{"id":20307,"date":"2018-04-04T20:49:35","date_gmt":"2018-04-05T00:49:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=20307"},"modified":"2018-04-04T20:49:35","modified_gmt":"2018-04-05T00:49:35","slug":"councillors-tangle-over-booze-bill-entertaining-canadian-food-wine-institute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/councillors-tangle-over-booze-bill-entertaining-canadian-food-wine-institute\/","title":{"rendered":"Councillors tangle over booze bill entertaining Canadian Food & Wine Institute"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Niagara College\u2019s Canadian Institute of Food & Wine is set to soon bring its viniculture expertise to Aurora, but a dinner held before Council inked its agreement to transform the Aurora Armoury into a satellite campus of the college has one Councillor seeing red.
\nLast week, Councillor John Abel took Council to task for a $2,500 tab picked up by the office of Aurora\u2019s CAO to entertain College officials prior to a December General Committee meeting.
\nWhile Councillor Abel said he had issue not only with the bar tab \u2013 which amounted to $395 of the total bill \u2013 but also with the fact a majority of Council members were at the dinner, others cried foul over his objections, noting that Councillor Abel himself participated in part of the proceedings.
\n\u201cI asked [under] New Business of General Committee that [CAO Doug Nadorozny] that Council, members of the ELT (Executive Leadership Team) along with Niagara College attended a dinner prior to the General Committee meeting of December 5 and asked him for the amount of the bill,\u201d said Councillor Abel. \u201cI did attend, I did consume a glass of water and I met with every attendee at Niagara College and spoke with each for about five minutes, but I did not stay for dinner. I went home and got ready for the General Committee meeting.
\n\u201cWhat was most [concerning is] that there is the consumption of alcohol paid by the taxpayers and also members were consuming before coming to a Committee and, most alarmingly, it was in a secluded room with five members of Council prior to an agenda item with Niagara College.\u201d
\nSeveral Council members at last week\u2019s meeting raised their respective eyebrows to what Mayor Dawe called Councillor Abel\u2019s \u201cinsinuations,\u201d prompting him to go further.
\n\u201c$395 was consumed in alcohol and that would represent, on average, maybe two drinks per person that was in attendance; it\u2019s an average,\u201d Councillor Abel continued, before tackling the second issue. \u201cWhat I am really concerned about is we were in a secluded area with five Councillors and an agenda item. We learned from procedural\u2026you have to guard against being in an area with five Councillors and taking on the course of business. If you are going to go to restaurants, five at a time, be at an open place, publically, where you were seen.\u201d
\nThose individuals sitting around the Council table last week took issue with his arguments, particularly the accusation that business might have been advanced behind closed doors, particularly with between Councillors Abel and Paul Pirri who exchanged a heated volley.
\n\u201cI was there and I left,\u201d said Councillor Abel.
\n\u201cYou were there,\u201d countered Councillor Pirri. \u201cYou ventured in.\u201d
\n\u201cThat\u2019s fine,\u201d replied Councillor Abel. \u201cI am not defending myself, I am just saying that, optically, that is not a good thing to do and I left.\u201d
\nCouncillor Michael Thompson, jumping into the debate, stated there was \u201cnothing wrong\u201d with Councillors \u201cgetting together\u201d as a group.
\n\u201cWhat is not okay is materially advancing the Town\u2019s business,\u201d he said. \u201cWe often get together at events, the Santa Claus parade, different fundraising functions, and what we can\u2019t do is materially advance the Town\u2019s business. Let\u2019s be clear on that one.\u201d
\nCouncillor Thompson asked Mr. Nadorozny to expand on the email he sent to Councillors in response to Councillor Abel\u2019s request for the numbers.
\n\u201cWhile our policies do not allow staff to individually expense alcohol as part of a meal claim, it is customary and appropriate to allow for modest alcohol expense to be covered as part of a hospitality or economic development event,\u201d said Mr. Nadorozny. \u201cGiven the significance of this partnership and the fact it is a partnership with the Canadian Food & Wine Institute, I felt it was appropriate to include alcohol in the event as a gesture of good hospitality. As for the gathering of Council, there are many times where all of Council is in a room other than this room (Council Chambers) and I think it is only when the business of the Council is moved forward in material ways that people would and ought to object.\u201d
\nThe CAO\u2019s Office, he added, has a Council approved budget of $7,000 allocated for receptions and hospitality.
\n\u201cThere are many events hosted in the Skylight Gallery that Council has been a part of, where alcohol has been served, and it has been paid for by the Town,\u201d said Councillor Thompson. \u201cThe one that comes to mind is the inauguration, which Councillor Abel and myself have both been to on two occasions. Alcohol was served and paid for by the Town. Certainly if anybody does not agree with that policy, they have a right to put forward a notice of motion that can be changed. That has been the policy since we\u2019ve
\nbeen here.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Niagara College\u2019s Canadian Institute of Food & Wine is set to soon bring its viniculture expertise to Aurora, but a dinner held before Council inked its agreement to transform the Aurora Armoury into a satellite campus of the college has one Councillor seeing red.<\/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_feature_clip_id":0,"_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-20307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5hx","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-05 02:11:43","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20307","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=20307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20307\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}