{"id":9914,"date":"2015-02-26T11:23:14","date_gmt":"2015-02-26T16:23:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=9914"},"modified":"2015-03-11T18:06:41","modified_gmt":"2015-03-11T22:06:41","slug":"mayor-touts-joint-operations-centre-and-leadership-in-annual-address","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/mayor-touts-joint-operations-centre-and-leadership-in-annual-address\/","title":{"rendered":"Mayor touts Joint Operations Centre and leadership in annual address"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Taking risks \u2013 calculated risks \u2013 is an integral component to success, according to Mayor Geoff Dawe, as he made his annual address to the Aurora Chamber of Commerce last week.<\/p>\n

In his yearly speech to Aurora\u2019s business and community leaders, Mayor Dawe said success is \u201cborn by recognizing opportunity\u201d and strategizing based on the best information at hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cToo often we are governed by a patchwork of ad-hoc policies, practices and procedures,\u201d he said. \u201cWe do so in the name of expediency and the result is often short-term gain for long-term pain. I have always felt that there is no excuse for not doing your homework. There is no justification for not considering carefully as many options as possible for making a decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2010, our residents took a tremendous leap of faith with someone who had no political experience. I was humbled and honoured by that endorsement and subsequent affirmation in 2014. It emboldened me to continue my efforts to make strategic and accountable investments in our community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leadership, community and business were the three primary themes of the Mayor\u2019s address. Looking into the recent past, Mayor Dawe cited the Town of Aurora\u2019s renegotiation of its cultural services agreement with the Aurora Historical Society as just one example of this three-fold philosophy bearing fruit.<\/p>\n

Although he said the debate leading up to the renegotiated contract was \u201cemotional\u201d and often fraught by \u201cmisinformation\u201d and \u201cfear mongering\u201d being broadcast to the community, the end result was well worth it. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe results were palpable,\u201d said Mayor Dawe. \u201cThe Town\u2019s relationship with the Aurora Cultural Centre has never been stronger. The Centre is a thriving community hub. We have moved towards increasing accountability and reducing the Centre\u2019s dependence on the taxpayer. I am extremely proud of how the Cultural Services Agreement was strengthened to bring prudent value to our community. I believe it has been proven in hindsight we were absolutely correct with how we move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking ahead to the future, Mayor Dawe indicated he sees the continued construction of the Joint Operations Centre, the new multimillion dollar facility being built near the top of Industrial Parkway North to combine the Town\u2019s parks and works departments under one roof, as having a similar outcome.<\/p>\n

This too will do away with a further \u201cpatchwork\u201d of operations which will result in a more efficient municipality, he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI strongly advocated for making this facility a reality because it had a strong business case,\u201d said Mayor Dawe, on the new facility which is slated to cost, in total, $26 million \u2013 a cost primarily covered by development charges and the sale of business lands in Aurora\u2019s northeast quadrant.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt served a strategic, long-term need for our municipality and had a viable funding solution. It makes no strategic sense to hope a community that contains $450 million in assets, home to over 70,000 residents by 2031, should be serviced by a 40-year-old facility that was built to service a community of 30,000. The JOC will eliminate duplication by consolidating several different operations at one facility, will improve our emergency readiness and add additional capacity to maintain increasing demands and service expectations of our growing population.\u201d<\/p>\n

The JOC is a \u201cjudicious investment\u201d in Aurora as a community, a \u201ctriumph of sound planning\u201d and \u201cforward thinking\u201d based on \u201crigorous and critical analysis\u201d of current and future needs, he added, noting he believed both the Cultural Services Agreement and JOC marked \u201csignificant turning points\u201d in how business was conducted at Town Hall. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt paved the way for making strategic assessments and decision-making,\u201d said Mayor Dawe. \u201cI believe these are the real hallmarks of leadership, responsible governing and delivering value to our community.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Taking risks \u2013 calculated risks \u2013 is an integral component to success, according to Mayor Geoff Dawe, as he made his annual address to the Aurora Chamber of Commerce last week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9915,"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-9914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/2015-02-26-03.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-2zU","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-17 10:41:44","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\/9914","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=9914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}