Are Transparency and Accountability about to take another hit today ?

By Pepper Parr

January 9th, 2023

BURLINGTON, ON

 

When the six council members and the Mayor meet they have an agenda that usually runs into the hundreds of pages.

Many of the items on the agenda are run of the mill matters – Staff reports that have to be filed. They are placed on the Consent part of the agenda and frequently don’t get much, if anything, in the way of discussion and are all passed with a single vote.

What gets placed on the Consent agenda is usually determined by the Committee Chair in conjunction with the City Clerk

City Council meeting as a Standing Committee. Ward 3 Councillor Rory Nisan seldom attended live – he chooses to take part virtually

Set out below are the consent agenda items for the meeting that is taking place today.

3.
Consent Items: Reports of a routine nature, which are not expected to require discussion and/or debate.

3.1   2022 municipal election accessibility report (CL-02-23)
This item has attachments.
Receive and file office of the city clerk report CL-02-23 regarding the 2022 municipal election accessibility report attached as Appendix A.

3.2
Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program – Transit Stream November 2022 intake (CS-03-23)
Authorize the Mayor and City Clerk to execute the necessary agreements and other related documents or by-laws between the Corporation of the City of Burlington and the Province of Ontario, in relation to the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program (ICIP) – Transit Stream, should our applications be successful, to the satisfaction of the Executive Director of Legal Services and Corporation Counsel.

Mayor Meed Ward celebrating the arrival of a new bus in 2020

3.3
Safe Restart Funding Municipal Transit Stream – phase 4 funding This item has attachments.
Authorize the Mayor and City Clerk to execute on behalf of The Corporation of the City of Burlington the transfer payment agreement, and any other ancillary document (s) or amendment(s), between the City of Burlington and the Province of Ontario regarding the Safe Restart Funding Municipal Transit Stream – phase 4 funding, to the satisfaction of the Executive Director of Legal Services and Corporation Counsel.

3.4
Senior government funding January status report (CS-05-23)
Authorize the Mayor and City Clerk to execute the necessary agreements and other related documents or by-laws between the City of Burlington and the Government of Canada, in relation to the National Resources of Canada Zero Emission Vehicle Infrastructure Program (ZEVIP), to the satisfaction of the Executive Director of Legal Services and Corporation Counsel.

3.5
Transforming design and delivery of services – evolution of information technology services (ITS) department – Burlington digital service (BDS) (IT-02-23)

The Gazette dud an article in this – the size of the department is a lot bigger than most of the public expected.  Link:

Receive and file information technology services department report IT-02-23 providing background information for upcoming 2023 budget requests and supporting design and evolving organization initiative.

The Court House that handle Provincial Offence matter for all the Halton Region municipalities.

3.6
Halton Court Services 2023 Budget and Business Plan (L-04-23)

Approve the 2023 Halton Court Services (HCS) budget as presented; and

Contribute $50,000 from net revenues to the capital reserve fund during 2023 to ensure that requirements of the Capital Reserve Fund Policy are met; and

Withdraw $69,000 from the capital reserve fund for computer hard/soft replacements for the computer renewal program; and

The city and its partner (the other Regional municipalities) are asking Ministry of the Attorney General for more Justice of Peace appointments and for those appointments to be in a more timely fashion in an effort to provide a solution to the severe lack of judicial resources.

How much of this stuff needs debate?

Any member of Council can ask that an item be taken off the Consent agenda and debated just like all the other agenda items.

Anne Marsden, a regular delegator who isn’t always welcome at city hall. She can be difficult, she is persistent, she can be annoying but the city is better off with her than without her. Know about the role she played in the C-Difficile outbreak that resulted in the death of close to 100 people

Anne Marsden points out that “Past Councils would remove the item from the Consent Agenda as soon as they knew there would be a delegation. This Council refuses to do that which I maintain is contrary to Procedural By-law .”

She was planning to delegate in the 2022 municipal election accessibility report but had not filed a delegation request to the Clerk because she did not yet have information she needed to complete her delegation because information she had requested from various people, including the City Manager and the City Clerk on November 30th, 2022 has not yet been received.

While this council has gotten into the habit of talking the talk when it comes to the matter of delegations – it does not deliver. It is quite prepared to run rough shod over people that ask questions about matter they see as important.

More often than not councillors do not ask questions of the delegations. To be fair there are numerous occasions when there is some very robust back and forth between a delegation and members of council.

Anne Marsden has a passion about accessibility and is concerned that some people were not able to vote due to accessibility issues.

She wanted to delegate but she may not get that opportunity today. She could return and delegate to council later in the month.

Situations like this do not speak well of a council that uses the words accountability and transparency but regularly fails to deliver.

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