{"id":9437,"date":"2015-01-07T18:46:27","date_gmt":"2015-01-07T23:46:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=9437"},"modified":"2015-01-28T17:45:08","modified_gmt":"2015-01-28T22:45:08","slug":"2018s-municipal-election-could-feature-fewer-election-signs-if-councillor-gets-his-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/2018s-municipal-election-could-feature-fewer-election-signs-if-councillor-gets-his-way\/","title":{"rendered":"2018\u2019s Municipal Election could feature fewer election signs, if Councillor gets his way"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

If you were one of the residents whose eyes regularly glazed over trying to decipher hordes of election signs on just about every street corner this past fall, your eyes could rest a bit easier when it is time to next elect Aurora\u2019s Mayor and Council.<\/p>\n

A motion from Councillor Tom Mrakas is now in the hands of staff which could put new limits on where and when potential new Councillors can put out their signs. In his motion, Councillor Mrakas called for a reduction in how long signs can be erected, imposing a limit on placing more than one sign for an individual candidate on private property, and limiting a candidate to placing just one sign on any one corner of an intersection.<\/p>\n

While Council did not sign off on any of the proposed changes until staff were able to comment further, Councillor Mrakas said his motion was reflective of what he heard on the campaign trail, with residents speaking out on there being \u201cway too many signs\u2026in way too many places\u2026and for so long.\u201d His motion, he added, reflected what he believed to be best practices in other municipalities.<\/p>\n

Although the intent of the motion found clear support around the table, Councillors had many questions that needed to be answered. One particular sticking point, as identified by Councillors Jeff Thom and Paul Pirri, was the clause limiting signs on private property, including maintaining property owners\u2019 rights to have more than one sign if they are on a corner lot and want to double the exposure for the candidates of their choice.
\nCouncillor Wendy Gaertner, while questioning Councillor Mrakas tongue-in-cheek on whether multiple election signs stacked one on top of the other would could as a single sign, suggested limits on private property be removed altogether. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe all went through the sign wars,\u201d added Councillor John Abel. \u201cYou would go out on the first day and place signs and it was all orderly. Three weeks later someone would go out and pop a sign right in front of someone else and there was absolutely nothing that could be done. It is incredibly frustrating because you took the time and some Johnny-come-lately just threw it down in front. If we\u2019re going to do it at all, I would rather get a little more definitive\u2026so we can fine tune it and get it done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mayor Geoff Dawe said he too would like to have something definitive, and the way to do this would be to get some expert opinion from municipal staff.
\n\u201cOne of my thoughts was should we look at bringing our sign bylaw into conformance with the Region, that way we have one set of rules and regulations we deal with,\u201d said Mayor Dawe, of the Region\u2019s more stringent rules towards location and timing. <\/p>\n

A similar view was offered by Councillor Michael Thompson.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome might claim that we\u2019re amending the rules and yet we\u2019re heavily invested in them as well,\u201d he said. \u201cI think optically it is important to get staff\u2019s feedback on the suggested amendments so they have the opportunity to corroborate to some degree that these are some of the better practices\u2026that will help alleviate the issues we saw in the last election. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to see anybody come forward as we approach another municipal election and say the rules we created were unfair without having the opportunity to gather feedback from our Town Solicitor, the Town Clerk, and our Director of Bylaw Enforcement. It is an important step in being able to gather their feedback from an impartial perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n

Councillor Mrakas, on the other hand, had a different view. <\/p>\n

\u201cWith all due respect to my colleagues, I think it is our job to direct staff and I think another thing I heard along the campaign trail was the issue that Council refers everything,\u201d he said. \u201cI think the residents are looking to us to make decisions. I am giving us the meat and I want staff to come back with a little bit of the potatoes to the bylaw.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you were one of the residents whose eyes regularly glazed over trying to decipher hordes of election signs on just about every street corner this past fall, your eyes could rest a bit easier when it is time to next elect Aurora\u2019s Mayor and Council.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_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}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9437","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\/p3D2k4-2sd","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 13:04:44","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\/9437","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=9437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9437\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}