Last Tuesday there was a post on the Aurora Community Connection Facebook page regarding textile dumping at one of the town’s collection bin locations:
The person posting wrote “community centre in Aurora” of which there are several. At first read this comes across as the Aurora Community Centre which is one of the locations listed on the town’s website:
But if you inspect the photo provided the brickwork matches that of the Stronach Recreation Centre:
The question asked is who is responsible for the bins?
One commentor stated that they have contacted the town in the past and the town has dealt with the issue.
Sure, but that just raises more questions. How frequently is this occurring?
If the town is expecting citizens to contact them regarding these bins then why is the only contact on the bins is for the contractor cornerstone recovery and not the town?
This is needlessly confusing.
If you use cornerstone’s website they have one of those useless chatbots, which ports you to email:
I resorted to calling the contact on the bins. After being pout on hold for 5 minutes with the first number I hung up. The number on the right got me to someone who confirmed they were responsible for collection not the town. I inquired as to when the last pickup was done and what the set interval was. She couldn’t tell me but had someone out doing pickups call me back later in the day. Interval for pickup of bins in Aurora is set for Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The scheduled pickup for these bins on Monday but failed to occur. He dispatched someone to do the pickup that day.
Here are screengrabs from that thread:
The concern here is that the donations that were allowed to accumulate and not dealt with on Monday were likely exposed to the rain and as such may have been ruined, diverting them from re-use back to the waste stream.
To address this failing why is the onus to getting things done fall on citizens when there is a failure between the town and a contractor on town owned property?
Back in 2020 I wrote a post about how absurd it was for the other contractor Diaebetes Canada having to send out a communication to the public to urge residents to contact municipal elected officials to inform the public to stop dumping at their bins. These only difference being these bins were located on private property.
2 years earlier I wrote a follow up post to Anna’s post over at livinginaurora.com about the very same issue at the very same bin location.
As this kind of dumping is a known issue going on over 6 years in Aurora it raises the following questions as to what the town’s leadership is doing to address it.
1.) What data is being collected about the frequency of these occurrences and how they are being resolved? Any? If so where is the staff report that documents this?
2.) What strategies and tactics are being used to prevent this issue from recurring? Again where is the staff report regarding these?
3.) Who is working together, and what if anything is getting done and with what sense of urgency? I see and hear nothing.
4.) I expect much tighter coordination between the town and this contractor so what process is implemented by the town to check on the status of these bins by facility staff to ensure they have been collected, and if not that they initiate a follow-up with the contractor and implement measures to prevent further donations from occurring?
Town staff can easily tape off, or barricade these bins when they have hit capacity and failure to do so allows this from snowballing.
5.) Where is the communication from the town with the community?
The town was able to communicate with residents on the very same social media platform about dumping occurring with this contractor’s bins back in 2020:
When a donation site reaches capacity and the town has taken action to prevent further donations until a collection can occur, why is the town not taking a photo of a full bin and circulating it to the community to alert them that this donation site is at capacity, directing them to other sites?
Council recently approved staff’s Communications Strategic Plan. Reviewing that document and I don’t see anything in that document that spoke to ignoring 2-way communication with residents, limiting social media connectivity or assuming this position when residents have questions about service levels:
6.) Where is the ward councillor?
SARC is in Ward 6. Has anyone ever heard a peep from Ward 6 Clr. Harold Kim to his residents about this site?
Superstore’s bins are in Ward 5 which would be Ward 5. Clr. John Gallo. I haven’t heard any mention from this councillor either.
Both members of council and staff monitor and post on these social pages. Ignorance of the issue is unlikely, especially after it lapses for a week without a single response by staff or any elected official.
Not taking action is an action.
The vision of the Town’s official plan is to develop the Town of Aurora into a healthy, strong and complete community that provides a range of places and opportunities to live, work, shop, be educated and play, in a manner that promotes sustainability in all its forms and protects the Town’s natural environment and historic character.
Not wanting to take selfies with the growing number of things that are failing in Aurora doesn’t make them go away.
Obviously the way the current leadership sees fit to achieve this is to simply allow residents to throw their donations on the pile and allow it to rot.
#JustGettingThingsDumped
#WordsAreCheapInactionIsCostly
#HeadInTheSand
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