{"id":8453,"date":"2014-10-08T21:03:07","date_gmt":"2014-10-09T01:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=8453"},"modified":"2014-10-29T17:22:06","modified_gmt":"2014-10-29T21:22:06","slug":"inside-aurora-door-stop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/inside-aurora-door-stop\/","title":{"rendered":"INSIDE AURORA: Door Stop"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Scott Johnston<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was a quiet day in early October when the doorbell rang.
\nExpecting the usual folks flogging yard maintenance or window replacement, upon opening the door I was surprised to discover a large number of people milling about on my porch and spilling out onto the lawn.
\nThey all smiled at me and several said in unison \u201cHi. I\u2019m running for Aurora Council. Please vote for me.\u201d
\nTaken aback, and not knowing which of them was the nominee, I addressed the collective in general. \u201cIt\u2019s great to see you have so many supporters, but which one of you is the candidate?\u201d
\nA lady at the front replied, \u201cWe all are.\u201d
\nThis prompted many smiles and nods.
\n\u201cWhat, everyone?\u201d I asked, starting a mental count of the mob.
\n\u201cYes,\u201d several replied, pushing forward to hand me campaign literature, and interrupting my tally at about the twenty person mark.
\n\u201cWhat are you all doing here together?\u201d I asked, shuffling their fliers into a thick pile, and raising my voice to be heard by those in the back.
\n\u201cWell, we all know how important it is to go door to door during an election,\u201d said a man in the middle of the crowd. \u201cYou know, the personal touch.\u201d
\n\u201cBecause there are so many candidates this year,\u201d came another voice, \u201cwe all kept running into each other as we canvassed through Town.\u201d
\nA person carrying an election sign continued, \u201cWe found people were getting confused as to just who was who and what platform went with which candidate.\u201d
\n\u201cAnd there were some residents,\u201d piped up a man in glasses, \u201cwho were annoyed at being visited by several different nominees a day, so we thought it would be easier to all go out together.\u201d
\n\u201cPlus, this way,\u201d whispered another lady up front, \u201cyou can make sure no one badmouths you behind your back.\u201d
\nAt this point, some of the candidates at the rear of the crowd who obviously felt they weren\u2019t getting enough quality time with a prospective voter started pushing forward.
\n\u201cCan I put a sign on your lawn? I\u2019m running for more accountability,\u201d said one.
\n\u201cYou should vote for me. I promise better fiscal management,\u201d said another.
\nThen the voices all started coming at once.
\n\u201cHey. I\u2019m promising fiscal management!\u201d
\n\u201cI thought you wanted more parks?\u201d
\n\u201cI feel finances are more important.\u201d
\n\u201cNo, the key issue is revitalizing the downtown core.\u201d
\n\u201cIt is not. It\u2019s our crumbling infrastructure!\u201d
\n\u201cWhat\u2019s wrong with supporting parks?\u201d said a man, who with some irony, was standing in our flowerbed. \u201cHey, everybody, this candidate\u2019s against parks!\u201d
\nAs you can imagine, this started off a flurry of arguments and even some pushing and shoving.
\nBy this stage our flowers were beyond repair. At least it was the end of the season.
\nI listened politely for a bit longer, but all this back and forth discussion was pretty confusing, and I was no longer the focus of attention as candidates were now directing all of their arguments at each other.
\nI picked up the copy of The Auroran that had just been delivered in case someone tried to hit one of their fellow candidates with it, and wishing them all well, which I doubt anyone heard, closed the door.
\nI\u2019m not even sure if they were aware that I was no longer there. I could still hear the muffled barbs being flung around outside.
\nI just hope they\u2019ve resolved their arguments and moved on to another neighbour\u2019s house by tomorrow. I\u2019d hate to have to run that gauntlet if they\u2019re still on my porch when I leave for work.<\/p>\n

Feel free to e-mail Scott at: machellscorners@gmail.com<\/strong><\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Scott Johnston It was a quiet day in early October when the doorbell rang. Expecting the usual folks flogging yard maintenance or window replacement, upon opening the door I was surprised to discover a large number of people milling about on my porch and spilling out onto the lawn. They all smiled at me […]<\/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_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":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8453","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\/p3D2k4-2cl","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-23 04:59:35","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\/8453","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=8453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8453\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}