{"id":23815,"date":"2019-05-16T17:21:26","date_gmt":"2019-05-16T21:21:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23815"},"modified":"2019-05-23T16:03:36","modified_gmt":"2019-05-23T20:03:36","slug":"ward-review-wont-wait-for-province","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/ward-review-wont-wait-for-province\/","title":{"rendered":"Ward review won\u2019t wait for Province"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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

Public consultations on adopting a ward system in Aurora\nwon\u2019t wait for the Province, according to Council.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Local lawmakers are expected to turn down a\nrecommendation from the Town\u2019s Governance Ad-Hoc Committee this week\nrecommending the Town hit the breaks on beginning a public consultation process\nthat could lead to adopting a ward system of government adopting a ward system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As reported by The Auroran last week, Council members\nwent into last week\u2019s General Committee meeting facing a recommendation from\nthe Governance group to put an electoral review of local government on the\nbackburner pending the Province\u2019s Regional review that could result in\nsignificant electoral changes across Ontario.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Council had other ideas. Sitting at the Committee\nlevel last Tuesday, the members voted to forge ahead and are poised to ratify\ntheir decision this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cI think it is\nimportant for us to have the committee begin work on this right away, work with\nthe consultant and bring it back to Council for us to make a decision,\u201d said\nMayor Tom Mrakas, calling on his fellow Council members to forge ahead in\napproving an electoral review at the municipal level. \u201cThe review that the\nProvince is doing, for all intents and purposes, is not going to change any\nboundaries and there is going to be no amalgamation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To underscore his point, Mayor Mrakas said he had\nrecently met with Newmarket-Aurora MPP Christine Elliott, questioning \u201cWill\nthere be an Aurora next year?\u201d Mayor Mrakas said she appeared taken aback at\nthe question, asking him why that would be a thought. Pressed further, Mayor\nMrakas said Ms. Elliott\u2019s response to whether amalgamation was in the cards for\nAurora was an \u201cabsolutely not,\u201d providing assurances that was not part of the\nProvince\u2019s review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am confident from hearing that from the Minister,\u201d\nMayor Mrakas continued. \u201cI am confident moving forward with this. I think it is\nimportant for us to get moving on this so we can meet timelines. There are\ntimelines [we have to meet ahead of the 2022 municipal election] and I would\nprefer that we do it sooner rather than later.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This view was supported by the majority of Council, with\nCouncillor Sandra Humfryes stating that while she appreciated all the work the\nGovernance Ad-Hoc Committee had done in making their recommendations to\nCouncil, it was important to move forward to meet deadlines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThree or four years pass by very quickly,\u201d she said.\n\u201cThere is a lot of work that needs to be done and I really want to see this\nmove forward. I also don\u2019t want to wait for the Province to do anything because\nlately I am not too pleased with some of the things that are going on, so I\nthink we need to move forward with our own business and go from there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Councillor Harold Kim said he was in \u201ctotal\nagreement\u201d with moving forward on an Aurora-level electoral review, he\nquestioned why this issue was being moved forward despite the public voting in\nfavour of keeping Aurora\u2019s present at-large voting system \u2013 that is, a system where\nsix Council members are elected by the Town as a whole to represent the\ncommunity as a whole, rather than one Council member per neighbourhood \u2013 when\nit was put to a public vote in 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of the things we looked at with this report is\nAurora is the biggest community in Ontario that uses the at-large system to\nelect their representatives,\u201d said Town Clerk Mike de Rond. \u201cIt warrants a\nlook. All options will be on the table. We have heard from people who would\nlike to see at least options for a ward system; it will give the public what\nthat might look like, different configurations. It is worth a study at the\nmoment and then we can go from there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Councillor Wendy Gaertner said she was not in\nfavour of adopting a ward system, she conceded the review was warranted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think we need to explore the possibilities,\u201d she said.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also speaking in favour of moving ahead with the review\nwas Councillor Michael Thompson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said he appreciated the Committee\u2019s input and concern\n\u201cabout not wasting taxpayers\u2019 dollars should the boundaries be changed,\u201d but it\nwas important to keep momentum going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have had conversations with our CAO that if the Town\nof Aurora\u2019s boundaries changed, it would impact our organization on all\nlevels,\u201d he said. \u201cYet, as we went through the Budget process, we proceeded as\nif it was business as usual and I would suggest that is the same [here]: we\ncontinue to move forward and take care of the business needs of today. Any\nchanges to the boundaries, any talk of anything significant such as\namalgamation, would have a significant impact. All departments would be\naffected, yet we still carry on. I see this no differently. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen we first approached this last term and had\nconversations, our clerk was clear to us that this would take a significant\namount of time and we didn\u2019t have enough time last term to do it because\nwhatever needs to be done needs to be in place the year before the elections by\nDecember 31. While we have two and a half years to go through this process, I\nthink it is going to take a considerable amount of time to engage the public,\nbring on the consultant, have conversations about what is the best system of\nrepresentation and if it is wards, what the boundaries look like. I can see it\ngoing back and forth for a fair bit of time and I would rather provide more\ntime to the community to weigh in on this than to kind of shrink those\ntimelines and run into challenges along the road.\u201d<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Public consultations on adopting a ward system in Aurora won\u2019t wait for the Province, according to Council.<\/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":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23815","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\/p3D2k4-6c7","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-25 06:56:01","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\/23815","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=23815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23815\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}