{"id":22603,"date":"2019-01-03T13:01:53","date_gmt":"2019-01-03T18:01:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=22603"},"modified":"2019-01-03T13:01:53","modified_gmt":"2019-01-03T18:01:53","slug":"council-looks-beyond-sport-aurora-for-sports-initiatives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/council-looks-beyond-sport-aurora-for-sports-initiatives\/","title":{"rendered":"Council looks beyond Sport Aurora for sports initiatives"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Council could be looking beyond Sport Aurora for the delivery of sports programs this year, following the last Council meeting of 2018.
\nOn a vote of 5 \u2013 2, Council chose not to extend the Sport Aurora Funding Agreement struck in the last term of Council for the development of the municipal Sports Plan, closing the deal on December 31. Come budget time, local lawmakers will be looking at a staff report on \u201calternate delivery models for sport initiatives\u201d going forward.
\nStaff recommended Council extend Sport Aurora\u2019s agreement with the Town with an upset limit of $25,850 for the completion of the Year Three projects in the Sport Plan\u2019s four-year development goals, and the start of Year 4 programs including a review of sport leadership under the direction of a new Sport Council, addressing the accessibility of sport \u2013 from women and girls in sport to persons with disabilities, from older adults to low-income residents to cultural barriers \u2013 and the development of a sports tourism strategy.
\nCouncil, however, had different ideas and the first member to speak against the recommendation was Councillor Rachel Gilliland who suggested this nearly-$26,000 request be reduced to $10,000 for the next three months. Her reasoning, she said, was the initial request was based on a quarter of Sport Aurora\u2019s annual funding, but many of their high-profile activities happen in the fall.
\n\u201cI do feel it is important to continue on with Sport Aurora while we have a transitional period [but] I don\u2019t think it would be in the best interests of the community to all of a sudden put a pause on Sport Aurora\u2019s initiatives as we transition over to a Sport Board or Sport Council. I would like to see them continue on with their duty to March 1 at a funding rate that is probably more applicable to their needs.\u201d
\nCouncillor John Gallo, on the other hand, brought a different perspective to the table, one that was shared with Mayor Tom Mrakas and others.
\n\u201cI am not in favour of approving any funds prior to any budget discussions,\u201d said Councillor Gallo. \u201cThese are funds that we would be pre-approving prior to the 2019 Budget and, as a matter of principle, unless it is some essential service, unless the residents are going to be significantly impacted, I generally don\u2019t agree with that process. After reading quite a bit of material it didn\u2019t come across to me as an essential service. As it stands, my preference is to push pause and reassess and review the Sports Plan, Sports Council and allocate funds accordingly.\u201d
\nAfter seeking assurances from Town Staff that Sport Aurora\u2019s programming components \u2013 such as their Breakfast of Champions program and Volunteer Recognition activities \u2013 would continue without this cash infusion, Mayor Mrakas echoed this view.
\n\u201cI do think we need to take a pause and I think we do need to re-evaluate how we go about implementing the Sport Plan,\u201d said Mayor Mrakas. \u201cThe Sport Plan speaks to hiring a sport development officer, it speaks to creating a Sport Council or Sport Board and I think there has been some conversation that that is the direction we need to move to. I think that I am uncomfortable, as Councillor Gallo mentioned as well, that advancing an organization or user group when we\u2019re not sure whether we\u2019re going to move in that direction \u2013 I think if we\u2026 have staff come back to us during budget, and we\u2019re only talking about two months away in February, and we can deal with how and what those options are and how we can move forward.
\n\u201cFor all we know, we could agree that Sport Aurora is the way we\u2019re going to go in regards to implementing that sport plan and for year four or five, or we could have those other options that say, \u2018you know what? We can do something different we believe will provide better value for our residents. At the end of the day, I think that\u2019s what we\u2019re all looking to do: provide the best possible service at the best possible price for our taxpayers and residents.\u201d
\nA similar view was offered by Councillor Wendy Gaertner, tempered with a degree of caution.
\n\u201cI certainly agree [on not] making any budget decisions outside the actual budget, unless it is essential,\u201d she said. \u201cOn the other hand, we have an initiative that has been going on for three years and they do have momentum. I wouldn\u2019t want to just stop that in its tracks.\u201d
\nAt the end of the day, however, Councillor Gallo said he just didn\u2019t see a clear message of what was being achieved with regards to the Sports Plan. The funding lines, he said were blurred between the funding for the Sports Plan and monies set aside for other initiatives under the Sport Aurora umbrella, including Activate Aurora.
\n\u201cTo me, there are quite a few gaps that I am not satisfied with and that\u2019s an additional reason I want to push pause and make sure we\u2019re following up with our agreements and that the money that we spend, the taxpayer\u2019s monies, that we\u2019re getting the best bang for our buck,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Council could be looking beyond Sport Aurora for the delivery of sports programs this year, following the last Council meeting of 2018.
\nOn a vote of 5 \u2013 2, Council chose not to extend the Sport Aurora Funding Agreement struck in the last term of Council for the development of the municipal Sports Plan, closing the deal on December 31. Come budget time, local lawmakers will be looking at a staff report on \u201calternate delivery models for sport initiatives\u201d going forward. <\/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_feature_clip_id":0,"_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-22603","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\/p3D2k4-5Sz","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-20 00:25:45","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\/22603","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=22603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22603\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}