{"id":20660,"date":"2018-05-16T14:45:17","date_gmt":"2018-05-16T18:45:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=20660"},"modified":"2018-05-16T14:45:17","modified_gmt":"2018-05-16T18:45:17","slug":"accessibility-advocate-abas-is-first-to-join-council-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/accessibility-advocate-abas-is-first-to-join-council-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Accessibility advocate Abas is first to join Council race"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Accessibility advocate Matthew Abas, 20, is the first person to make a bid for the 2018 \u2013 2022 term of Council.<br \/>\nMr. Abas, a graduate of St. Maximilian Kolbe Catholic High School, formally filed his nomination papers on Thursday afternoon.<br \/>\n\u201cI have lived in Aurora for 20 years,\u201d said Mr. Abas in a statement. \u201cI have watched the Town grow and develop. I am proud to call Aurora my home, but I believe there is room for improvement and I feel a change in Council is needed to drive forward our Town and get a younger, fresh perspective.<br \/>\n\u201cI am a strong supporter for accessibility and inclusion. I feel Aurora needs to be more accessible with power doors on smaller retailers, wider sidewalks for persons in wheelchairs, better control of grades on ramps so persons with handicaps or a caregiver with a stroller won\u2019t fly down a ramp into traffic or into parked cars. The Town also needs more accessible parks, including picnic tables that will accommodate a wheelchair and playground equipment that will allow a child with a disability to play in the park.\u201d<br \/>\nOver the years, Mr. Abas has racked up a number of awards from Magna\u2019s Give Back Awards to the John West \u201cLeaders of Tomorrow\u201d Scholarship from the Town of Aurora, to the Champion Award, an honour created to mark the 10th anniversary of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA).<br \/>\nHe also received a Community Recognition Award from the Town in 2016.<\/p>\n<a class=\"synved-social-button synved-social-button-share synved-social-size-24 synved-social-resolution-single synved-social-provider-facebook nolightbox\" data-provider=\"facebook\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" title=\"Share on Facebook\" 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Council.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":20629,"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-20660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/2018-05-17-04.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5ne","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-05 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