{"id":25118,"date":"2019-10-31T14:42:51","date_gmt":"2019-10-31T18:42:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=25118"},"modified":"2019-11-08T11:58:21","modified_gmt":"2019-11-08T16:58:21","slug":"ward-system-reviewed-as-consultation-begins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/ward-system-reviewed-as-consultation-begins\/","title":{"rendered":"Ward system reviewed as consultation begins"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Public consultation has begun into whether or not Aurora\nshould adopt a ward system of governance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just seven interested residents attended the first public\nmeeting on the matter last Wednesday night at the Aurora Cultural Centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Led by consultants Gary Davidson and Beate Bowron, the\nsession \u2013 the second of which took place at Town Hall on Monday night \u2013 was an\nopportunity for residents to weigh in on whether Aurora should ditch its current\nat-large system of Council, whereby six Councillors are elected from across the\nTown to represent the entire community, in favour of a ward system with one\nCouncil member (at least) elected by one specific area of the municipality to\nrepresent their interests. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The public information session follows Council\u2019s decision\nmade early in its mandate to bring a ward system to fruition \u2013 despite it being\nvoted down in a public referendum in 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs towns grow, they tend to gravitate towards ward\nsystems,\u201d Mr. Davidson told the sparsely populated room. \u201cAurora is one of the\nlargest towns in Ontario that still runs an at-large system. The only one that\nis larger [with an at-large system] is Sarnia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAurora Council has asked its staff to look at the\npossibility of going from an at-large system to a ward system and specifically\nwhat the wards would look like. You can only make a decision once you\u2019ve seen\nsome options on wards. Council is going through this process to look at some\noptions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The purpose of the Electoral System Review (ESR) is to\ninvestigate which communities within Aurora should be kept within the same\nwards, whether there are any natural or built features \u2013 such as the Oak Ridges\nMoraine, train tracks, or major traffic arteries \u2013 that would be obvious ward\nboundaries, and how population should be distributed according to ward\nboundaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe ESR is not about whether the current system of\nelecting Councillors should stay as it is or not,\u201d he continued. \u201cAt the end of\nthe process, Council will make a decision on whether they like one of the ward\nsystems and want to move on that. The process is to look at what wards would\nlook like so an informed decision can be made.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First and foremost to keep in mind, he told residents,\nwas achieving effective representation and \u201cvoter parity\u201d where everybody\u2019s\nvote carries a similar weight. Voters in a ward with a population of 500, he\nillustrated, would be weighted twice as much as a voter in a ward of 1,000\nresidents, and this is best avoided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn an at-large system, voter parity is never an issue\nbecause everybody is voting for the Mayor and all the Councillors,\u201d he said.\n\u201cIn a ward system, because you\u2019re going to try and design wards which are\ngeographical entities within the Town, you have to try and balance it off; they\ndon\u2019t have to be exact, but you try to get it within 10 to 15 per cent of each\nother so my vote has a similar weight as anybody else\u2019s vote.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In bringing their ideas to the table, residents were\nfirst asked to consider areas of interest, including long-established\ncommunities with specific identities and interests, perhaps even those\nadvocated for by already established ratepayer organizations, consider a\nCouncillor\u2019s capacity to represent an area, and how geographic challenges, such\nas Aurora\u2019s north-heavy population versus the sparsely populated Oak Ridges\nMoraine settlements in the south, can be addressed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another factor to consider, the consultants, said, was\nfuture growth projections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you decide to go to wards, you want them to last for not\njust the next election, but elections into the future,\u201d said Mr. Davidson,\nnoting the target year to launch a ward system, should Council decide to adopt\na particular model, is 2026. \u201cWe try to design them [to last] three, possibly\nfour elections. If a ward system works in 2026, it will probably work in 2030\nand possibly in 2034.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Discussions were led by Ms. Bowron and followed a similar\nset of questions outlined in an online survey conducted by the Town, which has\ncollected more than 150 responses so far. Ms. Bowron said that following the\ntwo public information sessions, feedback received would be compiled and\ncondensed into a report due before Council in November. From there, further\npublic sessions will be rolled out by December with the final report, including\nward options, ready \u201cin about February\u201d for Council\u2019s consideration in June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the perspective of resident Jim Jackson, some\nquestions were left off the list that should be considered, including\nsocio-economic areas of Aurora, areas that are defined by demographics, \u201cold\nversus new,\u201d etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou really have to start to list priorities with what\u2019s\nimportant,\u201d said Mr. Jackson, adding he would like to see \u201cat least six\u201d wards\nadopted, one for every \u201c10,000 people into the future, so you don\u2019t need to\nreinvent the wheel every election.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daniel Koffman expressed a similar view, questioning how\nthe needs of sparsely populated areas of Aurora, such as in the southeast,\nwould be addressed through a ward system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of the issues with Aurora is how it is laid out,\u201d\nsaid Mr. Koffman. \u201cYou have a huge chunk of Moraine lumped in with another ward\nand then you don\u2019t have representation for those few people on the Moraine if\nthey\u2019re lumped in with more of an established residential community. It\u2019s\ncompletely different needs and that can become an issue.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking in support of a ward system was Anna Kroeplin,\nwho attended the meeting on behalf of her Ratepayers Association. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt least residents will know who is in charge [in a ward system] and who they need to speak to first,\u201d she said. \u201cIf I don\u2019t get the answer I want from one Councillor, [I can go to] another Councillor and it just keeps filtering down. It\u2019s very frustrating for the residents and the ratepayers to not get the answers we need. I think the ward [system] will bring that communication.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir <\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Public consultation has begun into whether or not Aurora should adopt a ward system of governance. Just seven interested residents attended the first public meeting on the matter last Wednesday night at the Aurora Cultural Centre. Led by consultants Gary Davidson and Beate Bowron, the session \u2013 the second of which took place at Town […]<\/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":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25118","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\/p3D2k4-6x8","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-22 16:21:09","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\/25118","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=25118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25118\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}