{"id":22411,"date":"2018-12-08T16:22:38","date_gmt":"2018-12-08T21:22:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=22411"},"modified":"2018-12-08T16:22:38","modified_gmt":"2018-12-08T21:22:38","slug":"geoff-dawe-wraps-eight-years-as-auroras-mayor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/geoff-dawe-wraps-eight-years-as-auroras-mayor\/","title":{"rendered":"Geoff Dawe wraps eight years as Aurora’s mayor"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Geoff Dawe was praised for bringing \u201cdecorum, order and respect\u201d back to Town Hall as his eight-year term as Aurora\u2019s mayor came to an end last week.
\nThese words were offered by former mayor Tim Jones as he made a delegation to the final meeting of the 2014 – 2018 Council.
\n\u201cI am here to simply say thank you,\u201d said Mr. Jones, addressing Mr. Dawe and members of Council who will not be returning to the table this week, before turning his attention back to the outgoing mayor. \u201cYou brought decorum, order and respect to this Council and this Council has demonstrated that for the past eight years. I want to say thank you very much.\u201d
\nBringing decorum, order and respect back to Town Hall is what Mr. Dawe said he felt was his mandate when first elected Mayor of Aurora in the fall of 2010.
\nReflecting on his eight years in Aurora\u2019s top job, Mr. Dawe used his final speech at the Council table to highlight the success of the last two Council terms.
\n\u201cCertainly one that comes to mind right away is what I believe is pivotal to how we\u2019re developing our Town and that is Library Square and the Aurora Armoury. I think it is a great indicator of the faith that we have in building up the core of our Town,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are two instances I was thinking about earlier I believe are the essence of how Council should operate. The first one was the Cultural Services Agreement. The reason I bring that up is there were two Councillors who were very passionate about an issue they wanted to see corrected, and we can certainly appreciate their point of view on that. As a Council, we worked to get past the Doomsday scenarios that were presented to us in that instance and, by focusing on the principle of the greater good, we came up with an agreement that enhanced and strengthened what has now become an incredibly successful attraction, venue and event [space] in our town: the Aurora Cultural Centre. I believe that was by focusing on the greater good and saying, what is for the benefit of our town?\u201d
\nThe second item, one that he admitted was \u201cnot very sexy\u201d was Council\u2019s formation of the Finance Advisory Committee, a small group of Council members and staff who focused on refining the budgeting process and, in Mr. Dawe\u2019s words, \u201ctaking much of the drama\u201d out of deliberations. Spearheaded by Councillor Michael Thompson, Mr. Dawe said the Committee set criteria up front and tasked staff with meeting those expectations.
\n\u201cIt gave us some time to focus on the critical issues and the strategic direction of our Town, which is what we\u2019re really here to do,\u201d said Mr. Dawe. \u201cThe whole is greater than the sum of the parts when you work together that way.\u201d
\nMr. Dawe also looked back on his experiences as an elected official, a role which he came to after more than 40 years in the private sector.
\n\u201cIt is pretty safe to say I came to public service, to municipal government, with some preconceptions about what municipal government was and I very quickly learned there were misconceptions,\u201d he said. \u201cI jumped into the deep end of an incredibly substantial body which resulted in the most intense learning experience I have ever had \u2013 and I am sure my colleagues feel the same way. And, at times, the most frustrating experience I ever had, but definitely the most rewarding experience I have had. It is experience that was both educational and humbling. You just can\u2019t be a part of this body without the incredible educational experience you get. I have learned so many things I will probably never use again in my life, but it is absolutely amazing the number of elements that go into making a municipal government. The humbling part comes from that education because you learn. You learn about your colleagues, staff and how committed and competent they truly are and wish to do a good job, and how we need to recognize that and encourage them to do that job.\u201d
\nIn the end, Mr. Dawe thanked the work of executive staff around the table, including Planning Director Marco Ramunno, who will be leaving Aurora at the end of the year to take up a similar position in East Gwillimbury, his executive assistant Betty De Bartolo, CAO Doug Nadorozny, his executive assistant Kelly Gobbels, and last, but not least, his wife Henny and their family.
\n\u201cYou cannot do this job without your family\u2019s support,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019d be crazy to try. It is so important to have the support of your family and I truly appreciate that indeed. It has been an honour, a privilege to serve and I wish to thank everyone who has supported me over the last eight years. Even when I lost those votes 8 – 1, I knew somewhere there was support. Thank you so much, and best wishes to everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Geoff Dawe was praised for bringing \u201cdecorum, order and respect\u201d back to Town Hall as his eight-year term as Aurora\u2019s mayor came to an end last week.<\/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-22411","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\/p3D2k4-5Pt","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-18 13:08:51","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\/22411","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=22411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22411\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}