{"id":18783,"date":"2017-10-25T16:43:33","date_gmt":"2017-10-25T20:43:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=18783"},"modified":"2017-10-25T16:43:33","modified_gmt":"2017-10-25T20:43:33","slug":"brocks-banter-is-it-size-that-counts-or-your-expectations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/brocks-banter-is-it-size-that-counts-or-your-expectations\/","title":{"rendered":"BROCK’S BANTER: Is it size that counts, or your expectations?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

There is something to be said to the art of setting up to fail \u2013 or coming very close to the edge.
\nOften these days we see it in the world of commerce and finance, such as the demise of Sears Canada, a store that was never really seen as cutting edge or one with the hipster. And yet, they tried to tap into this market with the ill-advised marketing campaign, \u201cWTS?!\u201d
\nOkay, I\u2019m going to state the obvious. You\u2019ve been warned. This was, of course, a play on the popular net-cronym \u201cWTF?!\u201d which means\u2026 well, you all know what that stands for but, in this case, \u201cWTS?!\u201d meant \u201cWhat the Sears?!\u201d
\nPerhaps I\u2019m alone in this \u2013 and considering the liquid assets flowing out the doors at Upper Canada Mall I suspect I\u2019m not \u2013 but I cringed every time I came across that campaign. As a millennial (and yes, I looked it up. Apparently I just made the cut) it smacked of pandering to an elusive demographic disguised as a very bad \u201cdad joke.\u201d
\nIt certainly didn\u2019t make me itch to walk into Sears and, I suspect it turned off the very market it was intended to reach.
\nAnother example, to my mind, is Canada Post. While the Crown Corporation continues to chug along, its operations have seemed rather counterintuitive. Faced with losing their market share of letter mail to email and package delivery to increasingly competitive courier services, they\u2026responded by hiking their rates across their spectrum of services to make up the shortfall rather than lure customers back with potential savings and incentives.
\nWe\u2019ll see how this unlikely approach to survival will serve Canada Post at the end, but it seems a formula destined for failure.
\nThe art of setting up for failure, of course, is not limited to commerce.
\nWe can see it all around us but, if you\u2019re looking for a sign post, think back to 2014.
\nIf your eyes didn\u2019t gloss over from the sheer number of names thrown at you \u2013 28 people vying for eight Council seats alone \u2013 you will remember there were two additional questions on the ballot.
\nOne of the questions was whether Aurora residents would like to see the Town divided up into electoral wards. Perhaps it was lack of interest, perhaps there was a degree of boundary fatigue after the failed fight to avoid a Federal division at Wellington Street, but this question failed to set the Town on fire.
\nThe second question, however, was a different story.
\nOf those who bothered to show up to cast their vote, the majority voted to shrink the size of Council from a Mayor and eight Councillors to the Mayor and six.
\nThis would have been that, but, like so many things in Aurora, it was far from that.
\nIn order for the resolution to have been binding on Council, a certain threshold of eligible voters had to have been interested enough to make the trip to their local polling station. Rare are the times our voter turnout cracks the 40 per cent mark, so naturally \u2013 and predictably \u2013 the referendum numbers fell well short of the threshold.
\n8,060 electors voted in favour of reducing Council\u2019s size compared to 4,427 opting for the status quo. Ordinarily, these numbers would seem fairly decisive but Councillor Paul Pirri was ultimately the lone vote in taking these numbers as the will of Aurorans.
\n\u201cI do think [with] the votes cast in that direction we do have a very strong indication of what the residents in our community want to see as the composition of Council,\u201d he said at the time. \u201cAs a two-time eighth place finisher in the elections here in Aurora, it is not about what I think works best for me, but what I think works well for our residents. Ultimately, I think the residents have the right to choose how they are represented, and they spoke very clearly about how they are represented, in my view.\u201d
\nAn argument offered against solidifying the results of the referendum was the numbers simply didn\u2019t provide anything to Council for them to interpret \u201cwhy\u201d voters cast their ballot the way they did, as though the whys were relevant in any way.
\n\u201cIt is hard to get into what the mind of the electorate was, and maybe that is the fault of the question itself,\u201d offered Councillor Jeff Thom. \u201cThe results should definitely be taken into consideration, but 64 per cent of 32 per cent of the eligible electorate voted for it. In the grand scheme of things, the majority of voters didn\u2019t. That\u2019s semantics, but I am sticking with it.\u201d
\nBut Council might not be sticking with what they ultimately decided.
\nThis week, as The Auroran previously reported, Council will be considering a motion from Councillor Sandra Humfryes calling on Council to lay the groundwork in reducing its membership from eight to six for the 2018 \u2013 2022 Council term.
\nAs we go to press before this week\u2019s Council meeting, I will be very interested in the lengthy and passionate discussions that are bound to ensue. Ultimately, however, I think the voters have already spoken on this issue and the numbers were decisive.
\nReducing any semblance of Council Bloat will only be part of the issue though.
\nWhenever Council broaches this particularly thorny topic, the light at the end of the tunnel is always clouded by the issue of whether or not a smaller complement of councillors should be considered six full time positions \u2013 and paid as such \u2013 rather than the current formula of eight part-time positions.
\nTo my mind, Council size and workload are two entirely separate issues and the size needs to be tackled first.
\nOnce that is done and out of the way then a very fruitful, important and long-overdue discussion can be had not just around the Council table but in the wider community: What do Aurora residents expect from their Council members?
\nAurorans will then need to consider if they believe they will be better served by six members fully dedicated to the municipality without having to juggle a day job as well. They will need to also consider whether they will be willing to pay a salary commensurate with full-time duties rather than the $30k each of the eight currently receives for their part-time services.*
\nFinally, those individuals who have ever thought about stepping up to represent their neighbours by contesting an election will have a lot more to weigh. If they are expected to fully dedicate their careers to the servicing their constituents, would it make them think twice? Would that make civic life more or less attractive?
\nIn the end, that could help narrow down the playing field to those with the best intentions and the best interests of the community at heart rather than those looking to boost their resume or inflate their ego.
\nBut that first step needs to be taken. Voters have asked for it.<\/p>\n

*I recognize that a Councillor\u2019s workload is more than the average part-time job, but I am simply talking about the official job description.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir\\ There is something to be said to the art of setting up to fail \u2013 or coming very close to the edge. Often these days we see it in the world of commerce and finance, such as the demise of Sears Canada, a store that was never really seen as cutting edge […]<\/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":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-4SX","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-20 10:49:44","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\/18783","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=18783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18783\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}