{"id":13549,"date":"2016-03-02T17:54:08","date_gmt":"2016-03-02T22:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=13549"},"modified":"2016-03-02T17:54:08","modified_gmt":"2016-03-02T22:54:08","slug":"disclosure-of-land-deals-leads-to-tension-around-council-table","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/disclosure-of-land-deals-leads-to-tension-around-council-table\/","title":{"rendered":"Disclosure of land deals leads to tension around Council table"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Efforts by two Councillors to be more open about land deals involving Town Hall led to heated words around the Council table last week.<\/p>\n

One was a motion from Councillor John Abel calling for information to be made public on a potential land deal discussed in closed session \u2013 one apparently not acted upon \u2013 as it related to the future of the proposed Cultural Precinct development. <\/p>\n

The plots of land in question are located at 15157, 15165 and 15171 Yonge Street between Mosley Street and the Aurora Public Library and currently occupied by professional offices, restaurants, and a hair salon.<\/p>\n

The potential sale of this land was discussed by Council in a closed session meeting in January after FOTENN Consulting, in a presentation to Council, said the lands, which were for sale, could be transformed into a mixed use retail and condominium development to stimulate the Precinct and the Downtown Core as a whole. <\/p>\n

Making public information discussed on the matter behind closed doors, wherever possible, would be important in considering how the community \u2013 and Council \u2013 progresses with the Precinct, argued Councillor Abel. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnything in closed session that can be brought forward for public consumption should be brought forward,\u201d said Councillor Abel. \u201cAnything that would be harmful and should be kept confidential is kept confidential, [but anything that is not] should be brought forward to the public. There is one report I thought would be good for discussion when [the Precinct] comes forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Council members, however, said they opposed Councillor Abel\u2019s motion for a number of reasons, including Councillor Michael Thompson who said it is a request they have never entertained when it comes to a property deal, citing unsuccessful attempts by Councillor Wendy Gaertner to make public information on land sales in Aurora\u2019s Leslie Street business land on the basis that specific properties were being cited.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf this really is all about accountability and transparency, and that is at the root issue, let\u2019s do it for [everything], all of the properties,\u201d said Councillor Thompson, throwing closed session reports on the Town\u2019s long-gestating Ivy Jay Nature Reserve and the aborted Hillary-McIntyre Heritage Park into the mix. \u201cIf we truly are talking about accountability and transparency, let\u2019s not identify one thing, unless there is a specific issue [on which] Councillor Abel has a concern, otherwise they are all of interest to the community in various different factions. <\/p>\n

\u201cI am happy to support the disclosure of information, but all of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was a view shared by Councillor Harold Kim, who successfully put forward a motion moments before Councillor Thompson moved to put Councillor Abel\u2019s motion, which was slated to come up for discussion on March 8, on the table last week. Councillor Kim\u2019s motion called for a publication of all completed land transactions over the last five years be made available by the end of June. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf we\u2019re going to release closed session minutes, I would like them to be detailed and full of colour and context,\u201d he said. \u201cIt should be for everything. You can\u2019t just pinpoint certain issues in closed session.\u201d<\/p>\n

When a transaction has been successful, he added, that is \u201cfair game for full disclosure,\u201d but in this case, it was not. For Councillor Gaertner, that was a game changer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI strongly believe that any time the Town is involved in the buying and selling of land, especially when it is land that belongs to the public, the public should be very aware of what we have done,\u201d she said. \u201cIn this case, we didn\u2019t buy or sell any land, so I am against this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Councillor Abel, however, was adamant that disclosure on this item is important for future discussion around the Precinct.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is very important when we talk about the Cultural Precinct plan that if there are reports that would support what and how that came about it would be available for that,\u201d he said. \u201cThere is a report in there I would like brought out. It has nothing to do with putting the Town at any sort of risk and if our Town Solicitor looked at it and said, \u2018I don\u2019t think it should be brought out,\u2019 and that would be his advice, I would support the solicitor.”<\/p>\n

Now the decision is in the hands of Aurora\u2019s CAO Doug Nadorozny.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Council voted unanimously to support an amendment from Councillor Gaertner and Councillor Jeff Thom to refer the matter to Mr. Nadorozny for a full report on the disclosure of closed session materials.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Efforts by two Councillors to be more open about land deals involving Town Hall led to heated words around the Council table last week.<\/p>\n

One was a motion from Councillor John Abel calling …<\/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-13549","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\/p3D2k4-3wx","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-03 23:18:00","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\/13549","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=13549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13549\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}