{"id":24180,"date":"2019-07-04T18:14:25","date_gmt":"2019-07-04T22:14:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=24180"},"modified":"2019-07-04T18:14:35","modified_gmt":"2019-07-04T22:14:35","slug":"skateboard-park-rebuild-gets-council-greenlight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/skateboard-park-rebuild-gets-council-greenlight\/","title":{"rendered":"Skateboard park rebuild gets Council greenlight"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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

A $600,000 project to\nreplace the popular skateboard park outside the Aurora Family Leisure Complex (AFLC)\nreceived the formal green light from Council last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The formal approval,\nsatisfying the conditional approval of the project within the 2019 Budget, came\na week after a contentious debate at the Committee level on the condition of\nthe skatepark and the causes of its rapid deterioration since opening in 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As The Auroran\nreported last week, problems with the skate park became apparent almost as soon\nas the facility opened with concrete surfacing failing to withstand its first\nwinter. Significant cracking was also evident, due to the retention of water\nbeneath the surface and other on-site drainage issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The site, along with\nconstriction shortfalls on the part of the contractor, have been the subject of\nan investigation carried out by an external consultant retained by the Town\nwhich found \u201ccritical deficiencies\u201d in the build.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coming into focus at\nthe Committee level last month was just who should be held liable for the\nproblems. These concerns were raised by Councillor John Gallo, who was subsequently\ntold these issues had been addressed in a confidential memo circulated to local\nlawmakers which contained information protected under solicitor-client\nprivilege.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Questions had\npreviously been asked behind closed doors on whether the construction company\ncould either be held liable for the build and\/or whether the Town could recoup\nsome of the money spent on the project. At the end of the day, however, time\nhad lapsed and, in the words of CAO Doug Nadorozny, Aurora was \u201coutside any\nreasonable hope of successfully making a claim at this stage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But questions\ncontinued into last week\u2019s Council meeting, with Councillor Gallo pressing for\nthe confidentiality surrounding the memo be waived and its contents released to\nthe public. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the outset,\nCouncillor Gallo moved that the reconstruction project be moved until this\nmonth\u2019s Council cycle pending the release of the memo as work was not set to\nbegin until late summer or early fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI had some\nconversations with [Town Solicitor] Patricia De Sario and it is my\nunderstanding that there is no urgency to pass this tonight and one more cycle\nof Council would be fine in terms of moving this item forward,\u201d said Councillor\nGallo, asking the memo be placed on the agenda of a Closed Session meeting for\nfurther Council discussion. \u201cMy objective, as it was last week, is to first\nhave the discussion and, I will be frank with you, after that discussion, I am\ngoing to probably be suggesting that the memo be made public so that we can\nproperly communicate to the residents the full story of this project.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some Council members\nwere skeptical on the impact this memo might have on the decision-making\nprocess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am not sure what\nthis Closed Session agenda is going to prove,\u201d said Councillor Sandra Humfryes.\n\u201cWe have all the information, we\u2019ve worked on this for years, is this going to\nstop any progress in terms of getting this skate park moving? By the time we have\na Closed Session, and who knows what comes out of that? This is something we\nhave let the residents down for many reasons that we all know and I would like\nthis to move forward. We have kids who are going to go to Newmarket and\nanywhere else (to skate) but not here. I don\u2019t want to see the delay here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In that event,\nCouncil decided to ultimately go into Closed Session during last week\u2019s Council\nmeeting and make a decision then and there after Ms. De Sario said as the memo\ncontains legal advice still subject to privilege, Council had to make a formal\ndecision on what could and could not be released to the public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDo you have to go\ninto closed session to do it? Only if you have questions for me, then I will be\nproviding further legal advice,\u201d she told Council members. \u201cIf there aren\u2019t\ngoing to be any questions, you could potentially think about waiving [the memo]\nnow and making it public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillor Gallo said\nhe \u201cwasn\u2019t interested in delaying anything\u201d and was interested instead in \u201cthe\npublic having full disclosure\u201d and didn\u2019t object to having the Closed Session\nat that point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am fine with\nsupporting the motion as it stands,\u201d said Councillor Michael Thompson. \u201cI would\nprefer to go into closed session and the only reason is I would like to hear\nfrom Ms. De Sario if there are any ramifications of making that report public.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Council ultimately\nspent just over half an hour behind closed doors, emerging to pass a motion to\nrelease the memo subject to redactions made in private.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The motion was passed\n6 \u2013 1 with Councillor Rachel Gilliland being the dissenting vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Town is yet to confirm when this memo will\nbe made public.<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A $600,000 project to replace the popular skateboard park outside the Aurora Family Leisure Complex (AFLC) received the formal green light from Council last week.<\/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-24180","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\/p3D2k4-6i0","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-31 14:30:38","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\/24180","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=24180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24180\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}