{"id":22728,"date":"2019-01-18T15:09:15","date_gmt":"2019-01-18T20:09:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=22728"},"modified":"2019-01-18T15:09:15","modified_gmt":"2019-01-18T20:09:15","slug":"sport-aurora-disputes-council-comments-on-sport-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/sport-aurora-disputes-council-comments-on-sport-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"Sport Aurora disputes Council comments on Sport Plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Re: Council looks beyond Sport Aurora for sports initiatives, January 3)<\/p>\n

The first line of this story suggests that Council \u201ccould\u201d be looking beyond Sport Aurora for delivery of sports programs, citing that staff have been asked to report on \u201calternate delivery models.\u201d Yet, it is reported that staff recommended the Sport Plan delivery agreement be extended. Town staff is diligent in their recommendations and they know what Sport Aurora has done, but are now being asked to consider an alternate delivery model.
\nFrom the Town\u2019s website, the Sport Plan is introduced; \u201cThe Town of Aurora has prepared a Sport Plan to encourage greater collaboration with community partners and make use of existing facilities over the next five years.\u201d Yet the decision made by Town Council seems to be contrary.
\nSport Aurora is an inclusive organization that represents 40 sport organizations and has a democratically-elected Board to guide their directions; one of which has been the Aurora Sports Plan delivery for the past three years.
\nSport Aurora\u2019s performance has been closely monitored by Town staff through monthly meetings and quarterly reports. Town staff has deemed that all key performance indicators, that they originally set, have been met.
\nThe Year-4 programs reported in the article; women and girls in sport, persons with disabilities, older adults, low-income accessibility, cultural-diversity and sport tourism, are well under way. Recommendations have been made by Sport Aurora after extensive consultations with many stakeholders in the Community. Committees have been formed and directions are already established. But they will stop because the Town \u201cpressed pause.\u201d
\nCouncilors Gilliland and Humfryes recognized the value of Sport Aurora and voted against the pause and against the notion that other delivery models be considered. The loss of momentum is problematic as contractors are let go and numerous Committees with valued volunteers are \u201cpaused\u201d or even abandoned.
\nVolunteers are an asset that should not be wasted. The other four Councilors and the Mayor disagreed with this logic and voted to \u201cpause.\u201d
\nThe article reports that \u201cassurances\u201d were made that Sport Aurora\u2019s cornerstone programs such as Breakfast of Champions, Sport Volunteer Recognition Lunch and the All Kids Can Play Program would continue without this \u201ccash infusion.\u201d
\nThis is not necessarily actually true. Those properties are Sport Aurora\u2019s. They will only continue provided that resources are procured as needed. Sponsorships and donors are always welcomed for such important Sport Aurora Programs. They will survive because they matter.
\nMayor Mrakas suggested that there has been \u201csome conversation\u201d regarding moving to a Sport Council or \u201cSport Board\u201d.
\nNo conversation has been had with Sport Aurora. And there is no reference in the Sport Plan about a \u201cSport Board\u201d. Sport Aurora has reviewed best practices in other municipal jurisdictions regarding the development of a Sport Council and they appear in the Reports. In the Aurora Sport Plan, a Sport Council is described, suggesting that the Town \u201creconstitute Sport Aurora into a Sport Council with an expanded mandate\u201d.
\nOn the theme of reports being unread (or not understood) is the comment made by Councillor Gallo that there wasn\u2019t a clear message of what was being achieved through Sport Plan delivery by Sport Aurora. The implication was that somehow Sport Aurora had failed to deliver. Staff reported that Sport Aurora had met every deliverable.
\nLikewise his \u201cfunding lines were blurred\u201d comment about Activate Aurora is curious. The funding lines are crystal clear. Sport Aurora received a $749,500.00 provincial grant to advance a number of initiatives and it was reported that no Town funding was or has been used for those programs.
\nIn fact, some of those provincial funds have been used to train Town recreation staff and up-skill Town personnel at no cost to the Town. In addition, provincial grant funds have been used to pay for those newly up-skilled staff to deliver some of our Programs; helping youth become more physically literate. We believe it is important that our Council ensure they are diligent and accurate when publicly commenting and during decision-making.
\nSport Aurora applauds the Town for wanting to be directly involved with the Sport Plan and take responsibility in laying a strong foundation for sport. Until now, their role has been to build and permit much needed facilities. According to the Sport Plan, the Town charges sport organizations $2M annually to use those facilities. Implementing the Sport Plan would be a positive step towards sport development and using just a fraction of those permit fees to build a strong foundation for sport seems prudent. Sport Aurora remains ready to collaborate as a community partner.<\/p>\n

The Sport Aurora Board of Directors<\/strong><\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Re: Council looks beyond Sport Aurora for sports initiatives, January 3) The first line of this story suggests that Council \u201ccould\u201d be looking beyond Sport Aurora for delivery of sports programs, citing that staff have been asked to report on \u201calternate delivery models.\u201d Yet, it is reported that staff recommended the Sport Plan delivery agreement […]<\/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":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-letters-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5UA","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-23 12:30:41","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\/22728","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=22728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22728\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}