{"id":21406,"date":"2018-08-22T19:18:36","date_gmt":"2018-08-22T23:18:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=21406"},"modified":"2018-08-22T19:18:36","modified_gmt":"2018-08-22T23:18:36","slug":"aurora-votes-2018-van-decker-promises-vision-accountability-and-new-ideas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/aurora-votes-2018-van-decker-promises-vision-accountability-and-new-ideas\/","title":{"rendered":"Aurora Votes 2018: Van Decker promises Vision, Accountability and New ideas"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Denis Van Decker has a very simple vision of just what a Council member should be: a \u201cprotector.\u201d
\nIn the context of a municipality, this means, he says, \u201cprotecting rights, protecting the Town\u2019s assets and fiscal health, and protecting the environment.\u201d
\nA vocal critic of the incumbent Council both at both the podium and on social media, Mr. Van Decker is hoping to bring forward the change he would like to see happen, as one of sixteen candidates vying for six seats on the 2018-2022 Aurora Council.
\n\u201cFor some people, their \u2018Why I love Aurora\u2019 is that \u2018It\u2019s a great place to live and I just want to give back to my community,\u2019\u201d says Mr. Van Decker. \u201cIt\u2019s not that I don\u2019t have that, and I am active in many parts of my community [from being] a Knight of Columbus to a soccer coach, have been involved politically on the Green side, but I probably would have lived in the land of sunshine and rainbows and gone on with my business as an entrepreneur\u2026and not done things if I didn\u2019t think things could be improved for the positive.\u201d
\nMr. Van Decker has lived in Aurora for over 16 years. In that time, he served as the vice chair of the Town\u2019s Committee of Adjustment until 2010. With this insight into municipal workings, he says he has seen a \u201cnumber of areas for positive improvement\u201d at Town Hall including \u201caccountability\u201d and \u201clesser regulations.\u201d
\n\u201cThose are the numbers one and two on my platform,\u201d he says. \u201cI have seen situations where Council and staff don\u2019t really know what is happening between them. The JOC (Joint Operations Centre) is one big example and there are many. What is going on with the Armoury, frankly, I don\u2019t know all the details but there is enough to cause me concern about things that happened in meetings that were secret (closed meetings) and maybe shouldn\u2019t have been secret.\u201d
\nOver the last two years, Mr. Van Decker and his wife have been waging a public battle with the Town of Aurora\u2019s Bylaw Department over accessing their property. It is a battle that has been carried out not only at the Council Chamber\u2019s podium, but in the courts as well.
\nWith this in mind, reforming what he describes as \u201cbylaw litigation\u201d is one of the main things he would like to bring to the Council table, if elected this October.
\n\u201cThere is a whole black hole that effects people to a similar dollar value as these other decisions on an annual basis that we\u2019re blind to,\u201d he says. \u201cThe reason why we\u2019re blind to it is a concept I call, \u2018It\u2019s In Legal.\u2019 The idea of keeping legal conversations confidential I understand. I run a business, I understand corporate law and the idea in a negotiation is you don\u2019t want to hurt your position.\u201d
\nBut, he contends that Aurora is one of the most \u201clitigious\u201d municipalities in York Region.
\n\u201cThere was great progress,\u201d says Mr. Van Decker of efforts made at the Council table to restrict bylaw officers\u2019 access to private property to be only with a warrant. \u201cThe problem is it is a one-year trial and it could be tossed out again. The underlying law is still there. I want to see clear information about the cost of litigation, which is right now bundled into Corporate Services, and not out in our bylaw department. [I want] reporting on what they\u2019re doing, proper costing, [and] change the bylaw to be consistent with the Constitution. It is not that I want to fire people and do all kinds of negative things. I see that all as positives.\u201d
\nNoting he has seen a \u201clack of intellectual vigour\u201d watching Council proceedings, the Council candidate is using his name as a mantra. Here on out, VAN is taking on a whole new meaning, standing for his platform of Vision, Accountability and New Ideas.
\nThis platform, he says, has been informed in many ways, from his time as an economic development officer in the Sarnia-Lambton region, to his entrepreneurship in green technologies, to his political involvement, most recently in June\u2019s Provincial Election where he stood as a candidate in the \u201cNone of the Above\u201d party (NOTA), which advocates for \u201cdirect democracy.\u201d
\nWhile his vision for the role of Councillor is that of a protector, this protection extends to the environment where he says he will keep a close eye on green matters, including the redevelopment of the Collis Leather Tannery property into a community of stacked townhomes. Additional environmental planks in his platform include the creation of dog parks that are walkable from where people live and getting cars off the road through improved transit.
\nIndustrial Parkway, he says, should be emphasised as a transit diversion for York Region Transit, including Viva, and additional turn lanes at Yonge and Wellington should be explored.
\n\u201cWe need to do things with Downtown,\u201d he says. \u201cNothing has been done in the Promenade Plan. We missed an opportunity with the stacked townhouses [on the northwest side of the intersection] and I think with diversion to Industrial Parkway we can actually look at this section of Yonge Street being a pedestrian walkway, if we do a major traffic diversion around it.\u201d
\nAs far as accountability goes, he underscores his \u201cdirect democracy\u201d credentials, advocating for referendums on hot issues to keep politicians accountable.
\nIn the same vein, he also advocates for loosening regulations in a number of areas to foster business, including easing up on the Town\u2019s sign bylaw.
\n\u201cIn Aurora, we have multiple levels of bureaucracy over and beyond what is really required,\u201d he says. \u201cThere are ways to make that better. I want to work with the region for zero interest loans, local improvement charges, to do energy efficiency and water efficiency projects. It needs a structure from the municipality to set up the loan but it is tied to the tax rolls. It would be immediately cash-flow positive, it would be tied to the house, so it would be seen as a positive all the way around.\u201d
\nOver his years as a municipal advocate, Mr. Van Decker says he has felt his voice be \u201csilenced\u201d on numerous occasions. In this regard, he has mixed feelings over whether Aurora should adopt a ward system of government where each Councillor would be elected by \u2013 and represent— specific segments of the community. If Aurora goes down this route, he says he likes concepts floated by other candidates of each ward having a slice of the downtown core to make sure everyone has a stake in it, but sees a benefit in the current at-large system in that residents have more options to take their concerns.
\nAdopting the idea of Councillors as full-time positions is something that should be considered, he says, to allow Council members the time to fully immerse themselves in the issues and make the best decisions.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t know how [Council members] let things slide without getting the proper answers, and I think my perseverance to make sure answers are given, to strive for accountability will have positive results on taxpayer dollars,\u201d he says. \u201cI think creativity will have positive results on taxpayers dollars and on quality of life.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Denis Van Decker has a very simple vision of just what a Council member should be: a \u201cprotector.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":21383,"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-21406","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\/08\/2018-08-23-04.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5zg","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-20 14:06:51","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\/21406","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=21406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21406\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}