By Pepper Parr
March 21, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
At the start of each Council meeting the Mayor asks a couple of questions. The first is are there any conflicts of interest that have pecuniary impact?.
Then the Mayor gets into the agenda and sets out how long the meeting is expected to last. She then asks if any of the Council members have a hard stop requirement.
When discussions are taking place it is difficult to determine beforehand how long they will run. The Mayor does try to accommodate the needs of different council members.
We want to suggest that the Mayor has this backwards. The dates for Council meetings are known. Council members know and one would think they would organize their time to ensure that they are available to do their jobs.
It is not unusual for a council member to say they have a commitment elsewhere.
Ward 3 Councillor, ward 2 resident Rory Nisan at a United Nations meeting.
These men and women were elected to serve as a council and to be in the room. Councillor Nisan manages to attend Federation of Canadian Municipalities and cover Council at the same time. Does FCM pay Nisan? The City certainly does.
Councillor – often somewhere else – just not in the Council Chamber.
Sharman is consistent – he will on occasion use an event elsewhere so he doesn’t have to be at Council – allowing him to avoid an item on the agenda?
Councillor Galbraith and Bentivegna are good in terms of attendance.
Councillor Kearns has, on occasion, had to deal with a family problem – she has young children and they come first. People understand that.
The Mayor has on a few occasions had to excuse herself – again for family matters.
Those situations are fully understandable – what doesn’t appear to be fully understood by this Council is that they were elected to be Councillors and to serve.
While they aren’t “handsomely” paid, most are earning more than they have ever earned before. Sharman would be the exception – and perhaps Galbraith.
Kearns could earn quite a bit more in the private sector but chooses to be a public servant with her eye on the Chain of Office.
It’s called accountability ladies and gentleman – live up to it.
Salt with Pepper is an opinion column reflecting the observations and musings of the publisher of the Gazette, an on-line newspaper that is in its 12th year as a news source in Burlington and is a member of the National Newsmedia Council.
Full Council? Not quite. Councillor Nisan was elsewhere.
Perhaps the problem is the size of our council?
Our council is too small. As a result the workload cannot be managed properly. Councillors have to sit on many different committees along with their new deputy mayor roles.
Don’t forget these councillors have to deal with ward issues that can fall outside the realm of all the meetings they have to attend.
In my opinion we need to have a larger council to do the work properly.
If you cannot consistently attend then you are not fit for purpose. And why do they still have partition screens up?
This Meed-Ward woman has to go
I note the article makes no mention of Counselor Stolte.
Counselor Stolte is the Council Liaison Member of the Heritage Burlington Advisory Committee. She took over the position formerly held by Councilor Nisan.
After checking through the minutes of each meeting held between January 1st, 2024 and February 1st, 2025 of the Heritage Burlington Advisory Committee Counselor Stolte did not attend 9 of the 13 meetings.held in that period. That represents a 31% attendance record!
That is not only a disgraceful record it is completely disrespectful to the other committee members and to all Burlington residents.
I used to leave running errands on a weekday, as most people would be at work.
Did you know you can purchase a mechanical Mouse Jiggler’ that moves on its own while you are not at your desk, and is undetectable to IT.
Suggest you bring this forward when for the next election.
This Nissan chap has to go.