{"id":8732,"date":"2014-10-29T16:21:25","date_gmt":"2014-10-29T20:21:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=8732"},"modified":"2014-11-05T11:32:28","modified_gmt":"2014-11-05T16:32:28","slug":"civic-engagement-plans-not-enough-for-gallo-bid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/civic-engagement-plans-not-enough-for-gallo-bid\/","title":{"rendered":"Civic engagement plans not enough for Gallo bid"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Councillor John Gallo came into the race with a vision of greater engagement among Aurora residents as a whole, but it wasn\u2019t enough to secure him the Mayor\u2019s seat on Monday. <\/p>\n

While voters leaving several polling stations throughout election day told The Auroran they were impressed by the energy, ideas, and engagement \u2013 particularly on the east side of Aurora \u2013 Councillor Gallo brought to the race, it did not ultimately translate to a win, garnering just 4,106 votes to Geoffrey Dawe\u2019s 8,903.<\/p>\n

Celebrating his campaign at the Aurora Soccer Club on Industrial Parkway South, of which he has been a long-time and active member, Councillor Gallo paid tribute to the support he received throughout the campaign in a musical interlude dedicated to his wife, Anita. <\/p>\n

\u201c[Volunteers] told me on the first day of the campaign you are one lucky guy to have Anita and you better do something special for her,\u201d he said, in a musical patter. \u201cThere is no question this was a magical mystery run. Anita, there were some key people I have already mentioned that have helped in an extraordinary way [but] this whole thing would have fallen completely if it wasn\u2019t for you. I love you more than you will ever know.\u201d<\/p>\n

The cornerstone of Councillor Gallo\u2019s campaign was dubbed \u201cImagine Aurora 2031\u201d and at its heart was a 10 Point Plan. The first point was to establish a Citizen\u2019s Advisory Task Force dedicated to land use and transportation, housing and neighbourhoods, economic and business, town facilities and services, and creativity and innovation.<\/p>\n

The second was to bring a new hotel and convention centre to Aurora with the third dedicated to developing a Downtown Revitalization Strategy focused on implementing the Aurora Promenade Study.<\/p>\n

\u201cCreative\u201d housing to meet the needs of young and old residents was the fourth campaign plank, with transit being the fifth.
\nProtecting the local environment, particularly in light of Ontario\u2019s upcoming review of Oak Ridges Moraine legislation was point six, followed by increased collaboration at the Regional table. <\/p>\n

Rounding out the Top 10 were improvements to local \u201cbusiness climate and job growth\u201d, the \u201cdevelopment of community services to support local quality of life aspirations,\u201d and increased transparency at Town Hall through the creation of a \u201cCitizens Bill of Rights.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Councillor John Gallo came into the race with a vision of greater engagement among Aurora residents as a whole, but it wasn\u2019t enough to secure him the Mayor\u2019s seat on Monday. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8710,"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-8732","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\/2014\/10\/2014-10-30-16.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-2gQ","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-25 06:59:45","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\/8732","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=8732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8732\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}