{"id":31954,"date":"2022-09-22T18:26:13","date_gmt":"2022-09-22T22:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=31954"},"modified":"2022-09-22T18:26:14","modified_gmt":"2022-09-22T22:26:14","slug":"aurora-votes-2022-gaertner-focused-on-protecting-residents-and-businesses-in-ward-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/aurora-votes-2022-gaertner-focused-on-protecting-residents-and-businesses-in-ward-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Aurora Votes 2022: Gaertner focused on \u201cprotecting residents and businesses\u201d in Ward 3"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As Aurora\u2019s longest-serving Council member, Wendy Gaertner is not afraid to sometimes find herself in the minority when it comes to a municipal decision. But, as the Town\u2019s longest-serving lawmaker, differing views are \u201cjust good for democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gaertner, who is in the middle of her sixth municipal election campaign, says she often finds herself going against the grain when it comes to issues of development and environment, but \u201cI don\u2019t think you get re-elected four times without people having a pretty good idea of what you stand for.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have been very clear about that and I am able to speak up at Council,\u201d says Gaertner, who is looking for another mandate from voters in Ward 3. \u201cIt\u2019s hard when you\u2019re going to be the only opposing vote.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Should she be returned to the Council table, one of the key areas Gaertner says she\u2019s looking forward to tackling is the Town\u2019s new Official Plan, which is expected to come before the new Council in the first quarter of 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI want to ensure it has strong protection to maintain our employment land because it\u2019s so important for taxes and jobs, and the more employment tax we can bring in, the more we can offset the taxes that residents and businesses pay,\u201d she says. \u201cProtection for the environment [is another priority], including strict protection for trees. To me, the Fundamental Principles [in the new Official Plan] of providing a range and mix of housing, including affordable, and the principle of building a greener community\u2026those are the things I really want to make sure are in the Official Plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf I win, I have the goal of protecting the residents and businesses in my ward. I think it is very important to look at the big picture and what\u2019s in the best interests of the whole Town. Taxpayers, when you go door-to-door, they always want to know about taxes. Whatever is currently happening [with] our future capital expenditures, it\u2019s really important to keep your eye on spending taxpayer money with common sense. We don\u2019t have much land for big planning developments and, to me, some of them have been an issue with protecting the environment. Whatever is still on the table [this Council] and whatever comes in the future, that\u2019s of great importance to me. We have all seen what\u2019s happening with climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zeroing on the issues that impact Ward 3 specifically, Gaertner says that traffic on Henderson Drive, particularly speeding and noise from truck traffic, is of particular concern. There are no traffic lights, she says, beyond self-activated pedestrian signals, and \u201cthere are no traffic calming measures.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe can do traffic calming on Henderson,\u201d she says, noting that more work needs to be done in the upcoming term to protect environmentally sensitive lands in the area, including the so-called Henderson Forest. \u201cWe have a long way to go to protect that land and it is really important land.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Gaertner is a veteran of municipal election campaigns, this one will be different in that she\u2019s running in a specific ward rather than to serve all of Aurora. She voted against Aurora adopting a Ward System, a position she still holds, despite it making it easier to knock on the doors of all potential constituents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe had two concerns from residents: there wasn\u2019t enough consultation and there was no choice to say \u2018no wards\u2019 when they did the survey,\u201d she contends. \u201cThe last referendum was very close. People were quite angry that there wasn\u2019t a choice to say, \u2018Leave it as is.\u2019 It\u2019s quite an interesting thing when you vote against something that will be better for you!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking back at votes in the outgoing Council term, Gaertner says she\u2019s particularly proud of motions she brought forward to look at policies to maintain and protect Aurora\u2019s tree canopy \u2013 \u201cright now we have a compensation policy and you can have clear cutting of land and I think a lot of people are upset by that\u201d \u2013 and a motion to improve communications between municipal staff and residents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere seems to be a missing link in the communication process that has angered a lot of residents,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s important that we keep our residents in the information loop because when we don\u2019t do that it makes them angry and it causes problems, and it\u2019s unfair to residents. I want to ensure that all the protections possible are in place with respect to noise, with respect to garbage, with respect to parking hazardous equipment on the road. Redevelopment is very hard for a neighbourhood and even when it is just one house it can go on for quite a while.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy over-arching goal is to listen. We are elected to help our residents and our businesses to create the very best community we can. I have a degree in sociology, I don\u2019t have a degree in finance, the environment, climate change. I never worked in building construction or design. I am not in need of an affordable place to live, I live in the Aurora Village Co-op. I need to listen to the people who feel strongly about these issues.\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 Aurora\u2019s longest-serving Council member, Wendy Gaertner is not afraid to sometimes find herself in the minority when it comes to a municipal decision. But, as the Town\u2019s longest-serving lawmaker, differing views are \u201cjust good for democracy.\u201d Gaertner, who is in the middle of her sixth municipal election campaign, says she often finds herself going […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":31955,"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_feature_clip_id":0,"_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-31954","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\/2022-09-22-04.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-8jo","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-05 16:18:15","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\/31954","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=31954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}