{"id":22595,"date":"2019-01-03T12:56:56","date_gmt":"2019-01-03T17:56:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=22595"},"modified":"2019-01-03T12:56:56","modified_gmt":"2019-01-03T17:56:56","slug":"inside-aurora-year-in-review-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/inside-aurora-year-in-review-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"INSIDE AURORA: Year in Review 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Scott Johnston<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s time to look back on the year that was in Aurora in 2018.<\/p>\n

January – It\u2019s so cold in Aurora that people voluntarily attend Council meetings in order to keep warm.<\/p>\n

February \u2013 The groundhog, appearing to make his annual weather forecast, is instead besieged for his predictions on the upcoming provincial and municipal elections.<\/p>\n

February – The suggestion that what Aurora needs is a large multi-use central park like Newmarket is planning to develop, is made by someone obviously unfamiliar with Sheppard\u2019s Bush.<\/p>\n

February \u2013 Aurora\u2019s Strategic Plan depicts the Town as an \u201cinclusive, family-oriented community \u2026 that celebrates heritage, arts and culture\u2026 with a thriving economy\u2026 and revitalized downtown core\u201d, but says this ideal is not planned to be achieved for another 13 years until 2031.<\/p>\n

March – Students complaining about a potentially longer walk to school when Dr GW Williams moves east of Bayview are met with a flurry of stories from their grandparents about having to walk twice as far to school when they were kids, in worse weather, carrying heavier loads, after doing their cores, and never complaining.<\/p>\n

April – Despite signs showing leatherback turtle crossing areas on Henderson, none of these 8 foot long reptiles is seen in Aurora.<\/p>\n

May \u2013 After hundreds of hours of debate and planning and hundreds of thousands of dollars to rebuild Petch House on its current site, it\u2019s suggested that the best use of one of the oldest buildings in Town is for storage of unused Town equipment.<\/p>\n

May \u2013 Food and \u201cwhine\u201d become themes of the new Armoury agreement when opponents question how the deal was made.<\/p>\n

June – Soccer players unsuccessfully pinning their hopes on added capacity on the Hallmark Lands will have to pin their hopes on the Bloomington lands… if the Town someday acquires them… and funding can be found to redevelop them… and more importantly, if baseball hasn\u2019t grown more popular in the meantime, and again takes priority. <\/p>\n

July \u2013 Scarecrows panic when the straw-free movement hits Aurora.<\/p>\n

August \u2013 The details of what finally is decided to be built at Library Square are overshadowed by the fact that after 20 years, a decision has actually been made<\/p>\n

September – Basing her reasons in part on concerns about naval military funding and prioritizing, it\u2019s not clear whether she is leaving a sinking ship or moving to one when MP Leona Alleslev crosses the floor from the Liberals to the Conservatives.<\/p>\n

September – Viewing the colours of fall takes on new meaning as election signs of every hue pop up all over Town.<\/p>\n

October – Based on subsequent even lower than normal voting totals, the introduction of electronic voting allows Aurorans the convenience of not bothering to vote either in person or on-line.<\/p>\n

October – The legalization of cannabis in Canada raises the question why the world\u2019s second largest producer, Aurora Cannabis, is based in Edmonton, and not in Aurora.<\/p>\n

October \u2013 Halloween Trick or Treaters are disappointed that monster homes are just big houses, and not hangouts for goblins and ghouls.<\/p>\n

November – Advancing an education push in Town around the planting of native conifers in the arboretum, it is noted that the term \u201cChristmas tree\u201d will no longer be tolerated when referring to conifers, unless of course it\u2019s a Christmas tree. <\/p>\n

December – The Deputy Mayor does not cite the Town\u2019s historical underfunding of capital projects, such as the Joint Operations Centre, when he suggests that Aurora should be taking risks in its decisions.<\/p>\n

December \u2013 In his inaugural speech the new Mayor suggests the Town will have wards shortly. \u201cA half dozen of them, right?\u201d respond the six Councillors.<\/p>\n

Feel free to e-mail Scott at: machellscorners@gmail.com<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Scott Johnston It\u2019s time to look back on the year that was in Aurora in 2018. January – It\u2019s so cold in Aurora that people voluntarily attend Council meetings in order to keep warm. February \u2013 The groundhog, appearing to make his annual weather forecast, is instead besieged for his predictions on the upcoming […]<\/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_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":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5Sr","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-02 01:10:11","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\/22595","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=22595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22595\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}