By Pepper Parr
September 12th, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
They have a name: BRAG – Burlington Residents Action Group.
They are an incorporated not for profit corporation and they have a bank account.
They have a Board of Directors: Lynn Crosby, Stephen White, Caren Burcher and Eric Stern who is the President.
Last night at the Mayor’s Budget meeting they handed out their first flyer.
The focus at this point appears to be on taxes. Eric Stern has delegated several times on how the city explains to the public what the tax rates are going to be. He points out, quite successfully, that a tax impact is not really a unit of measure.
Eric Stern: President of BRAG – Burlington Residents Action Group.
What Stern believes is that the public wants to know how many dollars and cents they are going to have to send the city..
At the Budget meeting last night the figure 8.04% appears to be the working number for the 2025 tax increase.
Mayor Marianne Meed Ward explained that these meetings were taking place to educated the public on what the budget for 2025 was going to look like. The public knows that City CAO Hassaan Basit has a report going to Council in the middle of October setting out what Staff feel is going to be added to the budget as a result of the flooding in July.
www.gobrag.ca is the web site address. Register with them – they are going to be the people that advocate for reasonable tax rates. They point out that this City Council has a spending problem. They need to be able to say that they represent the community – they won’t be able to do that without your support.
BRAG came into existence for many reasons, not only taxes, and the Our Values section of our website goes into more detail
In summary, we state:
A Better Burlington is Within our Grasp
The Burlington Residents’ Action Group (“BRAG”) is deeply committed to actively promoting certain policy initiatives that align with our overall goal of promoting a safe, secure and sustainable future for all residents. To that end, we are committed to the following ideals:
Responsible Financial Management
Flood Mitigation
Environmental Sustainability
Traffic Congestion
Development
Strong Mayor Powers
Community Engagement
https://gobrag.ca/?page_id=689
Right now, the budget is a priority, as it is being prepared now and the city is asking for feedback.
BRAG members have seen significant tax increases since the 2022 election. The city has been stating the percentage increase to our total tax bill, including regional and education taxes, this understates the city’s budget increase by about 50%. In 2023 we were told the 2024 tax increase was 4.99%, by doing this the city gets a pass, they don’t have to explain why they need, and got, a 10.21% budget increase.
BRAG believes it’s time for the city to be accountable. If the city needed a 10.21% increase they should have said so and told us why.
Telling us the actual budget increase, 8+% for 2025, opens the door for a larger discussion around additional revenue and reduced expenditures. During the Mayor’s first public meeting on the 2025 budget there was no discussion about what services or internal functions could be cut. BRAG believes governments can’t just grow and grow and tax and tax, that belief puts budget cuts, and non-tax revenue increases on the table.