I attended the Council meeting Tuesday evening (Sept 14), as the Library was presenting its Strategic Plan to Council. As a Board member, and unabashed booster of the Library, I was there to support the Board Chair, Michael Thompson, and CEO, Louise Procter Maio. Unfortunately Rogers Cable was not there to record the proceedings.

For, this Council meeting was a perfect example of why Aurora needs a change – and why all Council meetings need to be automatically recorded and be made available in real-time Video / Audio streaming.

One of the first orders of business of a Council in general, is to approve the minutes from the previous meeting (s). It seems that one of the first orders of business of this Council however so to “correct” the previous minutes. This was done again last night – specifically to correct how Councillor MacEachern’s negative vote was recorded during the Integrity Commissioner fiasco(  www.geoffdawe.com/the-integrity-commissioner-fiasco  ). The intent was to add a notation to the minutes as to why Councillor MacEachern’s vote was negative.

(Councillor MacEachern declared an “interest” in the proceedings – not a conflict of interest, but an interest, as she was the one who filed the complaint, and therefore abstained from voting.)

This of course degenerated into yet another procedural battle when it turned out the Town Procedural By-law did not support this action, and neither does the Municipal Act. Both the procedural by-law and the Municipal Act are quite clear – abstentions are counted as negative votes. That’s what was in the “un edited” minutes. The procedural by-law and Municipal Act require the minutes to be taken “…without note or comment”. Funny how this council seems to feel they can make the rules up as they go

The kicker? The Mayor NEVER CALLED THE VOTE. 

Yes, after much “tooing” and “froing”, and references to the Procedural By-law and the Municipal Act, the Mayor was obviously flustered and just moved on to the next item without calling the vote. This was noticed by members of the public; it was obvious that certain Councillors picked up on this (you can probably guess which ones); it was obvious that the Clerk picked up on it.

It is not obvious why no one said anything.

It will be interesting to see how these minutes are recorded, and then if they need “correcting” at the next Council meeting!

My Perspective

I’m almost not sure what my perspective is, because it’s almost too difficult to comprehend the lack of understanding and / or the inability of our Mayor to follow the basic rules of procedure.

If elected as Mayor of Aurora, we will follow procedure and we will get things done!