{"id":20969,"date":"2018-06-24T00:51:11","date_gmt":"2018-06-24T04:51:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=20969"},"modified":"2018-06-24T00:51:11","modified_gmt":"2018-06-24T04:51:11","slug":"set-aside-emotion-in-making-the-right-decision-urge-delegates-on-hallmark-lands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/set-aside-emotion-in-making-the-right-decision-urge-delegates-on-hallmark-lands\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cSet aside emotion\u201d in making the right decision, urge delegates on Hallmark lands"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Aurora\u2019s soccer and baseball communities once again made their respective pitches to Council last week over use of the Hallmark Lands, but fresh voices urged Council to take emotion out of the equation when looking at options to address significant shortfalls when it comes to local sports fields.
\nMartin Ambrose, representing the Aurora soccer community and Jamie Cole, representing baseball in Aurora and King reiterated their positions that Aurora would be best served by two soccer fields and two baseball diamonds respectively.
\n\u201cDevelopment of the Hallmark lands neglects our needs,\u201d said Mr. Ambrose of municipal staff\u2019s recommendation to greenlight two baseball diamonds on the 13 acre land parcel.
\nAddressing recommendations coming out of the Town\u2019s Parks & Recreation Advisory Committee, Mr. Ambrose stressed that this vote did not reflect the needs of the local soccer community. Sport Aurora has a spot at the table, he said, soccer does not, and he requested that this imbalance be rectified.
\nSport Aurora\u2019s position, on the other hand, was represented at the table by Sandra Manherz, a board member, who took to the podium for the first time on the organization\u2019s behalf.
\nIn her delegation, she said Sport Aurora was bringing an \u201cobjective lens\u201d to the discussion, representing a \u201clarger view and advocating for what we truly believe to be in the best interests of sports and recreation in the community.\u201d
\n\u201cThis particular issue is an emotional one for the Aurora Sports and Rec community,\u201d she said. \u201cWe are lacking facilities in all areas. As our population grows to 90,000, the situation will only worsen. Sporting organizations across this town, whether field, diamond, pool or rink are struggling to grow their programs. Kids and adults alike are heeding the call for Aurora to become Canada\u2019s most active community, but despite these individuals lining up to participate, we are turning them away.
\n\u201cTo attempt to fix this, our sporting organizations have become passionate advocators, and so they should be, fighting for their communities. While this is also true for me, I am an individual who is very analytical in nature. I value logic and rational process and why I am challenging Council to do today is to pull the emotion out of this debate and look purely at the facts.\u201d
\nThese facts, she claimed, hinged on sports tourism. Developing the Hallmark lands is a perfect opportunity to foster just that, she said, but with two diamonds.
\nBuilding just one diamond \u2013 which Council ultimately opted to do, alongside one full-size senior soccer pitch \u2013 \u201cundermines\u201d the vision for sports tourism and sets it back \u201cat least five years, if not longer\u201d due to a lack of other suitable land alternatives.
\n\u201cLeaders should inspire others to dream more, do more and achieve more,\u201d she said. \u201cWe shouldn\u2019t be compromising. We should be visionaries who see the big picture of where we want Aurora to be in 10 or 20 years and we shouldn\u2019t hope it happens, we should make it happen. One field and one diamond sabotages the long-term vision for sport and rec here in town. It takes sports tourism and cuts it off at the knees. It takes the vision of a 20-year Aurora and makes it a one-year piecemeal projects that we hope fit together in the end.
\n\u201cI implore you to set aside emotion, to set aside what the political issues organizations deal with every day and focus on the facts and the vision. If you do that, there is only one decision here today and that is in favour of sport tourism and two diamonds on Hallmark and being bold, stay the course and be the visionaries we need.\u201d
\nBut, this was just one perspective in the room.
\nA very different perspective was added by Anna Bisogno-Coutts.
\nShe agreed that the debate over the future use of the Hallmark lands was pitting two sports groups against each other, and said she hoped there was a resolution on the table \u201cthat makes everyone happy.\u201d
\n\u201cOur kids deserve to play whatever sport they want to play in this town,\u201d she said. \u201cAs a taxpayer and a resident of this town, I would expect that Council would do what is fiscally responsible. I wouldn\u2019t want to be digging deep into my pockets for more money. I am a soccer coach and have been for 14 years and my kids play soccer, so it is difficult for me to play both sides, but I have to give you both points of view.\u201d
\nOne point of view she offered was one floated last month by former Aurora councillor John Gallo to sell the Hallmark lands at a profit and use the profit to invest in sports facilities elsewhere, including the repurposing of existing fields to meet current demands.
\nThis was an option embraced as well by Councillor John Abel, and by Ms. Bisogno-Coutts as well.
\nShe dismissed suggestions made by Ms. Manherz that a quick solution could be found by the Town partnering with the York Region District School Board on existing soccer fields at Aurora High School and Dr. G.W. Williams Secondary School as something that would take a lot of work to make possible.
\nInstead, money from Hallmark should be made to retrofit lands like Machell Park.
\n\u201cThere are options, is all I am saying, and we should actually be fiscally responsible here, use the funds from the Hallmark lands to give everybody what they need, and put this to rest and let\u2019s hear what you have for us in the next few months coming up to the election: other platforms and things we really need in this Town because I see that financially things are going to change for everybody in the next few years,\u201d she said. \u201cDon\u2019t make us dig into our pockets for more money. Let\u2019s look what we have, let\u2019s make both clubs happy.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re not to make a profit, but it worked out that way. It just worked out that the lands have added value now and that there is a need and we\u2019re not flipping, we\u2019re just translating; we\u2019re taking funds from here and translating them into providing community services. We\u2019re not pocketing money\u2026it is for the community and I don\u2019t see that as flipping, I see that as making good use of taxpayer money.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aurora\u2019s soccer and baseball communities once again made their respective pitches to Council last week over use of the Hallmark Lands, but fresh voices urged Council to take emotion out of the equation when looking at options to address significant shortfalls when it comes to local sports fields.<\/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-20969","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\/p3D2k4-5sd","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-05 23:36:31","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\/20969","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=20969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20969\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}