 By Staff
April 22, 2014
BURLINGTON ON
We received the following recently.
Burlington Gazette
Burlington, Ontario
Dear Sirs:
Re: Burlington Airpark Inc. -Libel Notice to Burlington Gazette
We are the solicitors for Burlington Airpark Inc., the operator of the Burlington Executive Airport (collectively “Airport”). This letter is to serve as notice pursuant to s. 5(1) of the Libel and Slander Act R.S .O. 1990 Chap. L.12.
Under the date of April 11, 2014 the following appeared on the website https://www.burlingtongazette .ca/:
“Was it the cold winter that resulted in hundreds of dead fish floating on the pond of the Appleby Line property that is surrounded on three sides by the Air Park land fill or is the death of the fish the result of toxic and silt filled water now in the pond?
The argument as to whether the land fill was going to do any real damage has been simmering in the background. Some testing was done but the
A spring fed pond with hundreds of fish – normally. Today wasn’t a normal day on the Appleby Line property. Hundreds of dead fish were floating n the water this morning
Ministry of the Environment got involved in a struggle over who was entitled to the information from their testing results -privacy issues came into play and the privacy officers at every level of government seem to be taking the time they feel they needed to determine just who can see what.
The spring fed pond is yards away from a mountain of landfill that was never properly tested when it was dumped on the property.
Runoff from the landfill is now getting to the water table -dead fish are showing up in the pond.
Some of the evidence may have come to the surface – literally, for one resident. Hundreds of dead fish were found floating on her pond this morning . That pond is yards away from a 30 foot high pile of landfill that is in place in violation of the city’s site alteration bylaw.
The property owner advises that the Ministry of the Environment will be on her property later today to test for contamination in the pond.”
These publications are false and misleading in at least the following respects:
1. The soil was tested. Results to date in 2009 were reviewed by Region of Halton which reported to the City of Burlington: “The results for all criteria meet the Regional and Provincial standards (potable) as required in Table 2 of the Soil, Ground Water and Sediment Standards for Use Under Part XV.1 of the Environmental Protection Act.”
2. The Airport is not contaminating the groundwater. Multiple tests by Environment Canada, the Ontario Ministry of the Environment (“MOE”) and Halton Region have shown no impact on groundwater.
3. When the City of Burlington reported the results of the Halton Region testing of wells on properties bordering the Airport in its Burlington Executive Airport Update #6- September 9, 2013: “On August 23, city staff were sent an email by the Region of Halton regarding testing of wells on several properties adjacent to the airport. The email indicated that the MOE and the Halton Region Health Department were working together to sample and analyze the drinking water wells of homes located immediately adjacent to where the fill was placed on the airport site. Well water samples were collected by MOE staff from two properties. The samples were being analyzed for inorganics, volatile organic compounds, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and petroleum hydrocarbons.
Results of this testing were provided to the Health Department. The results were then compared to the health-based Ontario Drinking Water Quality Standards and the Ministry of Environment Table 2 Brownfields standards. The Region has indicated that no exceedances were reported. These results have been shared with the property owners. Permission was given by these property owners for the Health Department to share the results with city staff.”
4. These results were also discussed at the Burlington Development and Infrastructure Committee meeting on September 9, 2013 where it was reported: “On to Environmental matters on page 3 -the well testing. You can see the correspondence that’s come in from your CEO over at the Region of Halton. That work is being done in co operation with the Health Unit. That’s flowing through the good Doctor [Nosal], so the results will , continue; they have been shared with the property owners and the Health Department and we’ll get that information as it comes forward. Nothing negative at this stage and that is not unusual to see that there isn’t anything negative that would migrate from the site and be into any wells anyway, at this stage.”
The publication was actuated by malice justifying an award of punitive or exemplary damages, in that you caused these words to be published knowing them to be untrue, or being reckless as to their truth. In particular the Airport will rely on:
1. The publication of an article dated April 9 2014 reporting on the filing of nomination papers by Vanessa Warren. The article, when fairly read, is an endorsement of her candidacy. The article repeats earlier defamatory claims that the Airport was importing “toxic landfill” and was running an “unlicensed landfill operation”. Both these allegations are untrue. The July 16, 2013 article in which these claims were made is still available on the Burlington Gazette website, and the Airport claims with respect to these statements as well having been made less than one year prior to April 11, 2014.
2. The Burlington Gazette reported on the testing of neighbouring wells on August 5, 2013. This report is also inaccurate in claiming that the Terrapex study established that any contaminants were migrating from the Airport property. Terrapex did not comment on off-site impacts as that was not part of the scope of work assigned to it by the City of Burlington. In addition, it bad not done any testing that would have been required to comment on off-site impacts. The August 5, 2013 article in which the false claim that the Terrapex report was evidence of off-site impacts by the Airport is still available on the Burlington Gazette website, and the Airport claims with respect to that statement as well, having been made less than one year prior to April 11, 2014.Nevertheless , as a result of the reports by the City as set out in paragraphs 3 and 4 above, you knew or ought to have known that the tests of neighbouring wells showed no adverse impact due to the Airport and that the City of Burlington had advised the community that there wasn’t anything negative that would migrate from the site and be in any wells anyway. The failure to report these results was selective reporting intended to maintain the fiction that the Airport land was adversely impacting the neighbours, when the tests specifically performed to determine whether that was so were to the contrary.
Our instructions are to pursue legal proceedings unless the defamatory statements in the articles of April 11, 2014, July 16, 2013 and August 5, 2013 are retracted and a full and fair apology satisfactory to our clients is published in the same fashion and in an equally prominent way as the statements specified in this notice.
The notice was signed by Peter West, solicitor for Air Park Inc., carrying on business at the Burlington Executive Air Park. The Air Park is currently in litigation with the city. The cases were first heard at the Ontario Superior Court in Milton where Justice Murray found for the city. The Air Park immediately filed an appeal that is to be heard in Toronto June 11, 2014
Background links:
April 14, 2014 article
July 15, 2013 article July 16, 2013 article August 5, 2013 article April 11, 2014 article Libel chill Justice Murray decision
 By Pepper Parr
April 21, 2014.
BURLINGTON, ON.
Sometime on Tuesday Mayor Rick Goldring will announce the name of the interim city manager who will take over from current city manager Jeff Fielding who has taken up a job in Calgary.
The decision was made last Tuesday in a CLOSED session of a Standing Committee meeting. Unfortunately there was a glitch in the taping of the meeting. The web cast of the portion of the meeting that covered events after Council came out of closed session did not have any audio attached to it.
Ensuring that the web caster is in place before a meeting actually resumes would have helped. City Clerk Angela Morgan seemed to have some difficulty controlling the meeting which resulted in people talking without being properly recorded.
Council was in closed session for close to an hour and a half and we now know that they made a decision to hire an interim city manager who will start May 1. Jeff Fielding, who has been in Calgary a few times since the announcement of his resignation, will be away for all of the week of the 21st. He completes his time with the city on May 16th and starts in Calgary June 1.
The Mayor will announce who the interim city manager is to be on Tuesday. We do know that the person will not be a current city employee and we are told he is not from Hamilton. Most of the sources we talked to were pretty tight lipped on Sunday and Monday.
 Before Jeff Fielding, on the left, was hired as city manager General Mangers Kim Phillips and Scott Stewart shared the role of acting city manager for several months. That’s not the route council is taking this time around. Council has decided to bring in an outsider on an interim basis. There are some noses out of joint over this decision. Councillor Craven voted against the decision. Council members are putting a brave face on the situation and saying “off the record” that staff has everything well in hand and that the city manager isn’t needed at this stage. And if you believe that – there is a bridge in Brooklyn I can get you a very good deal on.
City staff is going to have to now undergo the third significant cultural change since this Council took office. The city parted ways with Roman Martiuk in July of 2011 and brought in Jeff Fielding in December and gave him a five year contract that came to an end 26 months later.
Every leader brings in a style, a culture and a way of doing things that is unique to them. Martiuk would not allow his general managers to hold meetings without his being in the room. Fielding was much more open and encouraged his staff to look at things differently.
He also brought a new approach to the way the city is going to develop its budget with the focus on Results Based Accountability, Business Process Management and Service Based Budgeting. There is no rocket science to these approaches but they are significantly different than what has been done in the past and the staff implementing these changes need direction and guidance until everything is in place and the knots worked out.
Burlington’s 2015 budget process is going to be something to watch.
The discussion during the CLOSED session of the Standing Committee decided on who was to be hired – there apparently wasn’t any time to actually interview at any length. Former city manager Tim Dobbie, who is part of the Mayor’s re-election campaign, is believed to have been one of the advisers to Council.
The vote to hire the interim city manager was not unanimous. Councillor Craven voted against the decision Council had made and apparently asked that the vote be identified. Recorded votes are not taken at Standing Committee but Councillor Craven wanted his vote on the record.
Councillor Sharman spoke for a minute or two at the end of the meeting but his voice was not captured – so we do not know what he had to say.
There is awkwardness to the way the hiring on an interim city manager is being handled. Council are still reeling from the decision and are, it is reported, none too happy with their city manager being in Calgary at this point in time.
Few believe Fielding left Burlington for an annual salary increase of $65,000 Did he leave just because there was a better opportunity? After just 26 months in the job? There is a reason for all this and in time it will all come out.
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 By Pepper Parr
April 18, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
Covering city hall means listening to people talk. After a while you get to know pretty well what a council member is going to say. You can`t watch a group of people for three years and not learn something about each of them.
There are four newbies; three council members and a Mayor who have grown in their jobs to various degrees and as we get further into the election campaign we will write about what we have observed.
There are two other groups we get to listen to: staff and the reports they deliver and delegations. Some staff members do fine work, a few are superb – some made the wrong career choice.
It is the delegations that are really interesting. Some are there to represent an interest group; some are there to complain, others to ask for something very specific and some are at the podium to tell a story and hopefully influence council.
Those delegations that are appearing for the first time are the most interesting. We never know what it is they want to say.
 In some communities children like this go hungry on the weekends. Like every advocate for the less fortunate, Lena told stories about individuals and the impact they have had on her and her organization. She wanted Council to hear how difficult it is for some people. The family where the father had to go on disability and the mother who gave up working to take care of the father. It wasn`t long before the savings were gone and the family was relying on food banks and social support.
Truthfully, I tend to tune out for many of these delegations. Council always listens politely realizing there isn’t much they can do – social welfare is a Regional responsibility
Lena Bassford and Food4Kids saw the need and began providing packages of healthy food for kids aged 5-14 years with limited or no access to food each weekend.
Packages are prepared by volunteers and delivered to schools each Friday to ensure children have nourishment over the weekend. There were 1,200 children in Hamilton and 500 children in Halton going without food on the weekends. Food4kids took the position that when kids leave school for the weekend, they should not have to worry about how they will be fed.
Bassford explained how her organization works with other groups; Food for Life; Food for Thought and the school boards which was the capture point for Food4Kids.
Then Lena made a point and my head snapped up – she described a boy that was standing outside a school early in the morning – and in an instant I realized she was talking about me.
The boy, part of a single parent family, three children and a mother with a grade four education who worked as a domestic. Mom was paid $5 a day and car fare. On those days she didn`t get paid – “I don`t have any cash in my purse, I`ll pay you next week “– meant Mom walked home and we had Habitant Pea Soup for dinner.
There were no food banks in those days. When there wasn`t soup in the house we would get sent to the Stop & Shop with a note for Reggie the manager and came home with some food. We always thought Reggie was an uncle, he was around the house quite a bit.
As Lena Bassford talked she mentioned the social cost of not ensuring children had food in their stomachs. A student can`t concentrate on math problem when their stomach is growling. When the household situation is really bad – petty theft begins and sometimes grows to the point where a boy figures it out. I don’t have to go without – I can just take what I want; my hands are fast enough and if they see me I can run very fast.
Or the boy meets other boys who have stealing down to an art form. And the realization that this is a way to gets what you want sets in. The male family figure isn’t in the house, there are no core values being taught, there are no values being handed down.
 As a society we are quite happy to pay for social workers, police officers, correctional people (jail guards), prisons, lawyers, judges, parole officers – the list of people in place to handle people in conflict with the criminal justice system is astounding. If a quarter of that money was spent on prevention – making sure that 10 year old boys got fed on the weekends, we would save society a lot of money, a lot of grief and a lot of pain. Of course all the people in the criminal justice system would be without jobs
Lena Bassford explained the Food4Kids core concept: they provide packages of healthy food for kids aged 5-14 years with limited or no access to food each weekend.
Packages of healthy food are prepared by volunteers and delivered to schools each Friday to ensure children have nourishment over the weekend. There are 1,200 children in Hamilton and 500 children in Halton sustaining each and every weekend without food.
 For many children Bassford explained “hunger isn’t just an occasional missed meal; it is a way of life. Children who live with hunger develop physically and socially at a slower pace than their peers. Chronically hungry children experience higher levels of anxiety, hyperactivity, irritability and aggression. Chronic hunger results in students with lower attendance rates at school and lower academic performance. Even relatively short-term nutritional deficiencies can negatively impact a child’s health, causing cognitive and developmental damage that prevents them from performing at their full potential.”
Councillor Lancaster asked the obvious question: What do you do in the summer? Bassford explained that a program is in the process of being developed that will provide food for these kids during the summer break.
What does it cost to provide the complete program annually? $500,000 – of which every penny is raised by the organization. Note a dime from the municipal, regional, provincial or federal governments. That’s about what we spend for five police officers.
 By Pepper Parr
April 19, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON
Most of the information that comes to Council is through reports staff create and submit to a Standing Committee. Sometimes council members will want specific information and will issue a Staff Direction. And on some occasions a council member will mention something they picked up along the way as they dealt with staff.
Last week Councillor Marianne Meed Ward told Council of a city program run by the Health and Wellness section of the Human Resources department that takes place once a year – usually in the Spring.
The object of the program is to create an “attitude of gratitude”. Outgoing city manager Jeff Fielding explained that the initiative grew out of the push to strengthen engagement with staff – there were a bunch of new things for them. But the initiative came from staff.”
Each city hall department has a Wellness representative and once a year any staff member can approach the Wellness representative and ask that a “gratitudeogram” ( a word only a bureaucrat could make up) be sent to a specific person. The sender has to write a note and give the Wellness representative a twoonie.
All the notes are collected and sent to the HR office who then order chocolate bars, hundreds of chocolate bars from Walkers Chocolate. “The milk chocolate caramel bar is 51g, said David Walker. It appears that the two most recent orders placed within the last 2 months were for nine 9 cases (180 bars/case). That is a total of 1620 chocolate bars
The bars get sent to the city and distributed to staff members.
Sounds a little hokey? Perhaps, but as Meed Ward explained the program, she sounded a little like a Girl Guide, all excited over the Cookie program she was running.
For Staff members it must seem kike Valentine’s Day at an elementary school; who got how many Valentine’s and who did they get them from?
This is the second year the program has been running. In the first year 900 chocolate bars were distributed, this year there were 1400 chocolate bars distributed. That means there were 2800 touch points – the sender and the receiver were each touched by the program.
Getting an award for being the Employee of the Year highlights a single person, the “gratitudeogram” is a one to one program and highlights hundreds of people.
The staff member we talked to said we could take part in the program – not sure about that – but we paused and wondered who would we want to send a note of gratitude to – and a surprising number of names came to mind.
Sometimes the Gazette struggles with a staff member to get information for a report we are writing but far more frequently there is a “how can I help you” response that deserves a “gratitudeogram”.
 This program highlights hundreds of people. We asked a staff member in communications: “How many did you get, she paused and said “three. It might have been four”
We asked the Mayor how many he got – Rick Goldring said he had never heard of the program; Councillor Taylor didn’t get any either.
The program isn’t meant to be a popularity contest – just a day in the year when Staff members are given a small way to say thank you to a fellow staff member.
The cost to the employee is $2 – the chocolate bar costs $1 – the difference is goes into a fund and distributed to some worthy organization.
When we called Walkers Chocolate they weren’t able to give us total numbers right away; David Walker later said he didn’t realize there were quite that many bars going to the city. Walker’s has a number of staff appreciation products and admitted that 1400 was quite big.
Big at the city hall staff level too.
By Staff
April 17, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
Just over six months to go before the people of Burlington cast ballots for the city council they want to lead them though an uncertain future.
What is surprising to many is that just Meed Ward and Mayor Goldring have filed nomination papers. Ward 6 candidate Mina Wahidi believes the incumbents should have filed their papers the first day. Mayor Goldring did just that.
 Catherine Henshell has her eye on the council seat for Ward1 Ward 1: Incumbent Rick Craven said at a recent council meeting that he expects to be back at the horseshoe next November – he has won consistently in that ward in the past and Aldershot has certainly done well by Craven. Too early to tell if Craven has a race on his hands. Catherine Henshell and Jason Boelhouwer are going after the same council seat.
Ward 2: Councillor Meed Ward has this sewn up. The only circumstance that will find someone else in that seat is if Meed Ward decides this is the time for her to run for Mayor.
Ward 3: John Taylor is in for as long as he wants to be a member of city council. Lisa Cooper is running against Taylor – again.
 John Sweeney began to turn up at public meetings once he nominated himself for the Ward 4 council seat. Ward 4 has three candidates who have filed papers. John Sweeney is the most visible with Steve Kempf and Alexadre Kubrick in the race. Don Baxter doesn`t like the look of any of the ward 4 horses in the race. ” I am hoping we see a solid slate of candidates for Ward 4. I am encouraging potential candidates to throw their hat into the ring. While neighbourhood protection is a key issue for Roseland Community Organization, being a Councillor also requires an understanding of the complexity of municipal government – sometimes, looking in at city hall with your nose pressed against the window, the board game looks like checkers but the game is really chess.”
Incumbent Jack Dennison has traditionally waited until June each election year to file and then works full time at getting re-elected. Many believe Dennison is waiting for the outcome of his OMB hearing before deciding if he still wants to be a politician.
Ward 5: While Councillor Paul Sharman has yet to file his nomination papers he has a “re-election” website up and running. Not much on the web site, found at https://www.paulsharman.ca/
We asked Councillor Sharman if it was appropriate to have a re-election web site visible before filing nomination papers. Sharman said he didn’t have a web site up. But – it’s there. The picture is dated but the words re-elect are very clear.
The race in the ward is looking like a two man race with incumbent Paul Sharman tangling ever so politely with candidate James Smith while Smith does a delegation on a development in the word. We’ve heard nothing from the other nominated candidate – Ian Simpson; we expect to interview him later in the month.
 Ward 6: This is going to be the interesting race. Vanessa Warren appears to be the odds on favourite with Mina Wahidi working hard at the door to door level. We have yet to see Wahidi at any of the Council meetings. Angelo Bentivegna is working the various groups he is involved with. Not a word from James Curran who we understand has some “baggage” that is slowing down the rate at which his train is able to move.
 Angelo Bentivegna filed nomination papers in March -has been planning his campaign since last December. Expect things to become much clearer by the middle of June. Anyone hoping to break into city council would need a very high profile to overcome the lead that incumbents get just for being there.
There are a couple of wards that need a change – but that`s a decision voters make. Informed voters is the best thing the city has going for it.
By Staff
April 17, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
The City of Burlington announced the nominees for the 2014 Burlington’s Best Awards. The winners will be announced at a city gala event May 15, at 6:30 p.m. at the Burlington Convention Centre, 1120 Burloak Dr., for the awards.
“Each Burlington’s Best nominee helps make Burlington a better place for all of us,” said Keith Strong, past Citizen of the Year winner and long-time member of the awards committee. “We’re pleased with the buzz building around Burlington’s Best awards. With an impressive group of nominees and an exciting ceremony ahead of us, this year’s awards promise to help raise awareness of the importance of volunteering in the community.”
Tickets to this event are $35 per person, and a table of 10 is $280. The event includes a light buffet and cocktail reception. Tickets are available from the clerks department at City Hall, 426 Brant St., by contacting Roxanne Gosse at 905-335-7600, ext. 7855 or by emailing roxanne.gosse@burlington.ca.
Citizen of the Year
Bev Jacobs, Judy Gerdes, Denise Davy, Jean Longfield and Beth Hudson.
Senior Person of the Year
Michael Hourigan, Maggie Wheeler, Arnold Koopman and Thelma McGillivray.
Junior Citizen of the Year
Chad Buisman, Connor Fraser, Curtis Kelly, Connor Withers, Justin McNerny and Gabriella Paniccia
Arts Person of the Year
Selina Jane Eckersall, Chris Giroux, Tomy Bewick and Jonathon Filipovic.
Heritage Person of the Year
Les Armstrong
Community Service Award
John Ives, Tomy Bewick, Wellington Square Outreach Team, Les Armstrong, Gordon Cameron, Trent Schwartz and Beth Hudson
Environmental Award: Paul Toffoletti and Ken Woodruff.
By Staff
April 17, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
This Easter long weekend the Halton Regional Police Service will be participating in the Provincial seat belt campaign.
The campaign will run from Friday, April 18, 2014 – Monday, April 21, 2014.
Road users should expect to see much higher volumes of traffic over the weekend, making it a particularly important weekend for all drivers, passengers and young children to be properly restrained, regardless of how short a trip people are taking.
“A properly worn seat belt greatly increases the chances of surviving a motor vehicle collision and officers will be out this weekend checking for compliance. A reminder to drivers should you choose not to buckle up you could face a fine of $240 and 2 demerit points which will remain on your driving record for two years from the date of the offence.
 By Ray Rivers
April 17, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
Skeptics will point to the winter we’ve just experienced and ask: “what global warming”? But that is not what the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is saying. They’re saying global climate change is real and getting worse, and that there is still time to take action to help mitigate it. According to the IPCC, global greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) grew over the last decade at double the rate of the previous three decades and over 60% since 1990.
 Smoke stacks in Hamilton. I recall preparing materials, back In1992, for Canada’s Environment Minister, Jean Charest, as he was heading out to represent us at the Rio Earth Summit. Canada played a leadership role in promoting action on climate change there. We did so again in 1997 when we signed the Kyoto protocol; and again when we ratified it in 2002. But Canada stopped trying to reduce its GHG emissions once Mr. Harper formed the government in 2006.
Not that our trying had ever amounted to much. The Chretien/Martin governments’ various strategies and programs mostly went nowhere and the goals we’d set for ourselves became ever more elusive.
When it was clear we’d never reach our goals, Mr. Harper changed the goal posts, and pulled Canada out of Kyoto once he had a majority in 2011. Our PM never seemed to believe in climate change anyway, and his every action confirms that. So it was not a surprise when we saw his vision of Canada as the Saudi Arabia of the north, exploiting and exporting fossil fuels to the world.
Some say the 1997 Kyoto Protocol was flawed since the developing nations were not required to reduce their emissions. The US Congress passed a resolution against ratifying it for that reason, despite the role played by the US in drafting the Protocol. Proponents of the Protocol arguing that major economies should lead by example, something they haven’t done – at least not in the case of Canada or the USA. By contrast, European nations have at least struggled to reduce and maintain their emissions.
At the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, there was an emerging consensus about climate change and the need to change our ways. World leaders foresaw that one day the developing world would surpass North America and Europe in carbon emissions. That day has come. China increased its CO2 emissions astronomically, such that by 2006 it had become the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter.
Electricity plants fueled by coal are the most polluting of all sources and there are about a thousand or so plants in the works, globally. China’s coal plants make up a whacking 15% of global emissions and it gets two-thirds of all its electricity from burning coal. As a consequence some three-quarters of a million people die every year in China just from coal related health effects.
So it was a good piece of news, in this sombre picture, that Ontario announced it has entirely phased out electricity production from coal, I was the first jurisdiction in North America to do so, joining British Columbia and Quebec which produce electricity without coal. Natural gas, even though it is less polluting, will still be kept in the quiver to complement solar, wind, hydro nuclear and biomass. The province isn’t off fossil fuels entirely, just the dirtiest one.
The provincial government’s renewable energy program has been cited by so many people as the source of high electricity bills that everybody is starting to believe it. The truth is that only a small portion of the electricity rate increases reflect switching from coal to the alternatives. Why would we expect prices for electrical energy to stay constant? Shouldn’t we keep this in perspective – get a grip? Have we checked the gasoline pump prices lately? Didn’t natural gas prices jump up by 40% this year?
And then somebody brings up that costly McGuinty gas plant fiasco, from a couple years ago, and we all just get angry about the rates again. Reading the latest IPCC report can be pretty depressing, even more than ruminating about escalating energy prices. If you live in Ontario you can take a little comfort from the fact that we were the only Canadian province to significantly reduce GHG emissions over the last decade – a little shining star in an otherwise dark and troubled sky.
 If this kind of melting keeps happening – climate will be changed to the point where we cannot recover.
 Ray Rivers writes weekly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was a candidate for provincial office in Burlington where he ran against Cam Jackson in 1995, the year Mike Harris and the Common Sense Revolution swept the province. He developed the current policy process for the Ontario Liberal Party.
Background links:
Carbon Emissions
Clean Energy An Anti-apartheid Approach Germany’s Green Dreams B.C.’s LNG IPCC Report Harrison Ford Conference Board
Carbon Emissions CO2 From New Zealand Climate Change Olympics Measuring What Matters Tipping Points
Provincial Emissions GHG per Capital
Editor’s note: Someone recently said, on one of the David Suzuki programs, that the amount of energy used when two Google searches are done is equivalent to the amount of energy needed to boil enough water to make a cup of team. The speaker was arguing that our focus should not be on the supply side of the energy question but rather on the demand side.
By Pepper Parr
April 16. 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
While the current city manager is out looking for new digs in Calgary as he transitions from one city to another, the business of the city still has to move forward.
The Development and Infrastructure Committee released their 12th Update on Air Park matters earlier in the week. The appeal by the Air Park to the decision handed down in Ontario Superior Court will be heard on June 11th – quite a few people from Burlington will be trooping into town for that event; we understand that most of the ward 6 candidates will be in that courtroom in Toronto to take it all in.
 How much of the landfill on the Air Park property is toxic and how toxic? – are questions both the city and the residents want answered. The answers to those questions are tangled up in Privacy red tape. While all this is taking place both the city and north Burlington residents want to know – just what is in all that landfill that was dumped on the site in the past five years?
Everyone suspects there is some level of toxicity in that landfill. The city hired Terrapex to do some tests and the Ontario Ministry of the Environment got onto the property and did tests of their own.
In their appeal the Air Park took significant exception to the reports provided to the city by Terrapex and challenged some of the data.
At some point there will be a decision on what the Air Park has to do – at this point there is a decision from a judge saying the Air Park has to comply with the municipal by law. That decision stands until a higher court overturns it.
Will the city require the Air Park to remove all of the landfill or just some of the landfill or maybe the city will decide it can all stay in place?
What will determine the direction the city takes, assuming the Air Park appeal is lost depends on just what is in all that earth.
And other than the Terrapex report – we don’t know.
The Ministry of the Environment did testing but they haven’t released the information. Why? Privacy issues. Someone, believed to be the Air Park, has taken the position that the information is private and cannot be released without the permission of the person whose privacy is being harmed.
Many in the community find this both incredible and close to unbelievable. But it is a real problem for the city who now have planners working their way through the privacy process. Planner Mike Crowe started out by asking the MOE for the information; they said no and the city used the Freedom of Information process to get the information. When the MOE continued to say no – the city asked for a mediation – and that is where things are at the moment.
If a mediation fails the city can up the pressure and ask that their Freedom of Information request be adjudicated. It does get messy and very bureaucratic.
 Are these dead fish victims of a hard winter – or was there something in the pond water that did them in. The owner of the property is very anxious and wants to know why previous landfill testing results are not available. They see this as a matter of opublic health and not individual privacy rights. She called the Ministry of the Environment who had some of their people out on the property testing within a day. The belief in north Burlington is that the landfill is toxic, that the MOE knows it is toxic but can’t say so publicly because of the privacy mess.
But a request for testing of pond water that had hundreds of dead fish will give both the MOE and the property owner some additional data.
 That rise of land behind the pond on an Appleby Road property is not a natural feature – it is a 30 foot + hill made up of landfill that was placed on the land without proper approvals. Water seeping through that landfill flows into the pond. North Burlington residents aren’t stopping there. They have prepared a petition and sent it along to the MOE people. The petition is from the Rural Burlington Greenbelt Coalition (RBGC), but they aren’t releasing the contents of that petition. One of the things they do want is better transparency from the MOE.
The MOE is prepared to meet with the community – but until the privacy issues are cleared up – there isn’t all that much they can do.
What we have is two level of bureaucracy fighting with each other over test data that is critical to understanding what the problems really are – with the owner of the property using privacy rules to keep the information confidential.
Messy.
The north Burlington locals don’t help their cause all that much when they withhold the contents of their petition to the MOE. What is it they want and is it reasonable?
Background files:
In the beginning the buck got passed around.
Record length city hall debate on Air Park site.
Air Park digs in its heals.
City seeks an injunction to stop landfill dumping.
Air Park sues the city – city takes off the gloves.
City wins Air Park court case
 By Staff
April 16, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
Halton Regional Police investigators have arrested the serial bank robber who has targeted banks in Burlington, Oakville and Kitchener over the past four months.
 Police said the man in this picture had no fixed address when he was arrested for bank robbery. He has an address now – jail. On Tuesday April 15th, 2014, police followed a suspect to Guelph where he was observed entering a Bank of Montreal on Wyndham Street before an arrest could be effected. The suspect exited the bank several minutes later and was arrested without incident at which time it was revealed that he had just committed a robbery inside the bank. All money from this robbery was recovered.
Arrested: Danny William MILLER (49 yrs) of No Fixed Address (Held for Bail Hearing)
Charged with: Robbery (Nine Counts) contrary to Section 344 of the Criminal Code and
Wear Disguise while committing robbery (Nine Counts), contrary to Section 351(2) of the Criminal Code.
Bank staff in Burlington and surrounding communities will be a lot more at ease.
Background links:
BMO on Brant Street robbed.
Police believe they are looking for a serial bank robber.
 By Pepper Parr
April 12, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
The sun is moving into Claudette Losier’s world. An active artists since 2007 when she sold four paintings at the Jordan Station show she has three significant events in the next few months –and that for this artist is the start of turning things around.
Losier earns her core income as a still life model but the joy for her is her transfer technique, a form of photo based mono printing or mark making with an “abandonment to chance working your intuition”. “You can never recreate the same mark or image”, explains Losier.
 Red poppies – part of Losier’s early work included in the current BAC show. About a month ago Losier had one of her paintings bought by the Province of Ontario for their permanent collection. Losier exhibited “Around the Bend” at the Women’s Art Association of Hamilton’s 118th Annual Juried Show at the Art Gallery of Hamilton.
Her most recent event is her participation in the Burlington Art Centre’s In the Garden exhibition, where she will share space with Wayne Moore, Victoria Pearce and Susan Rankin around Victor Cicansky’s piece Garden Ruins from the BAC permanent collection.
Losier depicts meditative dreamlike flowers, while Moore highlights the structure of the plant. Pearce creates dramatic still life studies, and Rankin incorporates floral elements into her glass blown vases. The exhibition runs April 12 – June 1, 2014.
Losier is truly one of those struggling artists – whose styles seem like they are all over the place. Her recent City Scape series is doing well as is the different locations she is showing and teaching.
 Cityscapes – a new direction for artists Claudette Losier now sowing at the Burlington Art Centre. During that 2012 event we met another artist and were mentioning the Losier work and were told that `the woman is really hard to manage – I once had to get a restraining order against her.” Losier denies that ever happened but added – “if it adds to my character you can tell people that happened – but it didn’t.”
What impresses people when you meet Losier is her energy – she is all over the place; seldom finishes a sentence and will use whatever time you give her to show you every picture she ever painted.
Art is all over the place in the non-descript bungalow she shares with her husband and their cat “Monet” on the mountain in Hamilton. Her husband gets some space in a back room where he does his financial work.
Part of the current event at the Burlington Art Centre required each artists to write a “statement”. She explained that ask this way: “Friday night I tried to tackle my statement but the words would not come. Saturday morning I was lying down staring at my third eye offering my little flowers of devotion to God when all of a sudden I started thinking of my statement and the thoughts were pouring out! I wrote it! Wow I was crying as I was writing thinking those thoughts that God was helping me write it – I believe so because it was effortless – no struggle!”
 Expressive, always in motion and at times totally off the wall; an artist to keep an eye on. There wasn’t a lot of money around the high school period home; alcoholism pervaded the household and for a time Losier lived on student welfare
Applications to the Ontario College of Art and Design, University of Toronto and Brock University ended up with Losier doing a business administration program at Brock.
 Earning a living became the prime focus and for seven years Losier worked as an accounting clerk for a truck leasing company. She did most of he own healing, grew as a feminist and found solace in her mother-in-laws garden – the home she now lives in.
The early art was focused on flowers and gardens. Losier took part in a Jordan Station art show and sold four pieces at that event – “one was a 30×24 inch piece that I sold for $500” said Losier. Flowers dominated her art from 2007 to 2012 when she began her Cityscape series.
Getting her hands on a digital camera opened creative doors for her. Losier always photographs what she wants to paint first – the digital camera allowed her to distort an image. “My first pictures and as a result some of my early paintings s were blurry because I didn’t know how to focus the camera.”
Another break for Losier was being able to work with the Elaine Fleck Gallery and was invited to take part in a group show. Losier however doesn’t wait for people to buy her art. She is a very “in your face artist and will go wherever she has to go to have her art seen.
Losier has her art up on James Street at Lister Arts at Lister Block; at Humblepie, the Hamilton Store, and Centre3.
We are only seeing the beginning of Claudette Losier; this is an artist exploring, pushing boundaries and excited about every opportunity that sits there before her. Someone to watch and worth buying – now.
By Pepper Parr
April 15, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON
The Roseland Heights Community Organization (RHCO), announces that two of its members, Anup Ogale, and Gavin Towers have filed an appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board against the city’s decision to approve the building of an apartment complex on New Street at Cumberland.
 Citizen group appeals city decision to approve apartment project. The two RHCO members want to ensure that if any development happens in their neighbourhood, it is compatible with the surroundings. Their goal in launching this appeal is to:
- Prevent Maranatha from developing a six (6) storey structure at their New Street location
- Ensure the North East corner of Brock park remains free from such massive development
- Unite the neighbourhood and give all residents a voice through the RHCO.
- Raise awareness that the policy of intensification is leading to significant environmental consequences to the City.
We are proposing to organize a community meeting in the coming few weeks, so all of us can meet in person, and discuss these important issues impacting our area. The RHCO is also working on formalizing its status, which would give it a strong voice to advocate for its members, and raise funds for community efforts. We do need volunteers to assist, with raising awareness and other community efforts, so please email us at info@rhco.ca for more details.
The RHCO is very much the creation of Burlington lawyer Brian Heagle who wrote the delegation made to Council when it approved the project. Heagle arranged for Anup Ogale to read the material.
Arnup managed to mangle many of the facts during the two delegations he made – one gets the sense that he has been made the front man for others.
A date has yet to be set for the OMB hearing.
Background links:
Citizens oppose apartment complex.
Council approves apartment complex on New Street.
 By Pepper Parr
April 15, 2014.
BURLINGTON, ON.
Mayor Goldring noticed Thursday afternoon that he had an appointment on his calendar with the city manager – it wasn’t one he was aware of and thought he might have gotten something mixed up.
Perhaps he wishes there had been a mix up – when the meeting did take place Jeff Fielding, who has been with the city for just 26 months, advised the Mayor that he was going to accept a position as the city manager for the city of Calgary.
That news was a blow to many, perhaps not all that bothersome for some members of Council who may have experienced some indigestion as a result of Fielding’s style. He has said to this council on more than one occasion to “just do your jobs”.
Fielding, sold himself to Calgary as “pretty much a financial conservative,” and touted his detailed service-based approach as designed for public digestion. “It begins a dialogue within the community about whether they’re getting value or not,” he said.
Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi, one of the most admired Mayors in the country, held Calgary together during the Spring floods in Alberta. He has the electorate in that city in the palm of his hand; few council members dare oppose what he suggests. Staff in Calgary are said to bridle at some of his approaches. Burlington’s Mayor was putty for Fielding – he will have his hands more than full with Nenshi.
The Calgary decision to hire Fielding was the culmination of a months-long competition that included international applicants and at least two City of Calgary general managers. So – while we didn’t know it, Fielding was on his way out the door before we had finalized our budget for 2014.
Calgary is not new to Fielding – he once worked in that city’s planning department more than a decade ago.
Calgary is a different municipal beast: it is western Canada’s largest city that keeps building new suburbs on farm fields.
Fielding was a great breath of fresh air for Burlington. He brought focus and discipline to just about everything. There are more than a dozen staff members, not all senior people, who have grown professionally under Fielding’s guiding hand.
They will miss him both personally and professionally and now they have to try and pick up from where he has left them – and Fielding hasn’t exactly left the city in great shape.
The approach to service based budgeting that he convinced the city to take on is far from complete and while the city has some top notch people working on getting the budget for 2015 set up for the new approach – none are experts and don’t bring the almost evangelical drive Fielding brought to making the people who decide responsible and accountable for their decisions.
It is going to be very difficult to maintain the progress that has been made to date on the service based budget concept. We are newbies at this and we don’t have a leader with the depth needed to put it into place. We will soldier through – but it would have been easier with Fielding at the helm.
The city is on the hook for a $300,000 – three year contract for the services provided by Angus Reid and his son’s Critical Vision operation. Fielding knew he needed faster feedback from the public and called the tool “Insight Burlington”. His staff was in the process of fine tuning the service. So far all his team had managed to do was get one question out. That tool might sit on the shelf with Fielding gone.
Perhaps that three year contract with Critical Vision is similar to the contract Fielding had with the city. I thought a five year contract ran for sixty month – Fielding has put in 26 months. Personally, I argue that having taken the city down the service based budgeting path we knew little about, Fielding had an obligation to stick around long enough to complete the job – another year would make a big difference.
During the last budget Fielding told the cultural community he would do his best to find the funds needed to hire a Cultural Manager. Kiss that one goodbye.
The city will be into mediation on the legal problems left over from the construction of the pier – the project that went from $6.7 million in 2006 and ballooned to more than $14 million and it isn’t over yet.
Fielding took the financial file and the legal file out of the hands of General Manager Kim Phillips – left her with Parks and Recreation and fire stations and was the lead hand on the working relationship with the city’s solicitor and the lawyers handling the city’s law suits. Those lawyers started off suing on behalf of the city and now find that the tables have turned and they are defending themselves against the claims of the original contractor. Fielding had meetings with the lawyers the city engaged to map out a mediation strategy. He was expected to be the lead talker for the city. We would have been well served with him at the table.
Fielding was deeply involved in the longer term thinking on how we get something useful out of the downtown core and had a team looking at what we have in the way of physical assets and what we don’t have, including a city hall that doesn’t have room for all those people on the payroll.
There have been renewed discussions with McMaster University and the use of the Elizabeth Street parking lot – some of the people involved in those discussions were stunned when they read the news of Fielding’s departure.
Fielding did a superb job in maintaining the staff compliment and held salary increases to 1%. He could be really hardnosed when it was necessary. The Seniors’ are going to miss him – he gave them everything but a new kitchen sink for their operation.
Burlington paid Fielding $249,940,24 in 2013 plus $8,898.60 in taxable benefits. Calgary is going to pay him $319,000 plus a possible 10% bonus.
So where does Burlington go from here? Does the city call in a recruiting company and ask them to begin running ads? Does Council do what they did when they parted ways with Roman Martiuk and have General Managers Stewart and Phillips carry the ball until Fielding was hired?
Scott Stewart was one of the applicants for the job of city manager and got beat out by Fielding. Is Stewart ready now for the top job? He has been doing a large part of it for the past year; carrying a lot of the weight this past six months. Fielding has done a great job of grooming Stewart.
City Council will meet in a Special session Tuesday after the scheduled Corporate and Community Services meeting. That will be a closed session with perhaps Executive Director of Human Resources Roy Male serving as the pro tem Clerk.
This is a vital meeting for this council. There are those who believe the Mayor is on for someone to serve as an interim city manager while Councillor Sharman has something up his sleeve but wasn’t prepared to say anything more than that.
Mayor Goldring has described Sharman as the best strategic thinker on council and relies heavily on his advice – which Sharman very willingly gives.
Council does have one other alternative. Former city manager Roman Martiuk is looking for work – perhaps he would take on a short term assignment.
 Back in 2012 the city was given an opportunity to accept an offer from the insurance company that carried the performance bond to assure the completion of the pier. Council turned that one down – with very little time spent considering the offer. They instead issued a new tender – and we paid even more for the pier than originally planned.
There is an opportunity for a really sensible decision to be made on Tuesday. Don’t blow this one.
The last word on this sad situation for today comes from a reader’s comment: High performance executives do not leave for money. They leave because they are frustrated or handicapped/handcuffed from achieving success by the very culture of the company.
That sounds a lot like why Frank McKeown quit as the Mayor’s Chief of Staff.
Fielding leaves his desk May 16 and starts work in Calgary June 2, 2014′
By Pepper Parr
April 14. 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
It must have been with a heavy heart that Mayor Goldring announced today that city manager Jeff Fielding will be leaving the City of Burlington to become the new city manager for the City of Calgary.
Fielding has had a massive impact on change in the city and leaves at a time when there is far too much work not yet done. His leaving will set the city back some distance.
“I want to sincerely thank Jeff on behalf of City Council and staff for his significant, positive impact on the city and its residents,” said Mayor Goldring. “Under Jeff’s leadership, we have accomplished a tremendous amount of work in the last two years, setting us on the path for Burlington to become one of the most innovative and creative municipal governments in Canada.”
Fielding began with Burlington in January 2012. He introduced processes and tools to enhance the delivery of city services, including results-based accountability, business process management and service-based budgeting. Fielding will be with Burlington until May 16, beginning his new position with Calgary on June 2.
An announcement will soon be made regarding an interim replacement for the city manager. The city will provide an update as soon as a decision is made.
Much more to develop on this story.
See it as a blow for the city.
By Pepper Parr
April 14, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
This isn’t the first run up the hill for James Smith, he has run for the ward 5 council seat before and did credibly well in 2010. Federal liberal in 1988
For James the issues in the 2014 election are personal – he is passionate about the need for public transit, worked himself ragged to get the Freeman Station onto a site where work at restoring the structure could begin. In his campaign material Smith says: “As president of the Friends of Freeman Station I learned some very valuable lessons about consensus building and finding solutions to problems city council couldn’t or didn’t want to tackle.”
James Smith has been around politics a large part of his life. His first political encounter was back in 1968 – during the days when Paul Hellyer, was a force – he became the Minister of Defence and merged the armed forces putting them all in the same colour of uniform.
Smith hung around political offices and did all the usual stuff young people do in elections. He did what that generation did and took the “trip to Europe” with some friends. Met a woman who had a cousin and married the cousin – they’ve been married 34 years and have two grown children.
Smith worked for Sears in western Canada for nine years as a store planner; they sent him east where he worked in Scarborough. The work was decent but Scarborough wasn’t for him. They liked the High Park area but prices weren’t within their budget. “We kept moving west, found Burlington and have been here ever since” is the way Smith describes his introduction to the city.
 James Smith, second from left, at the signing of the Joint Venture with the city to move and refurbish the Freeman Station. There was a family to be raised and the Harris government took over the province – not much room for Liberals in those days. Smith hunkered down and raised his children. Smith is a former Director of the Burlington Arts Centre; a past member of Burlington’s Official Plan citizens advisory committee and a founding member of the Burlington Conserver Society – the group that saved the Sheldon Creek Woodlot
Smith was a member of the Shaping Burlington Committee – they advocated for the adoption of the City of Burlington Engagement Charter. Council accepted the Shape Burlington recommendation but the public hasn’t seen much of the concept since then.
Smith, whose father was a broadcaster is the co-host of Transit Talk on Usual Sources Radio CFMU-FM 93.3 In 2013 Smith established the Save Skyway Arena Campaign and stopped the closure of Skyway Arena.
He was host and moderator of BFAST’s (Burlington for Accessible Sustainable Transit) Town Hall meeting in June 2012; an event that brought some of the best minds in transit in the province to Burlington. Smith is the Burlington Representative on the GTA West MOVE Task Force and co-author of the soon to be released MOVE Task Force Report
BFAST takes credit for saving the John Street Bus Terminal.
An finally, Smith is a founder (one of several) and Past President of The Friends of Freeman Station; he has been tireless in finding a home for the station and leading a sound board and team of volunteers that will soon be out refurbishing the station that now sits on Fairview – next to the fire station.
Smith is an active Catholic as well.
The campaign to win ward 5 this time around is based on three premises: Planning, Moving and Prosperity. What the public has seen from Smith is a consistent approach to the way we move people around. He argues that grid lock, the increasing cost of gas, an aging population that will not be able to drive a car at some point and the impact of carbon on the environment make it vital that the city look at different forms of public transit.
GO works well and the service is now more frequent which keeps cars off the QEW. Smith tends to focus on local transit and our ability to get from community to community. Getting Burlingtonians out of their cars is a little like spitting into the wind. Car culture dominates and Smith doesn’t believe this council and particularly the member for ward 5 really understand transit. Their arguments tend to focus on the cost to the city while James believes cost is certainly a concern but that there is a bigger concern that isn’t being seen. Were Smith to be elected there will be different conversations around the council chamber horseshoe.
James Smith believes that the city needs to do a better job of planning. He is pretty blunt and direct when he says: “Burlington has no green fields left to pave.”
Urban sprawl, he points out, costs us all in additional services and hidden costs. He then adds that the only thing people seem to hate more than Sprawl is Intensification. Smith fully understands the province’s “Places to Grow” legislation and the city’s official plan – not something that can be said for every member of the current council.
Smith makes the uncomfortable point that “with no more room to build, the fact we have built to the edge of our urban boundary means intensification is coming. We have to be ready for and understand how to make the changes we want to see in our communities.” Not exactly great vote getters but they do reflect the reality Burlington faces.
Smith has serious issues with a number of the decisions made by the current council and while he earns a very good living as an architectural technologist – he took time last December to hunker down with family and friends and decide if he could win an election and if he felt he could – mount a campaign and work at it full time.
What the public often does not realize is that the people who run for office do so at their expense. They have to put quite a bit of their own money into the campaign and they have to give up on their gainful employment and go door to door in the ward listening to votes and seeking their support.
Smith has been delegating to city council for years – he takes on an issue and will work his way through the work plan and get it done.
He’s Irish and while the temper is seldom seen, it is nevertheless there and on an unfortunate occasion he set aside the words he had prepared and asked council if they “were on coke” – they were going through a transit report that should have been before council several weeks before. Smith just lost it.
How we get around has been an overriding issue for Smith. He believes we have to work with other governments and agencies to develop an action plan to build a CN grade separation on Burloak before 2020. Smith is adamant – we have to use the Gas Tax monies we get for transit; that is what the funds were intended for. Smith and his Bfast colleagues get close to apoplectic when they see gas tax monies being spent on roads.
While there has been a lot of talk about working with employers to put active transportation plans in place – there hasn’t been much actually implemented.
Smith wants to re-allocate resources and review transportation budgets for waste and duplication with the Region of Halton and plan for a Transit system people will use and can rely on, with a City commitment to funding transit at least to the level of the GTA average
If James Smith makes it to city hall expect him to press hard for a commitment to work with Oakville, Waterdown and the province to plan and build the Dundas BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) called for in Metrolinx’s BIG Move. Should he end up with more votes than anyone else in ward 5, the city will finally have a true transit advocate on council.
Burlington now has Prosperity Corridors. Smith isn’t overly impressed with the public relations language and points out that with a fixed urban boundary the city has to look for creative new ways to attract new development, industry and residents. He seems to have forgotten that the city has an Economic Development Corporation, albeit one that hasn’t done very much and currently has its head buried in a governance exercise. Smith would like to establish a Task Force on unlocking the potential of Employment Lands. He will be walking into a hornets nest on that one. He wants to involve residents in the earliest phases of planning to develop community supported new development. The BEDC has yet to ever invite the public into its deliberations – anything Smith can do to open up that operation will be welcome news and certainly in line with the objects of the Community Engagement Charter that can’t seem to get outside the doors of city hall.
Smith wants mixed use for all Employment Lands to at least be considered and to insist on a residential component for all retail re-development – he would like to add in a residential and an affordability component as well.
So who is this guy? Irish that’s for sure. A citizen who has paid his dues and shown that he can get things done. City council basically threw its hands in the air with the Freeman Station – Smith was part of a team that saved the station so that citizens could refurbish it.
In 2010 there were eight candidates running for the council seat. Paul Sharman won that contest after deciding that he wouldn’t run for Mayor – he filed nomination papers for that job first.
The candidates were: Serge BERALDO, Rick GOLDRING, Paul KESELMAN, Dave KUMAR, Anne MARSDEN, Cal MILLAR, Peggy RUSSELL, Paul SHARMAN and James SMITH. Goldring dropped out as a ward council candidate and ran for Mayor.
David Kumar went on to his heaven by getting appointed to the Committee of Adjustment, Cal Millar went on to become president of the federal Conservative Party association in Burlington.
While Sharman has yet to file his nomination papers for re-election in ward 5 (maybe he is going to file to run for the office of Mayor and mean it this time?) the race is currently between Ian Simpson and James Smith.
Background links and related stories:
Smith loses it.
By Pepper Parr
April 9, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
“In the absence of effective leadership in ward 6” said Vanessa Warren “I have filed nomination papers and will contest the seat Councillor Blair Lancaster currently holds on city Council”, and the race for the ward 6 seat got serious.
Warren is the fourth citizen to go after the seat: James Curran, Angelo Bentivegna, Mina Wahidi have filed nomination papers and now Warren. All will have their names on the ballot in October. It should be the race to watch come the October municipal election.
 The community first got a look at Warren when she chaired the Rural Burlington Greenbelt Coalition to stop the trucks that were dumping what she called “toxic landfill” on what she described as an unlicensed landfill operation known as the Burlington Executive Air Park on Appleby Line.
The issue first came to the wider community’s attention when the Gazette published a story on all the trucks that were on upper Appleby Line carrying fill into the Burlington Air Park site.
Citizens in the rural part of ward 6 were lived with the lack of response from their ward Councillor who seemed just too close to the owner of the air park.
Warren delegated very successfully to city council and just as effectively to the Region. She proved to be very forthright and to have done the homework necessary to get at the issues. It was Warren who dug up the fact that there was $4.5 million in mortgages on the air park property that she called the Burlington Airpark landfill dump.
Warren then become engaged in critical issues such as the LaSalle Park Marina expansion, the Mount Nemo Heritage Conservation District, the new Official Plan and the 2014 Budget, where she challenged a speaker for hijacking a public meeting. Burlington was beginning to see a very feisty advocate.
In her campaign media release Warren said she “seeks to radically improve on Blair Lancaster’s poor record of access and engagement at City Hall.” The white gloves were clearly off.
“We’re going to need really strong leadership to enhance the livability of our urban spaces while still protecting our green spaces.” said Vanessa who was a Burlington Green board member for a short period of time. She resigned all her community affiliations when she announced she was going to run as a candidate.
“I commit to being an unflinching listener, communicator, and leader”, said Warren. She has also committed to continuing to do her homework and let the people of ward 6 see what she has to offer.
With three other candidates in the race for the seat on council – it may well prove to be the most interesting election race in October – BUT ward 4 has some interesting developments. More on that situation at another time.
Who then is Vanessa Warren? She and her husband run two equine business operations; one in Mississauga that is one of that last public riding facilities left in the GTA.
Husband Cary has been farming at some level for most of his life – he is also a small craft pilot.
The Mississauga operation is on land they have rented for more than thirty years. An opportunity to buy a property in Burlington came their way and as Vanessa put it – “this was going to be our ‘pine box’, we expected to be on the Burlington farm for the rest of our lives.”
 The issue was the air park property – and the landfill that had been dumped on the site – hundreds of thousands of tonnes of un-inspected landfill. The Warren property is shown upper right with red lines. Vanessa Warren is a fair human being. Tough, – she doesn’t take a lot of nonsense from anyone but she is at heart fair. She has worked with animals for most of her adult life and understands the need for a firm hand as well.
 Vanessa Warren brings the discipline and focus required as a dressage competitor to just about everything she does. Here she works her favourite stead at a competition. Burlington first saw Warren when she delegated before city council on the number of trucks carrying landfill along Appleby Line to the Air Park site. She wanted to know what the city was doing about the traffic and the content of those trucks.. At that point the city wasn’t doing very much – but senior people on the administration side took the concerns seriously and began to look closer at what had been the prevailing view: the Air Park was regulated by the federal government – end of story.
This time the city looked a little deeper and brought in some advisors. While Burlington did it’s work Warren took her story to the Region and while she did a good delegation she didn’t get much in the way of support. Oakville Mayor Rob Burton gave Warren what amounted to a patronizing lecture and sent her on her way. Burton had no idea who had was running up against.
Warren looked to her community, worked with people to form an organization that could speak on behalf of the people in rural Burlington – and this was born the Burlington Rural Green Belt Coalition. It was a little bumpy at first but Warren brought strong administrative skills to the task and proved more than capable of listening to her peers and moving the ball forward each time they met.
Before long the city was in court with the Air Park owner and Warren felt her part of the job was done. She felt strongly that the community was poorly served by its elected representative and was active in helping people find someone who lived in rural Burlington to run for the council seat. She met with a number of people and there were solid meaningful conversations with several but nothing was panning out.
Warren had moved on. She became a BurlingtonGreen board member and was active in the working on the difference of opinion between the LaSalle Park Marina Association and the people who cared about what was happening to the trumpeter swans who had made a home for themselves at the marina. Warren also began to work with Councillor John Taylor to get him re-elected in ward 3. There was still no viable rural candidate for ward 6.
Warren maintains Taylor urged her to run for the seat; whatever it was – something changed her mind and we were advised several weeks ago that Vanessa would be declaring her intentions after a short trip south where she snorkeled and looked at fish.
Back in the country – the wheels began to turn and she was in.
While the air park has been the focus for Warren – she does not appear to be a single issue candidate. She is an environmentalist; BurlingtonGreen was a good fit for her and we saw some of the grit she has consistently shown when she complained about a speaker from the LaSalle Park Marina Association hijacking a public meeting that was supposed to be about the budget. At that same meeting she asked why the public was reading about decisions that had basically already made – she wanted the public to be involved well before decisions were made.
She did the same thing last week when she asked city council why they were deciding on the building of a new court house that no one knew anything about. Where was the community engagement, Warren asked.
Warren understands that the “next several years in our Ward are going to be critical ones. The urban areas in the ward are developing rapidly and we are at risk of outpacing our own economic development, infrastructure and transit planning. Growing and intensifying without a strong, integrated planning vision will mean disconnected, poorly serviced neighbourhoods. Upcoming Provincial reviews of the Greenbelt and Niagara Escarpment plan mean that our current rural protections could become less fulsome, and I want to ensure that our community’s formidable desire to protect its liveability, green space and agricultural economy is rigorously represented.”
Rigorous is a word that fits the Warren persona. There is nothing “wishy washy” about this candidate.
Yes – the airport runway ends a field or two away from the farm she works with her husband and one could argue that she has a vested interest. The small aircraft pilots who rent hanger space at the Air Park certainly think that is the case. The small engine aircraft aren’t a problem – it is the threat that there might be larger small jet engine aircraft using the runway – and that is an entirely different situation.
Warren’s overriding question about the Air Park is this: What’s going on up there? Is was her questions that got the city into a court room where the won their case at the Superior Court level and are heading into an appeal that will be heard in June.
In the meantime Warren will run her campaign knowing that the illegal dumping at the Airpark has been stopped. Then, once all the appeals are done with the need to clean up the toxic heritage of a five year fill operation needs to start.
The community will hear about a candidate who would like to see “a new financial model for a liveable Burlington that grows in place – one that keeps an eye on the triple bottom line: social performance, environmental performance AND economic performance.
 Vanessa Warren with her nomination papers in hand. She may not be elected yet but she has figured out what the photo-op is all about. Is Warren as good as she sounds? We do know she was a reluctant candidate and that it was the performance of the sitting member, Blair Lancaster, which was a large part of the driving force behind the Warren decision.
In the next six months the people of ward 6 have an opportunity to listen and decide who they want to represent them. Councillor Lancaster has said publicly that she intended to run but has yet to file nomination papers.
By Pepper Parr
April 11, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
Was it the cold winter that resulted in hundreds of dead fish floating on the pond of the Appleby Line property that is surrounded on three sides by the Air Park land fill or is the death of the fish the result of toxic and silt filled water now in the pond?
The argument as to whether the land fill was going to do any real damage has been simmering in the background. Some testing was done but the
 A spring fed pond with hundreds of fish – normally. Today wasn’t a normal day on the Appleby Line property. Hundreds of dead fish were floating n the water this morning. Ministry of the Environment got involved in a struggle over who was entitled to the information from their testing results – privacy issues came into play and the privacy officers at every level of government seem to be taking the time they feel they needed to determine just who can see what.
 The spring fed pond is yards away from a mountain of landfill that was never properly tested when it was dumped on the property. Runoff from the landfill is now getting to the water table – dead fish are showing up in the pond. Some of the evidence may have come to the surface – literally, for one resident. Hundreds of dead fish were found floating on her pond this morning. That pond is yards away from a 30 foot high pile of landfill that is in place in violation of the city’s site alteration bylaw.
The property owner advises that the Ministry of the Environment will be on her property later today to test for contamination in the pond.
 That crane sits atop a 30 foot high wall of landfill that is yards away from a pond that had hundreds of dead fish floating on it this morning. No one will be surprised if it is contaminated – they fully expected this to happen. It is the result of thousands of tonnes of untested landfill being dumped without the required permissions.
Everyone will feel badly for the property owners – but no one is going to fix the underground water course that may be damaged for decades.
A win of the appeal of the court case in which the city won its case – their bylaw is valid and the air park is bound by that rule – isn’t going to bring the dead fish in that pond back to life.
There is more damage to come as well. Individual livelihoods are being damaged here. What is this going to do to our best small city to live in reputation?
By Pepper Parr
April 9, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON
The objective was $300,000 – more than $80,000 of that was raised in less than a month.
Don’t ever say that this community is not behind the Friends of Freeman Station (FoFS) and their objective to rehabilitate and refurbish the Burlington Junction train station originally built in 1906. Despite the full support of city council – the FoFS have persevered. Councillors Marianne Meed Ward and Blair Lancaster deserve all the council level credit for their work.
Brian Mello and artist David Harrington hold a painting of the Freeman Station in front of the site where the refurbishment of the build will be done when the foundation is in place and the weather is a little warmer.
It has been a struggle but when Mark Gillies was made chair of the membership and fundraising committee things began to happen.
The FoFS created a list of sponsorship opportunities and within a month most of the indoor locations were sponsored.
 John Mello on the right and David Harrington hold a painting Harrington did of the Freeman Station. Brian Aasgaard, president of FoFS advised us that it will not be very long before we see work crews on the site starting the work.
Right now they are waiting for a permit to begin putting in the foundation. The FoFS station had all their drawings but – this is almost funny, the engineer who provided the drawings made a mistake and put in the year of 2013 instead of 2014 and the city rejected the application – so back they had to go. Aasgaard said he will have the permit by the end of the week and the basement work can begin. As soon as that is done – work crews move in – and we should have some warmer weather as well.
There are a number of organizations that are waiting in the wings to announce their sponsorship which puts “DONE” to the task a group of citizens took on to save a piece of local history.
City council struggled for years to find a place to place the station and then have it refurbished – at one point they even had federal money to pay for the move and the refurbishment but they couldn’t agree on a home for the structure. Meanwhile it sat beside the fire station headquarters and began to slowly rot.
Those days will become part of the lore and history of the station – not one of the city’s best moments – but it is the citizens of a city that make a community what it is. City councils just get elected, make their mistakes and move on.
By Pepper Parr
April 9, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON
The Region just might be looking for a serial bank robber – and this kind of situation has the potential to become very, very dangerous.
The Halton Regional Police are investigating a series of bank robberies that occurred between January 3rd and April 8th 2014.Police believe the same suspect is responsible for eight robberies in Burlington, Oakville and Kitchener.
- January 3rd, 2014 Bank of Montreal – 519 Brant St. Burlington
- January 29, 2014 Bank of Montreal – 2 King St. Kitchener
- February 18, 2014 Scotiabank Robbery – 64 King St. W. Kitchener
- February 18, 2014 Scotiabank Robbery – 1258 King St. E Kitchener
- March 5, 2014 C.I.B.C. – 197 Lakeshore Rd. E. Oakville
- March 25, 2014 C.I.B.C. – 575 Brant St. Burlington
- April 2, 2014 Bank of Montreal – 239 Lakeshore Rd. Oakville
- April 8, 2014 Scotiabank – 320 Speers Rd in Oakville
The suspect is described as:
Male, white
Approximately 5’10” to 6’2”
Large build, 200-250 lbs.
Chubby face with a wide jaw
Wearing dark sunglasses, blue jeans, a black hoodie with dark a coloured plaid jacket and a multicolour scarf.
Anyone with information on these robberies is urged to contact Detective John Ophoven, 3 District Criminal Investigations Bureau at 905 825-4747 Ext 2343 or Detective Sergeant Ron Hansen at 905-825-4747 Ext. 2315 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477), through the web at www.haltoncrimestoppers.com or by texting ‘Tip201’ with your message to 274637(crimes).
Regional police will add more images should they become available. They can be found on the web site.
Background links:
BMO on Brant Street robbed.
Friday bank heist.
By Pepper Parr
April 9, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
While not yet a candidate Bell Line resident Vanessa Warren let fly at a city council meeting Monday night.
She delegated to talk about the new court house to be built at Walker’s Line and Palladium Way..
 Vanessa Warren telling council they were not delivering on their promises. What Warren was doing was highlighting the significant lack of communication on the part of the city about a new Courthouse expansion and consolidation of both the Milton and Burlington Courthouses that is ready to proceed with a request for design/build/lease proposals. You could imagine my frustration at not having received any communication about this proposal from my local Councillor; nor have any of the dozens of what I would consider very engaged residents I have spoken with.
“It is clear from the report that, since 2006, it is has been well researched and well funded – and slated for vacant employment lands in the 407 corridor, it might also seem well planned…except for what I see as two glaring oversights.
The first oversight had to do with Community Engagement, which Warren reminded Council was
To fulfill the vision and mission of the Burlington Community Engagement Charter, that included Early and Widespread Notification
Warren added that the engagement charter was to celebrate its first birthday the following day.
Warren reminded Council they were about to confirm the location of this courthouse and seek an RFP for a design/build/lease arrangement for the next 25 years and beyond without even “brushing up against the first level of public participation on the list in its own Charter, which is to inform.
Warren brought to Council’s attention the “really poor transportation planning” for the Alton community when transit wasn’t even thought of until after it was built, and less than three months before the start of the school year.
I think everyone can agree” said Warren “ that that was an example of ad-hoc and backward-looking work and should have been a lesson well learned.
 Council sat stoically while Vanessa Warren reminded them that they were not living up to the provision of the Community engagement Charter which was to celebrate its first anniversary the next day. Warren wasn’t finished: She pointed out that one of the key criterion used to select the courthouse location was that it be “serviced by public transit”, presumably because many people who use the court system will have need of busing and other alternatives. She had wanted to put a map up on the screen in Council chambers showing that there were no plans for a bus route in place to service the court house that is to be move in ready by mid-2016.
It was at this point that the Mayor interrupted Warren and asked her to “make your comments specific to the Growth Management Plan” under discussion. The Mayor appeared to be having a problem with comments about the failure to live up to the committeemen to keep the public informed set out in the Community Engagement Charter.
Warren said later that she didn’t think the Mayor was right in interrupting her and that all her comments were very germane. She added that she felt most of the council members were “squirming in their seats”
“I spoke last week with Jenny Setterfield, Transportation Engineering Technologist at Burlington Transit, the point person on the City’s Transportation Master Plan and she was not aware of this project.
This all makes me very concerned: concerned that Council has failed to, at the very least inform the local community about what is taking place, and concerned that Council will once again be directing Burlington Transit to back-fill it’s development plans with three months notice.
We need really strong leadership to enhance the livability of our urban spaces while still protection our green spaces. This proposal – while overall being positive – has been approached the wrong way. You’ve only looked at one bottom line.
You should not be consulting after the fact and then ask residents to show up for the photo-op later. You consult in advance and you ensure that the big picture planning tools – like transit – are in place to ensure success.
I would suggest that approving the recommendations before you tonight will be a violation of your own Community Engagement Charter, and will only work towards creating a disconnected and poorly serviced City.
 Councillor Paul Sharman asks Warren what some of her assumptions were while Councillor Lancaster listen as she is roundly criticized by a ward resident. Jeff Fielding the city manager did add some comment after the Warren delegation and pointed out that the location of a new court house had to be the result of a consensus of all four municipalities in the Region and that some issues had come up from one of the municipalities – he didn’t say which one – that would be reviewed April 14th. He added that there would be no problem deferring any decision by council until the next round of Standing Committee meetings.
Which was fine – but the comments didn’t deal with the fact that the public had not been made aware of the plans for the court house and any transit requirement has not even been looked at.
Warren had brought the issue to the attention of the people in her ward and the city at large.
That was Monday night. On Tuesday morning Vanessa Warren announced her intention to run for City and Regional Council in Burlington’s Ward 6 and said that after “four years of inaction, inaccessibility and poor communication from the incumbent, Blair Lancaster” she would run for the office.
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