{"id":31923,"date":"2022-09-15T13:30:38","date_gmt":"2022-09-15T17:30:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=31923"},"modified":"2022-09-15T13:30:40","modified_gmt":"2022-09-15T17:30:40","slug":"aurora-votes-2022-ward-5-candidate-steve-fleck-is-advocate-for-active-transportation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/aurora-votes-2022-ward-5-candidate-steve-fleck-is-advocate-for-active-transportation\/","title":{"rendered":"Aurora Votes 2022: Ward 5 candidate Steve Fleck is advocate for active transportation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As a 20-year resident of Aurora, Steve Fleck has seen the community \u201cgrow and evolve exponentially\u201d and, as the community experiences what he describes as \u201csome tipping point challenges in the last 20 to 30 years,\u201d he wants to be there to advocate for the concerns of his neighbours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fleck, an athlete and sports announcer, is one of five candidates vying to be the next Councillor for Ward 5. A newer section of the Aurora community, it\u2019s a neighbourhood he describes as \u201cthe happiness ward\u201d as most people he\u2019s met on the campaign trail thus far have been very positive about the current direction of the Town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, that being said, there are some challenges that are going to face Ward 5 \u2013 and the community as a whole \u2013 in the next few years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe last two Councils have been very active in developing (the updated) Official Plan, but that has to change and evolve,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019re about to run out of land to build housing on, so what happens then? How does Aurora keep going with no more land to build? It\u2019s that classic suburban sprawl which makes up the better part of Aurora. Those are the kinds of things that pulled me into this race at a high level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt a lower level, I think the move to wards is something I found attractive. I like that local representation and, frankly, talking at the doors everyone is a fan of it. We will have our local representative who can speak on our behalf. I am also cognizant of the fact that Aurora is of a size where you\u2019re not just talking about Ward 5 issues, which can be kind of minor in the grand scheme of things. There are bigger issues like what I talk about like how does Aurora grow and evolve? Where\u2019s the development going to happen? What\u2019s it going to look like? These are things we\u2019ll have to work on going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the things he says he\u2019s especially \u201cpassionate\u201d about is active transportation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the Town updates its Active Transportation Master Plan, there is, he says, room for improvement on how it is implemented that could be a \u201chuge win-win\u201d for the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA few people I have [met at the door] have brought up that [Ward 5 is] close to the GO station but far enough that they need some other way to get there other than their car,\u201d he says, adding the station is exactly 1.3 km from his home in the ward. \u201cI look forward to [the Plan] if I\u2019m going to be on the next Council, having a look at that data and information to see if there are things that can be implemented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOn some of the social media message boards, there was talk about how Aurora had slumped from 11th<\/sup> to 24th<\/sup> on a ranking of best towns to live in and I think what Aurora has to do, if you\u2019re going to move up in that ranking, is something really audacious \u2013 a good audacious that is going to set Aurora apart and make people come here. That GO station is very strategically located and a lot of people don\u2019t realize that; it\u2019s strategically located for the Aurorans who want to use it but also for people to come up from Toronto or down from Barrie.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Town Square is something he supports in general towards this goal as \u201ca good thing\u201d, and while he says people have concerns over its costs, he would like further clarification on how the facility will be \u201cutilized\u201d once complete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI know there are people who are opposed to it because of the cost and maybe they don\u2019t see the value in something like that, but my sense is some Council members\u2026saw what was going in in Newmarket and thought, \u2018Let\u2019s get that going in Aurora.\u2019 Yonge Street is a main artery and you can\u2019t maintain that vibe that you have on Main Street Newmarket on Yonge unless you\u2019re really willing to bite the bullet, restrict traffic, and do that sort of European traffic calming and controlling, but that means that people get there by other means \u2013 and that gets back to active transportation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a high-performance athlete, Fleck says this fall\u2019s Council race will be the hardest race he\u2019s tackled yet \u201cbecause there are so many factors that are beyond my control,\u201d but what he can control, he says, is what he does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am taking a high-performance athletic line from this: I can control what I do,\u201d he says. \u201cIt should never get petty. It should never get down in the gutter. We\u2019re professionals here and we, all of us, who take on this task are good communicators and should communicate as such from a high level. There is no need to be negative, petty, or go to the gutter on issues. We can work together. We might disagree, that\u2019s fine, that\u2019s the nature of life, but we can still be professionals and move forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople are very calm in Ward 5. They think everything is amazing and the complaints are few and far between. They\u2019re complimentary and thanking me for running, and I\u2019m pumped about that. It\u2019s encouraging.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

As a 20-year resident of Aurora, Steve Fleck has seen the community \u201cgrow and evolve exponentially\u201d and, as the community experiences what he describes as \u201csome tipping point challenges in the last 20 to 30 years,\u201d he wants to be there to advocate for the concerns of his neighbours. Fleck, an athlete and sports announcer, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":31904,"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-31923","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\/2022\/09\/2022-09-15-04.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-8iT","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-14 13:40:49","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\/31923","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=31923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}