.<\/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-11393","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\/p3D2k4-2XL","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-04 17:42:29","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\/11393","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=11393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11393\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}