{"id":17656,"date":"2017-06-28T17:14:05","date_gmt":"2017-06-28T21:14:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=17656"},"modified":"2017-06-28T17:14:05","modified_gmt":"2017-06-28T21:14:05","slug":"new-chapter-in-the-life-of-armoury-but-what","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/new-chapter-in-the-life-of-armoury-but-what\/","title":{"rendered":"New chapter in the life of Armoury \u2013 but what?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

The Aurora Armoury is set to be one of the centrepieces of this Friday, June 30\u2019s public celebration marking the 150th anniversary of Town Park, but it became something of a political football last week in a heated exchange over the future of the Downtown Core.
\nThe fracas went down at last week\u2019s General Committee meeting between Councillors John Abel and Michael Thompson.
\nIn a lengthy \u2013 and oftentimes heated \u2013 debate over accommodating the over 900 members of the Aurora Bridge Club who will be displaced to prepare for the demolition of Library Square, Councillor John Abel insisted the solution was right in front of them \u2013 the Aurora Armoury.
\nThis came as something of a surprise to other members of Council as they all met in a Closed Session meeting on May 23 to discuss a letter of intent regarding the use of the Aurora Armoury.
\nWhile we don\u2019t yet know what this proposal for the Armoury\u2019s use will ultimately be, many Councillors said it puts the historic Mosley Street building out of the running for a Bridge Club solution.
\n\u201cThe obvious place is in the Armoury and it is right there in Town Park,\u201d said Councillor Abel. \u201cA letter of intent is a document containing a declaration of the intentions of the writer and, furthermore, a document outlining one or more agreements between two or more parties before the agreements are finalized. That is why we\u2019re not talking about the Armoury. It is Town-owned. We have a need for it. Why we\u2019re not talking about this in closed session when we have an obvious demand for that space is beyond me.
\n\u201cIt is perfect. It is perfect for the cadets, it is perfect for the bridge club and it is perfect for our community. When we do plan things, we think long-range and we have known for a long time that we need programmable space. It is a fact. I have known it since I started on Council six years ago. We do not have enough facilities. We shouldn\u2019t be moving our Town-owned facilities and entering into agreements when we need that space. It has got to be declared surplus.\u201d
\nWhile Mayor Geoff Dawe cautioned Councillor Abel that he was straying into an area covered by Closed Session confidentiality, he said he had not revealed anything that was not already on the public record.
\nContinuing, he said Council decided in December to go ahead with the Library Square demolition all the while approving a further motion to preserve the main features of Town Park, with a report on future \u201cenhancements\u201d at a later date as part of the ongoing strategy to realize Aurora\u2019s \u201cCultural Precinct.\u201d
\n\u201cIt\u2019s poor planning on the part of our Town that we have this conundrum,\u201d he contended, addressing the Bridge Club. \u201cWe really could have been repurposing the armoury knowing that we\u2019re going to displace the tenants and then put in some programmable space in Library Square so we can move you back. That armoury has been identified in report after report as something we can use for our community. We did repurposing studies. We know that we can find a use for that armoury and right now is a perfect example. I think it is our obligation to plan and I don\u2019t know why we can\u2019t use the armoury. It is just natural that we would be using the armoury.\u201d
\nAt this point, Councillor Thompson called a point of order to Councillor Tom Mrakas, who chaired last Tuesday\u2019s meeting.
\n\u201cCouncillor Abel knows full well why we can\u2019t use the armoury,\u201d said Councillor Thompson. \u201cHe is not being honest. He was in closed session, he voted for it, he knows full well what is happening with the armoury.\u201d
\nUltimately, Councillor Mrakas ruled in favour of Councillor Thompson\u2019s Point of Order, and added, \u201cIt is knowledge of every Councillor sitting here at this table of the discussions in closed session. I agree with Councillor Thompson that you are fully aware of those discussions and the direction that was presented to staff and it is misleading to the public to state otherwise.\u201d
\nConcluded Councillor Abel, making a failed notice of motion calling for demolition plans for Library Square be halted until a design for its replacement had been approved: \u201cWe should be looking after our community. Let\u2019s bring the community back into this Council.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Aurora Armoury is set to be one of the centrepieces of this Friday, June 30\u2019s public celebration marking the 150th anniversary of Town Park, but it became something of a political football last week in a heated exchange over the future of the Downtown Core.<\/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-17656","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\/p3D2k4-4AM","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-17 10:41:07","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\/17656","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=17656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17656\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}