{"id":20012,"date":"2018-03-07T15:46:51","date_gmt":"2018-03-07T20:46:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=20012"},"modified":"2018-03-07T15:55:16","modified_gmt":"2018-03-07T20:55:16","slug":"aurora-forges-ahead-without-regional-alternate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/aurora-forges-ahead-without-regional-alternate\/","title":{"rendered":"Aurora forges ahead without Regional alternate"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Aurora is going forward without appointing an alternate voice at the Regional Council table.
\nCouncil last week ratified its decision to vote down a recommendation from municipal staff which would have seen the Town\u2019s Deputy Mayor \u2013 a post currently held by Councillor John Abel \u2013 appointed as an alternate to represent Aurora\u2019s interests at the Region if the Mayor is unable to attend a meeting.
\nAurora is currently one of just four York Region municipalities to have a single representative at the Region, along with King Township, Whitchurch-Stouffville, and East Gwillimbury. Aurora\u2019s representative at the Regional level is the Mayor and while the Town has been in a long-time fight to score a second seat at the table, the ability to appoint an alternate was a second-best solution recently offered by the Province.
\nCouncillors, while sitting at the Committee level on February 20, shot down the idea citing just a handful of Regional meetings left on the calendar. It was a position reiterated last week despite a last stab by Councillor Abel to revive the idea.
\n\u201cThis is to enhance representation at the Region for our municipality,\u201d Councillor Abel argued. \u201cWe have only one seat and if the Mayor was unable to attend, we were not allowed to have an alternate. This, apart from getting a second seat, which is a whole other matter, is the next best thing we could have asked for because we always used to say we don\u2019t have a second representative and we don\u2019t even have an alternate in the case of an absence.
\n\u201cThis is what we have been asking for. For years we have been asking or this. We\u2019re not alone in this.\u201d
\nWhile his motion to reconsider the matter was seconded by Councillor Wendy Gaertner, the rest of Council was unmoved.
\n\u201cThe reason I am not in favour of this now [is] I believe it will be used for political gains with nine months to go before an election,\u201d said Councillor Paul Pirri. \u201cI don\u2019t believe it is appropriate to be committing the next term of Council and, lastly, we don\u2019t run to be Deputy Mayor. We get appointed by Council to be Deputy Mayor and for those reasons I am opposed this right now.\u201d
\nCouncillor Pirri, however, said he was interested in \u201ctrying to find compromise\u201d and suggested an alternative: taking Aurora\u2019s eight Councillors and rotating the position of Regional Alternate amongst them for the eight months left in the current term.
\nThis suggestion also failed to find traction.
\nFirst to speak against Councillor Pirri\u2019s proposal was Councillor Tom Mrakas, who rejected the idea of an appointed alternate the previous week.
\n\u201cI am not in favour of having an alternate to begin with, regardless of who it is, when it is,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t think it enhances our representation. I don\u2019t think we should be settling for the next best thing, as I have stated before and, quite frankly, I don\u2019t know who in the Town of Aurora has been asking, other than maybe some sitting here or some sitting at Regional Council, for an alternate to be made available. I am just fundamentally opposed to having an alternate.\u201d
\nThis was a position largely shared by Councillor Michael Thompson who said with just five meetings left, and Mayor Dawe stating he had \u201cno intentions at this time\u201d of missing any meetings, it didn\u2019t make sense.
\n\u201cI think the comments we discussed last week were [to] really put this into play for the next term, like we do many other issues,\u201d he said. \u201cI will not be in favour of the amendment.\u201d
\nAdded Councillor Jeff Thom: \u201cI still agree with the sentiment that this is something for the next Council to deal with and, if they so choose, they can appoint an alternate to Regional Council.\u201d
\nSimilarly, Councillor Sandra Humfryes said the timing of the alternate option was \u201cvery unusual\u201d and it \u201cwould have been nice if Council had it at the beginning of the term.\u201d
\n\u201cWe should have two seats,\u201d she said. \u201cI think we have all talked about that around the table. That is why there has been absolutely no personal reasons for my vote. It just doesn\u2019t make any sense at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aurora is going forward without appointing an alternate voice at the Regional Council table.
\nCouncil last week…<\/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":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20012","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\/p3D2k4-5cM","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-20 18:48:40","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\/20012","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=20012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20012\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}