{"id":15649,"date":"2016-10-26T17:34:44","date_gmt":"2016-10-26T21:34:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=15649"},"modified":"2016-10-26T17:34:44","modified_gmt":"2016-10-26T21:34:44","slug":"councils-commitment-is-to-make-informed-decisions-mayor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/councils-commitment-is-to-make-informed-decisions-mayor\/","title":{"rendered":"Council\u2019s commitment is to make informed decisions: Mayor"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Re: \u201cNobody wants to make a commitment,\u201d October 13)<\/em><\/p>\n

Mr. Holmes, in his letter of October 13, states \u201cno one on Council, including the Mayor, wants to make a decision,\u201d and that further, \u201csome Councillors are frustrated at the lack of commitment.\u201d
\nBefore moving on, we should probably differentiate between decisions and commitments that we like versus those we don\u2019t. Depending on your point of view, any decision can either be frustrating or rewarding.
\nDecisions are difficult because we know that one side of the argument is disappointed or frustrated where the opposite side is satisfied or rewarded. The decision-making process that is followed by us involves a great deal of fact-checking and a good portion of principled thought so the best decision for the most of the Town is selected.
\nNow, to the main contention; that Council does not make decisions: that is simply not the case. Decision-making is always done. Deciding to do something is a decision and deciding not to do something is also a decision. For example, last Saturday, October 15, Council met from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. discussing the Capital budget. We dealt with 90 items. Over the last number of years we have developed a process whereby Council will; approve an item outright; approve an item in principle pending a further report from staff; defer it back to staff; or delete it from the budget.
\nOf the 90 before us, we approved 75 (83.3%) outright, 8 in principle and 7 were deemed not ready for an informed decision. In all cases, decisions were being made, even when they are deferred, because we have a responsibility to be completely and properly informed and we take that responsibility seriously.
\nOne of the items we decided upon was project number 34527, the Yonge \/ Wellington Intersection Improvements. This project included a dedicated right turn lane from Yonge Street southbound to Wellington westbound; to be designed in 2017 and constructed by 2019, to which I am thoroughly committed.
\nCouncil\u2019s commitment, as a whole, is to make informed decisions, based on professional advice from our staff and input from our residents. Quite frankly, that is the most important commitment that we can make.<\/p>\n

Geoffrey Dawe
\nMayor<\/strong><\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Re: \u201cNobody wants to make a commitment,\u201d October 13) Mr. Holmes, in his letter of October 13, states \u201cno one on Council, including the Mayor, wants to make a decision,\u201d and that further, \u201csome Councillors are frustrated at the lack of commitment.\u201d Before moving on, we should probably differentiate between decisions and commitments that we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_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},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-letters-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-44p","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-14 18:19:15","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\/15649","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=15649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15649\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}