{"id":8651,"date":"2014-10-22T17:14:35","date_gmt":"2014-10-22T21:14:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=8651"},"modified":"2014-10-22T17:14:35","modified_gmt":"2014-10-22T21:14:35","slug":"election-choice-is-clear-for-this-resident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/election-choice-is-clear-for-this-resident\/","title":{"rendered":"Election choice is clear for this resident"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aurora is facing two very distinct Mayoral candidate choices heading into Monday\u2019s election. For me the choice is clear. I\u2019ve made a choice to support the candidate who has lead Aurora Council for the past four years.
\nThe candidate who has moved Aurora forward, despite facing some whose actions have attempted to block progress – actions cloaked in the guise of \u201cthe need for transparency\u201d, but in fact, are borne out of pure political spite.
\nMayor Geoff Dawe is a friend. I have great respect for his leadership, his honesty, his character, and I know Geoff to be a man who considers each issue carefully.
\nHe has no agenda, other than to serve the Town he and his family have called home for 37 years. \u201cIntegrity\u201d is one of those words we often grow weary of hearing during a campaign, it seems each candidate will speak to their own degree of this attribute. But if you know Geoff, you\u2019ll know he doesn\u2019t simply talk integrity, he lives it. Integrity embodies many traits, most importantly an unwavering level of honesty.
\nIt\u2019s been said that in war, the first casualty is truth. As election campaigns are often characterized as war, it\u2019s disheartening that we have seen truth so corrupted by the other Aurora Mayoral candidate, John Gallo.
\nThroughout this campaign, Councillor Gallo has faced one constant glaring question from the public; \u201cwhere have you been for the past four years?\u201d His record of absenteeism from most Town events has been staggering, most notably having not bothered to attend any of the four Aurora Sesquicentennial celebrations.
\nThe Town of Aurora marked a major milestone in 2013 in celebrating its 150th birthday. A volunteer committee worked hard to produce events, each designed to celebrate a different aspect of Aurora\u2019s past, it\u2019s present, and it\u2019s future. Support at each event was shown through the participation of great numbers of citizens and municipal representatives save one – John Gallo.
\nHow can a man who purports to be \u201cthe voice of the people\u201d not even bother to show up at events designed to celebrate the Town in which these very people live, work, and play?
\nBad judgment and inappropriate remarks, however, seem to have become somewhat of a go-to campaign strategy for Councillor Gallo.
\nWitness the display played out during the recent Sport Aurora debate; posing what appeared to be a pre-planted question, a Gallo supporter pressed Mayor Dawe on what he perceived as an issue of transparency regarding the annual Mayor\u2019s Charity Golf Tournament.
\nThe questioner implied that monies raised through tournament, funds that go to support several worthy charities in our community, were perhaps in some way not held to a high enough degree of scrutiny, and further, that Town staff were \u201cforced\u201d to participate in the event.
\nIn a further attempt to bolster the interrogation, Councillor Gallo suddenly produced an \u201cat the ready\u201d letter purportedly written by an anonymous Town source, a letter the Councillor claimed validated the questioner\u2019s claim.
\nThe fact that this mysterious and nameless letter has never surfaced before, and has since disappeared does not, in my opinion, pass the sniff test.
\nI cannot find any reason why I would support for Mayor, a man who shows such utter disrespect and distain for not only our Town, but to the volunteers and groups that assist our neighbours. A man who\u2019s \u201cvisionary\u201d campaign platform is based on a plagiarized version of the Town-drafted Strategic Plan, and a man who\u2019s definition of \u201cauthentic\u201d includes staged and false claims targeting Aurora\u2019s corporate business successes and honourable charitable fundraising events.
\nMy choice for Aurora\u2019s Mayor is Geoff Dawe. Since his election as Mayor in 2010, Aurora is now rated one of the top places to live in Canada. Our tax rates have stabilized, and our green spaces and trail system have flourished. Business and corporations look to Aurora as a great place to invest, and we have seen steady growth in the cultural and social development needed for great communities to thrive. And through it all, Geoff continues to tirelessly show his support and enthusiasm for our Town and its people, with enduring honesty and true integrity.
\n
\nMatt Maddocks
\nAurora<\/strong><\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aurora is facing two very distinct Mayoral candidate choices heading into Monday\u2019s election. For me the choice is clear. I\u2019ve made a choice to support the candidate who has lead Aurora Council for the past four years. The candidate who has moved Aurora forward, despite facing some whose actions have attempted to block progress – […]<\/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":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-letters-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-2fx","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-02 02:41:10","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\/8651","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=8651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8651\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}