By Staff
February 20th, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
Festivals and events in Burlington are a source of civic pride, social connections, an arts and culture platform and can be an economic boost.
The Santa Claus parade, Sound of Music and Ribfest are big deal and big draw events. The Festivals people have yet to find a way to sponsor smaller events north of the QEW.
The City is looking for public input in developing a Festivals and Events Policy to help ensure the best services and experiences for all,
Angela Paparizo, Manager of Arts and Culture.
Residents are invited to complete an online survey at getinvolvedburlington.ca/eventspolicy to share feedback on their satisfaction with events on City property and their wishes for future direction.
The purpose of the proposed policy is to provide a set of guidelines and criteria to assist with planning and managing events on City of Burlington property.
The survey is open now until March 5. Responses will be used to guide the discussion of criteria and components of a policy at the Committee of the Whole and City Council in April.
Angela Paparizo, Manager of Arts and Culture said “This policy will help us move towards our strategic goal of providing the best services and experiences for all. We want to find the balance between providing festivals and events of great value while ensuring we have the right locations, mix of events and timing.”
Links and Resources
getinvolvedburlington.ca/eventspolicy
Just what we need, another Policy, more red tape. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.
I agree completely with Caren. Why is it fine that council ignored over 3700 residents who signed a petition against tax increases and instead tout a survey of 700 which they paid Deloitte to do, despite having already done a survey through Get Involved Burlington? Because they only want to receive the feedback that matches what they want to do. If they don’t have that, they’ll spin the data and claim some other small questionable survey says the opposite of what it does. At this point I suggest residents stop answering any of their tainted surveys.
Citizens should also be questioning, as Caren is, why the city continually uses paid consultants and why we should be paying for them. Why can’t staff do a simple survey? They can and they did. This wider issue of governments using these big consulting firms is getting a lot of attention of late out in the media, particularly after the federal government’s McKinsey fiasco. This is one article of many on the subject: https://360info.org/breaking-the-billion-dollar-addiction-to-consultants-in-government/
P.S. to my original comment today:
Our Burlington City Council does Not follow what the majority of Burlington Residents want and have asked for. i.e lower Property Taxes to reduce or maintain City services, and other things, including much needed proper City Engagement.
Did we always have a Manager of arts and culture?
Editor’s note: Yes she has been there for some time. You might find this hard to believe but the public is getting value for what she is paid.
Another Survey! This is our City Councils engagement. Unfortunately, our Council doesn’t listen to the Survey results!! They just file them somewhere and spin the results to get what they want. And then they hire Deloitte to do it all over again at tax payers expense
Just as they did with the 2023 Community Survey! Let’s hire Deloitte to do it all over again, and then report skewed results to match Councils agenda, and Not what residents are asking for!