{"id":2656,"date":"2013-06-19T17:58:22","date_gmt":"2013-06-19T21:58:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=2656"},"modified":"2013-06-26T15:15:34","modified_gmt":"2013-06-26T19:15:34","slug":"aurora-to-tighten-communications-after-cell-tower-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/aurora-to-tighten-communications-after-cell-tower-issue\/","title":{"rendered":"Aurora to tighten communications after Cell Tower issue"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Communication errors were made, helping pave the way for the controversial cell phone tower in King that caused protests among adjacent Aurora neighbours, according to municipal staff.<\/p>\n

That is the message due before Councillors this week from Marco Ramunno, Aurora\u2019s Director of Planning. Mr. Ramunno\u2019s report responds to calls made by Council in April to review how the Town\u2019s management handled Bell Canada\u2019s application for the tower and why they simply responded \u201cno comment\u201d to Bell Canada seeking input on the proposal.<\/p>\n

In his report, Mr. Ramunno says the Town of Aurora received an email from consultants on behalf of Bell on May 11, 2012, outlining Bell\u2019s proposals for the Bathurst Street tower. Four days later, however, a planner within his department acknowledged the email by stating Aurora had \u201cno comment\u201d on the proposal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis email response was not sent by the Department Head and should not have been considered as a final comment,\u201d said Mr. Ramunno. \u201cOfficial comments sent on behalf of the Town in response to a request for comments happen under the signature of the Manager or Director. The email sent did not conform to the practice and should not have been considered a formal response from the Town. However, the receiver was not aware of this and took the comment as a formal response.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt should be noted that Bell has stated that\u2026it was not asking nor interested in comments on the matter from the Town as this was a matter for King Township to deal with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Ramunno\u2019s report details what transpired since the initial communication from Bell\u2019s consultants \u2013 including a public consultation session which eventually took place after a false start and low attendance \u2013 up to the fracas this past April where several upset Aurora neighbours bordering Bathurst Street, just north of Henderson Drive, came forward to express their concerns about the tower looming over their back yards.
\nAs a result, Mr. Ramunno has recommended more stringent rules in how these matters will be handled in the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a result of the \u2018no comment\u2019 email sent by one of the Planning staff on this matter, the director has provided clear direction to planning staff that any formal comment from the Department on such sensitive matters are to be sent via letter and should be authored and co-signed by the director,\u201d says Mr. Ramunno. \u201cThe Town\u2019s current protocol requires a letter from the Director of Planning Services will be provided to the proponent and Industry Canada stating any comments or concerns, if any, to the proposed tower.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn response to the differences in the public consultation process followed by other municipalities, future applications for telecommunication towers from adjacent municipalities or within Aurora\u2019s boundaries will be presented to Aurora Council via the report from the planning department with a formal recommendation of Council. The report will indicate the consultation process that was followed and comments from the Town and residents on the proposed Tower.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regardless of what happens internally at Town Hall with these matters, more needs to be done to reach out to people within the community who might be affected by the tower proposals in question, Mr. Ramunno concludes. He notes that Kings\u2019 protocol in these situations requires them to host public information sessions to residents living within 250 metres of the proposed site. Only 10 Aurora property owners were \u201callegedly\u201d notified of King\u2019s meeting, Mr. Ramunno says. <\/p>\n

Aurora should work with King to draft mutually beneficial \u2013 and complementary \u2013 rules to govern residential notification and cell towers.
\nIn early May, following a motion from King Councillor Peter Grandilli, their municipal staff were requested \u201cto work collaboratively with the Town of Aurora staff to draft a resolution and protocol to ultimately be forwarded to Industry Canada, addressing mutual concerns and impacts from communication tower installations within both municipalities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Further suggested changes to the process coming from a report from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities up for Councillors\u2019 consideration at the committee level this week include written notice being more obvious to residents, including literally spelling out the purpose of the letter directly on the envelope, to ensure that such letters are not mistaken for junk mail.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Communication errors were made, helping pave the way for the controversial cell phone tower in King that caused protests among adjacent Aurora neighbours, according to municipal staff.<\/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":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-GQ","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-17 21:39:01","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\/2656","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=2656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2656\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}