{"id":7815,"date":"2014-08-20T11:49:37","date_gmt":"2014-08-20T15:49:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=7815"},"modified":"2014-08-27T16:37:25","modified_gmt":"2014-08-27T20:37:25","slug":"status-of-part-time-councillors-continues-to-be-political-football","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/status-of-part-time-councillors-continues-to-be-political-football\/","title":{"rendered":"Status of part-time Councillors continues to be political football"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

The issue of whether or not Aurora\u2019s Councillors should be considered part-time or full-time positions continues to be a topic of debate around the Council table.<\/p>\n

The latest move to get this topic out in the open for a full discussion occurred last week through a Notice of Motion presented to Council by Councillor Evelyn Buck. <\/p>\n

In her motion, Councillor Buck called for a Special Council Meeting to be added to the Municipal Calendar before September 12, which happens to be the cut-off date for nominations for the October 27 Municipal Election, to address the issue of Council compensation. <\/p>\n

In her motion, she cites a report before Council last month which called on members to decide whether or not compensation for Mayor and Council should be a graded salary kept in line with how salaries for municipal employees are pegged. After a healthy debate, however, Council opted to keep the status quo for the time being and leave it for the 2014 \u2013 2018 term to decide. <\/p>\n

This, however, did not sit well with Councillor Buck.<\/p>\n

\u201cMembers of Council salaries have not been revisited since the 2003 to 2006 term of Council,\u201d she said in her motion, calling for a meeting before September 12 to review the report. \u201c[The meeting will review] the staff report and any other questions pertaining to Members of Council salaries, benefits, and status as part-time Councillors for the 2014 to 2018 Term of Council.\u201d<\/p>\n

This meeting, however, is unlikely to happen before September 12 as Councillors rejected a bid to waive procedural bylaw and discuss the meeting request at last Tuesday\u2019s Council meeting. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason I am asking for the procedure to be waived \u2013 and I am not in the habit of doing that \u2013 is to allow this motion to be dealt with tonight in order for the matter to be considered at a separate meeting,\u201d said Councillor Buck. \u201cI am not asking for discussion to take place tonight, I am asking for staff to schedule a [Special Council Meeting] so that Council can consider the matter before then. If we don\u2019t consider the matter before then, we are going into an election without any candidates knowing what is involved [in salaries] and I believe there are a number of changes that need to be made, not just with the Council compensation.\u201d<\/p>\n

For those voting against the motion, timing was everything \u2013 whether it was timing for public participation or getting to more pressing matters at hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there are too many people away from the Town of Aurora in the month of August and I think it should come to a GC (General Committee Meeting) to be fully discussed with the public and, if the public want to come to us, for them to be able to [at] a GC.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The issue of whether or not Aurora\u2019s Councillors should be considered part-time or full-time positions continues to be a topic of debate around the Council table.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7815","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=7815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7815\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}