{"id":26791,"date":"2020-06-18T19:06:02","date_gmt":"2020-06-18T23:06:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=26791"},"modified":"2020-06-25T09:10:25","modified_gmt":"2020-06-25T13:10:25","slug":"six-ward-system-recommended-for-aurora-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/six-ward-system-recommended-for-aurora-council\/","title":{"rendered":"Six Ward system recommended for Aurora Council"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Consultants carrying out Aurora\u2019s Electoral System Review\nrecommend the Town ditch its current at-large Council system in favour of\ndividing Aurora up into six wards in time for the 2022 municipal election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Local lawmakers will consider recommendations stemming\nfrom the Electoral System Review (ESR) at the Committee level this week and, if\na recommendation is made to Council, a final decision could be made as early as\nJune 23.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Should Council adopt the consultant\u2019s recommendations,\nthe current system where eligible voters select a Mayor and up to six Council\ncandidates to represent the community as a whole will be consigned to history\nin favour of voting for a Mayor to represent the interests of the entire\ncommunity and a candidate to represent the interests of each of six electoral\ndistricts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ward 1, if adopted as proposed, would be bordered by the\nrailroad tracks in the east, Orchard Heights Boulevard in the south, Bathurst\nStreet in the west, and the Town\u2019s boundary with Newmarket in the north.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Orchard Heights would be the northern boundary of Ward 2,\nwith Yonge Street at the easternmost edge, Kennedy Street West in the south,\nand Bathurst in the west. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bathurst, Kennedy Street West, and Yonge would form the\nwest, north and east edge of Ward 3, with the railway line as the southern\nmarker. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The largest proposed ward by area is Ward 4, which is\nbounded at the south by Bloomington Road, to the west by the railway tracks, Wellington\nStreet East in the north and Highway 404 in the east. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aurora\u2019s fastest growing communities in the northeast\nwould be divided in two by Mavrinac Boulevard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the west side of Mavrinac is the proposed Ward 5,\nwhich is bordered by St. John\u2019s Sideroad in the north, the rail line in the\nwest, and Wellington in the south.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ward Six would include the entire northeast quadrant of\nMavrinac and Wellington Street West up to the boundary with Newmarket in the\nnorth and Highway 404 in the east.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe recommendation is based on projected populations for\nthe Town, an objective analysis of the ward boundary options for Aurora and two\nrounds of public engagement,\u201d said consultants in their final report to\nCouncil. \u201cAlong with the expertise of the Consultant Team, Round 1 informed the\ndevelopment of four options for a new ward system and Round 2 informed the\nselection of the preferred option and its ward boundaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGiven the projected populations, the recommended ward\nalignment should serve Aurora for three and possibly four municipal elections \u2013\n2022, 2026, 2030, and perhaps 2034. The recommended ward configuration achieves\neffective representation and is based on principles established by the Local\nPlanning Appeals Tribunal (LPAT) and the Courts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In all, the consultant team says nearly 600 individuals\nparticipated through the various rounds of the ESR, a figure they deemed \u201cvery\nrespectable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis high rate of public involvement is undoubtedly due\nto some of the innovative ways the project was promoted, such as through mobile\nsigns, the rotating display panels at Town Hall and community centres and paid\nsocial media advertisements,\u201d they said. \u201cBy comparison, ward boundary reviews\nin Vaughan (population 300,000) involved 235 individuals; Hamilton (population\n540,000) 447 individuals; and Ajax (population 120,000) 180 individuals.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the time of the second round, consultants pitched four\noptions to the public \u2013 ward configurations of three, four, five and six districts\nrespectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Four and six ward configurations eventually rose to the\ntop, and consultants were tasked with making a final recommendation from these\ntwo options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe four-ward configuration would most likely lead to a\nCouncil size of five \u2013 four ward councillors and a mayor,\u201d they found. \u201cDuring\nthe public process, there was some discussion of having an elected Deputy\nMayor, but opinions on this issue were divided. There was some concern that\nCouncil would then have an even number of members, which was seen as\nundesirable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe six-ward configuration results in a Council of seven members, six ward councillors and a mayor. This is the same size as the current Council. Aurora Town Council has recently reduced its size from nine to seven and, at this juncture, a further reduction does not seem appropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Consultants carrying out Aurora\u2019s Electoral System Review recommend the Town ditch its current at-large Council system in favour of dividing Aurora up into six wards in time for the 2022 municipal election. Local lawmakers will consider recommendations stemming from the Electoral System Review (ESR) at the Committee level this week and, if a recommendation is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":26793,"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-26791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/2020-06-18-02.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6Y7","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-30 04:09:21","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\/26791","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=26791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}