 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON June 25, 2012 Well the price of cherries went through the roof and the peaches aren’t exactly being given away – pears are going to be a bit on the pricey side as well – all due to the nasty little trick nature played on the fruit crops with warm weather and then a dash of cold air thrown around.
 Fresh produce, fresh meats, new customers. Every Friday new faces show up, asking questions, buying fresh from the farm products. Friday 11- 2 on John Street north of James – back in behind Centro Gardens But the Farmer’s Market on John Street – back in behind Centro Garden – adds new offerings each week.
Tree and Twig Heirloom farm that is doing preserves this Friday at the market which is open from 11-2. The Heirloom Vegetable Farm focuses on foods linked to our past which is an exciting way to try new and unusual tastes, shapes and colours. In the last century, we have lost 90 per cent of our vegetable varieties — a tragic loss of diversity and a threat to our food security. It is important to stop this trend and, as growers and consumers, look for alternatives. These vegetables are grown for taste. Sounds interesting
Casteleyn, the Belgian Chocolatier located on Brant will be serving espresso coffee at the market. If you’re not wide awake by the middle of the day – a double espresso will do it for you. Nine year old Andres, son of the Casteleyn proprietor will be doing the serving. Barry Imber, one of the organizing forces behind the market is “ very excited about having these young people be involved – they are the future of our entrepreneurial town.”
Damian Wills, he runs the Farm to Table Meats, will be at the Market again and is offering game sausage on top of his regular fare.
 The current offerings from Featherstone Farms does not include foul or eggs but the pork and bacon they have is superb. Featherstone Farms will also be at the market again – they are regulars, with their pork offerings.
These fresh meat producers can take custom orders and have them on hand for you to pick up. From time to time I like to poach really thick pork chops in orange juice and then lay them on a bed of rice with a ginger sauce I make and pour over the food. That with side dishes of green beans and asparagus and a bottle of chilled Chardonnay – makes a meal for me.
The Cheese Gypsy will be foraging for new and exciting local and regional cheeses and offering tasting notes along with the cheese for folks to take home and share the knowledge with friends. She will be at the market for the first time on August 3rd.
As we get into the fall, Gibbs Honey will be back with the next batch of his product – it sold out in a flash last time. The next batch, his second harvest; will be a lighter but more floral flavored local honey. You might want to go on line and reserve a jar.
The Farmer’s Market exists so that people can connect directly with the people who grow and produce some of the food we eat. Meeting and talking to these vendors gives you an opportunity to create a one-on-one relationship. Featherstone Farms – (289) 337-3375 and Farm to Table Meats could become your personal butcher. Something to think about.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON July 23, 2012 The first thing that occurs to you when you see Michele Benoit is her size – she’s close to tiny, and then the question: wasn’t a long distance swimmer supposed to be quite big enters your mind.
 This is what a 42 year old pixie of a long distance swimmer looks like. Look out Lake Ontario – she is coming your way. And you wonder too – a 42 year old is swimming Lake Ontario – isn’t that a game for younger people. When you meet Benoit – you are a little stunned – she doesn’t look 42 at all – maybe 32, somewhere in there.
But she is going to swim Lake Ontario starting at night out of Port Dalhousie and swimming the 45 km to Burlington where she expects to land at Spencer Smith Park – ideally in that small “instant Beach” that has been formed on the west side of the under construction Pier.
Why would someone this age decide to swim across Lake Ontario? We will get to the why in a bit. The how you get yourself physically and psychologically to the point where you can start and actually finish something like this is an incredible story.
Benoit was born in Montreal and lived a childhood that had her believing anything was possible. If you really wanted to do it – you just did it. She took ballet. She was always a good swimmer – placed very well in the provincial finals in the province in breast stroke. Other than that her only really emotional experience related to swimming was when her Mother came close to drowning.
Benoit was one of those children that no one quite knew what to do with. She was bright, hugely energetic and driven. But there was no direction in her life.
The family moved to Ontario and Michele studied Landscape Architecture, which in those days wasn’t what it is today. During her time in the field it was mostly doing the front of commercial buildings or parking lots – very little art in the architecture she wanted to practice. “I wasn’t happy doing the work I was doing”, explains Benoit.
Like every young person growing into adulthood – there were some rough spots and Benoit has had her share of those.
 Were it not for the fact that we know Michele Benoit is going to swim across Lake Ontario August 17-18th – the picture suggests she is a model for wet suit swim wear. With the landscaping world going nowhere for her, Benoit, who has always been fit, got into personal training and ended up as the Aquatics Director at a Burlington health club where she worked for six years.
Health, physical fitness, good nutrition – there was a sense of direction revealing itself by the time Benoit enrolled as a Natural Sciences student at McMaster. “I thought of dentistry but it didn’t take long for me to realize that wasn’t my calling” says Benoit.
Well then what was her calling – and here is where the Benoit story takes one of those twists you read about but don’t quite understand. “A friend asked me to go to church with him and because I knew that his faith life was important I went. I was baptized a Catholic and I went to Mass at Christmas and Easter. I knew about Jesus but I’d never read the Bible. I knew about Noah’s Ark but God wasn’t part of my life.”
But then, suddenly, Michele Benoit came out of a very sound sleep and had a very up close and personal relationship with God. She then knew she was going to swim across Lake Ontario and raise money for people in Africa. Weird ? – not for Benoit. Did she have a complete plan in front of her – sort of like a blue print? Nope, but for her it was as plain as the nose on her face and that is the force that drives her.
There is more to the Michele Benoit story; how she prepares for an arduous 45km swim across one of the hardest lakes in the world; how she exercises and prepares both physically and emotionally.
We will follow this remarkable woman and her quest. If supporting something like this financially – click into the web sitethat was set up with more of the story.
Meanwhile – we will stay with this story and keep you up to date.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON July 23, 2012 It came up on the agenda as an employment lands issue but it really is a significant issue for the development of the mid-section of the city and keeping some of the larger business operations in Burlington.
IKEA announced in March of 2011 – that they wanted out of the location they are at in Aldershot. They wanted more store space and they needed additional head office space. They also wanted prime visibility and they really liked the look of the QEW with all that traffic going by. The way you keep an iconic brand alive is to never let people forget it is there – thus setting up shop on the North Service Road west of Walkers Line made all kinds of marketing sense.
 All of the land along the North Service Road between Walkers Line and Guelph Line was described as under utilized.. The two lane road could not possibly handle the traffic IKEA would attract if they were to locate on the land that is adjacent to Walkers Line on the west end. IKEA kept the city up to date on what they were doing in terms of the way the site on North Service Road would be developed, how many parking spots there would be, where the trees would be planted and a look at what the buildings would look like on the lot that is located west of Walkers Line between the North Service Road (NSR) and the railway line that crosses Mainway. It’s a 25 acre piece of land that needed some fixing up.
 Is there enough land in this set back for an additional two lanes of road? The view is just outside the Leon’s warehouse looking west. If there isn’t then IKEA may have to look elsewhere for a new location. Outside Burlington? How did we ever let ourselves get into this kind of a mess? Ask the Economic Development Corporation The project file was on the desk of a General Manager who is no longer with the city and was put in the hands of General Manager Community Services Scott Stewart, who had it on his desk for less than ten days. He didn’t have much in the way of good news for anyone.
 This is the view from the Leon’s warehouse looking west. Is there enough land for an additional two lanes of traffic – and if there is – is four lanes enough for the size of the operation IKEA wants to set up in this part of Burlington. It’s a great opportunity for the city – can we make it happen? Not with some of the thinking some people are doing. Stewart set out in his typical blunt, direct manner just what the problems were. The biggest problem is traffic – the North Service Road is a two lane road. It sits right up beside the QEW so there is no room to expand that way – and while IKEA could use some of the frontage for the property they want to build on for the widening of the NSR – which would allow for a widening of North Service – there are other companies on that stretch of land that wouldn’t be as keen and maybe not even able to give up frontage.
So – there is your first problem.
Add to that mix the fact that Walkers Line will reach its current capacity sometime in 2021 which isn’t all that far out.
Then look at the documents coming out of the Niagara GTA discussions. Among the options is to widen the QEW to eight lanes and a possible ten lane. Where would that widening take place? Not that much room on the south side – unless you got rid of the South Service Road.
Add to the mix some problems with Tuck Creek which is at the eastern edge of the property.
The cost of widening North Service and doing what has to be done to Walkers Line was put at “somewhere between $10 and $20 million – which is a really wide range but as Stewart put it – “we are really ball parking here” – we have nothing to work with in terms of either data or design.
And, the final piece is that the option IKEA has on what is called the Hopewell property expires at the end of August.
There are some serious problems for the parties involved in all this to take a long hard look at. A lot of money is going to be needed to make all this happen and IKEA can only justify so much capital for the move they want to make. The Ministry of Transport people – which is you and I – aren’t going to want to pay for everything.
It was suggested that Hopewell, the owners of the property that is to be developed, might be able to bring some money to the table.
The most interesting comment made during these very, very early stage discussions was that many of the properties to the west of the Hopewell property are very under-utilized and that perhaps developers could be enticed to do some land assembly. Medium rise office towers love sitting alongside roads like the QEW where they have great signage potential, excellent access to the highway.
So – who calls who to make that kind of thing happen? Does our Economic Development Corporation have the kind of lines into the development community that would allow for a conversation? Most people don’t think so. It isn’t believed to have the capacity to work at quite that level. There has to be an economic animator in this play somewhere and because Burlington stands to gain the most – one would assume the initiative would come from somewhere within the civic administration.
City Manager Jeff Fielding now sits on the Executive of the BEDC and will no doubt bring a brighter spark and higher level of experience to this situation. It’s another one that got dropped on his desk which he has managed to slide over to Stewart. Fielding’s experience in London with the university there had him deeply involved in some very sophisticated cross partnership agreements with developers.
 The IKEA problem set out in a single picture – not enough roadway for the traffic that would be generated if IKEA did choose to locate on the North Service Road. Is there enough land to the north of the North Service road to get in two additional lanes of traffic? That was the first question that should have been asked. We know what went wrong, we know who made the mistake – now competent people have to scramble to save a major commercial enterprise. This photograph was taken on a quiet Sunday afternoon. Quite why this problem was allowed to fester the way it has for more than a year is surprising and for the people at IKEA must be very disappointing. The project sits right in the middle of Councillor Dennison’s ward. Quite why he wasn’t riding this one is surprising. He tends to be all over anything that has to do with economic development; it’s almost as if he was asleep at the switch. Councillor Craven took much better care of his best commercial operation in Ward 1; something IKEA must miss deeply.
Stewart set out the issues in a paragraph that had less than 20 words. “Development of a long term transportation solution with MTO (Ministry of Transportation) and IKEA are estimated to require 12 months.” I’m pretty sure Stewart’s fingers and legs were crossed when he made that statement.
This is going to be an interesting one to follow. There is within all this the very real opportunity that IKEA will find a location that meets all their needs – you know they have been looking.
Burlington needs to shape up in a number of areas – quickly.
 By Staff
BURLINGTON, ON July 23, 2012 They call it eyes on the street; people keeping their eyes open and taking note of things that just don’t look right.
It was just this kind of community concern that led to phone calls to the Halton Regional Police Service that resulted in Burlington uniform officers, supported by members of the Drug and Morality Unit initiating an investigation into the trafficking of cannabis marijuana from a residence in the City of Burlington.
Two men were observed outside the residence completing a drug transaction and were subsequently arrested. A quantity of cannabis marijuana was recovered. A short time later, another man was arrested for the offence of Trafficking in Cannabis Marijuana as he departed the residence.
A Controlled Drugs and Substances Act search warrant was executed at the residence, resulting in the seizure of approximately 28 grams of cannabis marijuana, $275.00 dollars in Canadian currency and additional evidence of drug trafficking.
ACCUSED: Thomas BARRIE (19 years) of Burlington
CHARGES: Possession of Cannabis Marijuana for the Purpose of Trafficking, Trafficking in Cannabis Marijuana
ACCUSED: Christopher WARRINER (20 years) of Burlington
CHARGE: Possession of a Controlled Substance – Cannabis Marijuana
ACCUSED: Dylan BROWN (20 years) of Burlington
CHARGE: Possession of a Controlled Substance – Cannabis Marijuana
Police see an engaged community as vital component in eradicating illegal drug activity. Investigators remind the public to utilize Crime Stoppers to report any illegal drug, gang or gun activity at 1-800-222-TIPS(8477), through the web at www.haltoncrimestoppers.com or by texting “Tip201” with your message to 274637(crimes).
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 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON July 19, 2012 We never really were heavy hitters. We aren’t a slick, fast community. Pretty sensible people who prefer not to take risks. Back in 1983, the city got itself twisted into knots to keep the Playboy Channel off cable as a pay per view feature, so when the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) sent the city a letter asking if we were interested in being on a list of possible locations for slot machines or a Casino – the city council didn’t even bother to ask its citizens how they felt about it.
 City took a pass on slot machines – we could have put a dozen in the Seniors’ centre and solved a lot of the problems over there and then another dozen at the Legion – opportunities missed They instructed the city manager to write back and say thanks, but no thanks – which may have reflected the views of most of the people in Burlington. We will never know. A casino could have been built beside the Pier – that would have been one way to pay for the thing.
On the Pier by the way – steel beams are expected to be trucked into the city next week.
There was a bit of an opportunity missed in the communication with the OLG. The rural part of Burlington does have a couple of farms that raise and train trotters for racing tracks in the western part of the province. We might have said no to the slot machines but we could have put in a plug for the racing people to have the province restore the funding they used to get from slot machine revenues.
Perhaps we can now add “Slot machine free and the second best city in the country to live in” to some of the literature the economic development people send out.
There were less than five words of discussion on the letter being sent to the lottery people.
There was even less than that on the Burlington Hydro item that was on the agenda. Council approved an amount of not more than $100,000 to be spent on legal counsel and or financial expertise to assist in reviewing significant Burlington Hydro Electric Incorporated matters as needed.
$100,000 is not exactly chump change. The public transit advocates would love to have seen that much money put into transit service. There was no discussion on the “significant” matters – which turn out to be pretty good stewardship on the part of the finance people.
Burlington Hydro is owned by the city and it pays a very substantial amount in dividends to the city which reduces the tax levy.
 All that raw power has to be transformed into electricity, homes and office buildings can use. Transformers are not cheap – so Burlington Hydro has to borrow some money to pay for the transformer that will get placed along Tremaine Road. Burlington Hydro created a major mess with the way they failed to adequately inform the city on just what the issues were with feeding wind turbine energy into the electrical grid. Hydro certainly gave Director of Engineering Tom Eichenbaum heart burn, if not ulcers, in the way they jerked him around on the differences between net metering and the Feed in Tariff related to the plans for a wind turbine on the pier.
Given that the city owns the hydro operation one would like to think they would provide the city with excellent technical service and support. Instead they told the city so little that we came away looking like fools. Will $100,000 in legal fees fix that kind of problem?
In a report to council staff said: In order to accommodate growth in Burlington, Burlington Hydro Inc. (BHI) has entered into a capital agreement with Hydro One for a new Hydro One owned transformer station on Tremaine Road. The additional energy capacity made available through this facility will accommodate Burlington’s growth for the next 20 to 25 years. BHI is financing the capital contribution through a 25 year loan of $8 million from Infrastructure Ontario.
Infrastructure Ontario has requested that the City sign a subordination agreement for the $8 million. The purpose of the agreement is to recognize the “subordination” of the City’s position as a debt holder to that of Infrastructure Ontario.
If BHI were to default on the loan payments, Infrastructure Ontario could stop the payment of dividends to the shareholder. Interest payments on the existing promissory note that the City has with BHI could also be stopped if BHI defaults.
 Hydro produces significant dividends for the city. Few people fully realize the relationship between Burlington Hydro and the city. If they knew they might want some of that dividend to come to them in the way of lower hydro rates. Dividends and interest payments received by the City over the past ten years, including proceeds from the sale of the FibreWired division in 2008, total $74.4 million as illustrated in the above chart:
Through the Hydro Liaison team, City and Hydro staff have continued an excellent working relationship, identifying and discussing complex issues important to both the City and the Utility. However, City staff feel that in the interest of protecting the shareholder’s investment it may be prudent for the City as shareholder to have financial and legal expertise available to assist them in dealing with Hydro matters.
And so the city has asked for $100,000 to have our lawyers in the room when they work out loan agreements and possible acquisitions in the future. As can be seen from the bar chart Hydro throws off a lot of cash and the city depends on that money. The agreement to pay for the construction of a new transformer on Tremaine Road means that if Burlington Hydro defaults on that loan the dividends the city has been enjoying can be taken and applied to the loan.
It`s sort of like getting your Mother-in-Law to co-sign your loan, which she does but then puts a lien on the car.
The people who do the deep financial thinking for the city realize that the days of fat revenue flows from development charges on new housing developments are very close to ending for Burlington. We are very close to being built out. New revenue sources are going to have to be found and with an aging population on fixed incomes tax increases aren`t going to be possible – not if you want to stay in office.
Using wholly owned subsidiaries that are not bound quite the way a municipality is when it comes to borrowing and taking financial risks is one possible way of developing new revenue streams. Burlington Hydro could become something of an economic engine for the city.
Some suggest the selling of the fibre optic cable – Fibre Wired – that the city once owned to Cogeco Cable back in 2008 was an opportunity lost. To own the cable that is going to send most if not all the data and information into Burlington homes is a better long range bet than a Casino.
It will be interesting to learn who gets the legal business for papering the agreements Burlington Hydro gets into – will it go to a local firm or to pricier talent out of Toronto?
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON July 14, 2012 The Joseph Brant Museum, announces it has received a $32,500 federal government grant to put together an 1812-themed newspaper for distribution to a number of educational partners and the community.
 Burlington Museums will be doing a themed newspaper on the War of 1812 for distribution in the community. Brant’s son John will play a prominent part in the festivities this year. The grant includes covering the cost of a series of lectures/workshops on various aspects of the War of 1812 in Burlington. We assume more detail is to follow.
The museum will also create series of exhibition panels that will be displayed in community spaces.
 En-actors John Brant on the left with Sir Isaac Brock on the right. Norton stands between the two. Brock and Brant will re-enact a meeting during Brock’s Walk which will take place at LaSalle Park A main event for the Museum each year is the Joseph Brant Day, a family community event involving re-enactments and historical educational activities which will be held on August 6th at LaSalle Park. This year the focus shifts to Brant’s son John who will re-enact a meeting with General Sir Isaac Brock.
The tourism people have staged a Brock’s Walk, part of which will take place at LaSalle Park where Sir Isaac Brock will meet with John Brant, son of Joseph Brant.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON July 19, 2012 When the magazines begin writing about you – you are on your way to your 15 minutes of fame. And that’s just about where Plan B – the budding Farmer’s Market on John Street is right now.
Pure Green Magazine does a feature from time to time on the “Organic Kitchen”. If all goes as planned, and nothing actually goes as planned when you’re working with nature, the plan is for the writers to set up an outdoorsy and Muskoka themed booth and cooking facility. As well, they’ll set up bistro tables for sit down guests. Should be very cool.
 Macdonald and Barry Imber discuss the set up for the Plan B Farmer’s Market on John Street. Opens every Friday 11-2
They will be demonstrating cooking some recipes they’ve been working on that are easy and delicious, using locally sourced ingredients. Jonathan, the chef and partner of the magazine, has a unique way of cooking outside using rustic props and outdoorsy techniques – he can smoke meats and cheeses right at your table! – it’s super interesting and fun to do yourself so this should be great for the crowd.
Pure Green is a very nice binding element for what we believe the market, as well as Centro, is all about. Healthy lifestyles for people who love being outside and connecting with the ground, their food, their environment – whether that’s in their back patio, backyard or back forty.
Damian Wills – the chef and forager calling himself Meat to Table will be there again as will the fresh produce farmer and the folks from Featherstone Family Farm.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON July 18, 2012 Arnold Koopman has a problem. He is organizing a visit of a group of dignitaries that will include the Mayor of Apeldoorn, Burlington sister in Holland, to take part in the official opening of a park that he understood was to be named the Apeldoorn Park.
The name of the park that is to be officially opened is currently the Elgin Park. No one knows why the park, that is to undergo a major upgrade, was called Elgin – probably because it is on Elgin Street.
 Tulips, Hollands gift to Canada, were planted at Civic Square last May. The Dutch would like to see a park commemorating the sacrifice Canadians made liberating Holland. An opportunity to do just that got missed last week. The Dutch should hold out for something bigger. If what we heard at a city council meeting was correct – there are no plans to change the name. Koopman doesn’t want to invite all those people from Holland in the fall of 2013 to stand there watching the flag of Apeldoorn be raised over the Elgin Park which will have what the city is calling an “Apeldoorn feature”.
This has the potential to be somewhat embarrassing but that’s where things stood at the last city council meeting and that’s where they will stay for at least the next six weeks.
 Ed Dorr has been a leading part of the Dutch community’s effort to have a park named after our twin city in Holland. He’s not there yet – but don’t count these people out. Apeldoorn and Burlington were twinned in May of 2005. The work on twinning the two cities began in 2003 – October 16, 2013 will be the tenth anniversary of the start of the talks. May 2015 will be the tenth anniversary of the agreement. The Dutch community in Burlington might well tell the city to let the Park they are re-developing remain as Elgin while they find a park that is worthy of the significance of the relationship between Holland and Canada.
The kerfuffle came about when the city found it had to replace the Roads and Parks Maintenance structure that is to the east of the very small parkette that is south of St. Luke’s Anglican church.
At the time the city decided that if they were replacing the building this was a good time to upgrade the park as well. Then why not use this park upgrade as the opportunity to create an Apeldoorn Park? Good question and so the city began to work up plans to remake the park, get the new maintenance building in place and do our part of the understanding that existed between Apeldoorn and Burlington for each city to have a park dedicated to the other.
When all this was being discussed at city council Ward 2 Councillor Marianne Meed Ward was against the project – she called it one of those “nice to have” projects we couldn’t afford. But Meed Ward saw which way the wind was blowing and didn’t see any point in fighting this one – so she became an active advocate for the park and was knee deep in the planning.
But there was an appetite for the park to have at least an “Apeldoorn feature” so the plan went forward – but no one ever did anything about the name.
It was a bit of a shock to the Dutch community. They were fully expecting a nice Park that would be called the Apeldoorn Park. They weren’t getting much of a Park to begin with – it’s almost a sliver of a thing.
Arnold Koopman left city hall wondering what his adopted city was doing to his people.
The Dutch are a persistent people – city Council has not heard the last of this argument.
There was one of those opportunities to cement a relationship with an important part of the community – but we blew that one.
The discussion went back and forth and really didn’t go anywhere. Mayor Goldring then asked Koopman if he would be happy with calling it the Apeldoorn Park on Elgin. Koopman grabbed that one, but Goldring failed to turn the comment into a motion – and so it’s Elgin Park until somebody does something about a name change.
 Councillor Blair Lancaster at the Mundialization ceremony at city hall last May – there was a chill in the air and there may be a bit of a chill from the Dutch community around the delay in naming a park for our twin city in Holland. It would have been nice to see Councillor Lancaster fight a little harder for the Dutch community. She is Council’s representative on the Mundialization committee that handles the relationship we have with Itabachi in Japan and Apeldoorn in Holland.
I think the Dutch should tell the city to keep their tiny park and advocate for something that reflects the contribution the Dutch have made to both Burlington and the whole of Canada.
The city of Apeldoorn has put back their plans to build a park they are going to call the Burlington Park. Economic conditions in Europe are such that spending is being pulled in everywhere – so we have a couple of years to come up with something that reflects the dignity the relationship we have with Apeldoorn deserves.
 By Staff
BURLINGTON, ON July 18, 2012 The Halton Region Health Department monitors the water quality at public beaches throughout Halton. Beach water monitoring on July 17 revealed the following beaches are safe for swimming:
Safe for swimming:
Burlington – Beachway Park
Halton Hills – Prospect Park Old Beach
Milton – Kelso Conservation Area
Oakville – Coronation Park East, Bronte Park Beach
The following beaches are unsafe for swimming:
Oakville – Coronation Park West
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON July 18, 2012 With the weather we have been having – talk of umbrellas will at least raise an eyebrow. There is an opportunity to raise those eyebrows at the Burlington Art Centre July 22, 2-3 pm when an exhibit of porcelain umbrellas by Ann Mortimer will be on display. The event is free.
 Ann Mortimer, who traditionally works on canvas with an admired ability to bring out the translucence of her object, has done a collection of 19 porcelain umbrellas that will be part of the In Series events at the Art Gallery. The work was produced in China under the direction of the artist. Ann Mortimer works in watercolour and is interested in the translucency of that medium. In her painting she aims to achieve an illusion of depth through the portrayal of light. You get to arrive at a different understanding of transparency when you view the umbrellas. Worth the time to take this one in.
Mortimer is a member of the Society of Floral Painters, and while she has specialized in flowers, combining a looseness of approach with a respect for botanical accuracy, she has ventured beyond canvas and into other mediums.
Curator Jonathan Smith will lead a tour of the exhibition, which includes the umbrellas and her perspective plates, bird-fish form and sculptural cups series.
The event is part of the In Series Exhibition at the Art Gallery – in the Lee-Chin Family Gallery.
Mortimer is a graduate trained teacher, and also paints a variety of other subjects in watercolour from landscapes to town scenes to figures. She enjoys sharing her techniques and skills with members of art societies at workshops and at the art classes where she regularly teaches.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON July 17, 2012 Everyone thought it was going to be bigger and better than the Car Free Sunday on Appleby Line back in June but the crowd, if that is what you can call it, on Brant Street and Locust Streets for the second Car Free Sunday was not as large – something was missing.
 Interest group and services tents set up on Brant north of Caroline drew traffic – it was much quieter south of Caroline. Was it too hot; were people away at their cottages, kids off to camp? There was no reason to walk over to Brant Street – other than to be able to walk about with no traffic.
 Bus service was rerouted an cars kept off the street for most of the afternoon. Should it be an annual event? There was no focus to the event – but then there was no focus to the Appleby Line event and it had better participation than last Sunday’s event on Brant Street.
There was live music at the Civic Square but it drew very poor audiences. There was a Country and Western Music event at Spencer Smith Park and some of its traffic made its way up Brant – but there just wasn’t any sense that there was something going on.
The organizers did arrange for various interests groups to have tents on Brant north of Caroline – and they were busy and gave that part of the street the sense that there was something going on.
 There are retailers that get it – and they are the one’s that succeed. The shopping bag that lady is carrying isn’t empty. The folks that run Joelle’s understand retail. There were far too many stores closed. Far too many of the Brant Street merchants were not open – not a good sign. The Downtown Business association needs to get a bit of a burr under the saddles of some of its members. Those that were open did continuous business.
This was the first year the event took place. It’s worth doing the same thing next year, but there clearly has to be some brain storming if there are ever going to be people out on the street for large parts of a day.
Those who were lined up in their cars at Brant and Caroline to get through the intersection didn’t think very much of the idea of people taking over the streets of the city – even if it was only for a couple of hours.
There seemed to be more police presence than was necessary – lots of overtime booked by the HRPS.
 The pavement didn’t seem to be a problem. Get a dozen kids and a soccer ball plus two nets and you’ve got a game. It was pleasant to watch – some benches would have kept people around longer. The Burlington Teen Tour Band was out – they always draw a crowd but the idea was to have people out on the street for a large part of the 2pm to 7pm time frame. The barriers were taken up on Locust close to 6 pm and Brant was wide open to vehicles at 7 pm
During Sound of Music there were different attractions on the street that drew people and kept them around for a while. There were precious few places to get out of the sun and nowhere to sit and have a drink.
There were nets for kids to play soccer at the John and Brant intersection but there was no seating for anyone who wanted to watch the kids play.
 Brian Dean, top toff at the Downtown Business Association was out drumming up business for those of his members that took part in the Red Bag Sale. Too many of his members let the community down last Sunday. Keeping the doors closed while the city works at getting people out on the street isn’t the way the game is played.  There is a soccer player in there somewhere It was suggested that a focus was needed and there are a number of opportunities to bring in close to cost free events that would attract people and keep them around for a while. The antique car club people will show off their vehicles any chance they get. Inviting them to the city and asking if the owners of the cars would drive up along one of the rural roads with a guest passenger in their car – and then choose the guests from raffle ticket winners would certainly draw attention and participation.
A chance to sit in an MG or a Corvette with the top down would keep me hanging around hoping I got a chance for a ride. It would beat being on one of those nasty little ponies that were walking around the cenotaph at the side of city hall.
It is going to take some imagination to make this an event that people want to participate in and one that justifies closing down street for a period of time.
Good effort, they got the idea right now to add some ginger and make it more fun because there wasn’t much fun on Brant Street last Sunday afternoon.
There are a bunch of volunteers – more than 25 of them, that deserve more than the car free Sunday T-shirt they got. There were also half a dozen staff members who gave up half a nice day to make the event happen.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON July 18, 2012 This is going to get interesting.
The Waterfront Advisory Committee is now officially dead. The funeral will take place at the end of the year – between now and then the committee will meet to clean up the odds and ends. It will not be a joyous occasion. The chair Nicholas Leblovic said he was blind-sided by the decision to bring an end to the life of the advisory committee, which is a little like someone putting their hands over their eyes and saying they cannot see. But the deed is done.
 Waterfront Advisory committee in happier days. City council voted to shut the committee down at the end of December. Chair Leblovic, on the left, is thought to have been an ineffective leader that wasn’t producing the results the city had hoped for. While no one on city council would really say what the issue was that brought about the demise of the committee, Scott Stewart, General Manager Community Services put the problem in perspective when he said he voted against the committee with his feet when he stopped attending meetings. The committee was just not an effective group of people , basically because it was poorly led. While the chair gets the big end of the responsibility stick the other members of the committee have to share that responsibility – they re-elected Leblovic as chair.
What we didn’t know was that the Mayor was deeply involved in the committee member selection – and he wasn’t Mayor at the time. It is an experience that is behind us – and we can move on. The question is – move on to what? The waterfront isn’t going to go away and the problems plus the opportunities related to the waterfront are still there.
 Getting the Pump House on the Beachway on the agenda as a possible location for an upscale coffee shop wine bar was one of the successes of the Waterfront Advisory committee. It was a struggle for the committee members to get the idea past their chair. In her remarks when the issue was voted on – Meed Ward asked for a recorded vote and was the only one opposed to the ending of the advisory committee, said “City wide organized resident input is needed on a broad range of waterfront issues in Burlington. Our waterfront is one of the city’s features most valued by residents. But we’re losing a key source of resident input by the city council’s decision tonight to end the Waterfront Advisory Committee.” She went on to say: “The committee had provided a comprehensive list of recommendations on a range of waterfront issues that are now at risk of gathering dust sitting on a shelf. I’m committed to continuing to get residents input to ensure that the city and regional governments take steps to ensure public access to our waterfront.”
She made it clear to her colleagues that while the Advisory group may be dead, she didn’t see the issue or the people who were involved in waterfront issues as something that was just going to go away and she let her colleagues know that she would have the group “working out of her office”.
The evening that Council committee voted to sunset the advisory committee Mayor Goldring said he would “round up” a group of people and make them the ‘Mayor’s Advisory Committee on the Waterfront. So, we may have two committees giving members of Council advice on the waterfront.
What we are seeing here is a claiming of political turf. Meed Ward has grabbed the waterfront advisory aspect as hers. She sat on the committee and voted not to shut it down. Her fellow Councillors disagreed with her. Meed Ward will bring the committee “in house” as it were and bringing their views forward whenever she chooses.
A strong Mayor would have a meeting with Meed Ward and explain the role a Mayor plays in the municipal world and that if there is going to be an “advisory committee” it will be created by Council or created by the Mayor.
The vote to disband was taken at the last Council meeting until late in August; they are all off for the summer. Let’s see where this goes in the fall. It could get interesting.
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 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON July 16, 2012 Parking tickets. Ugh! Many in Burlington think that if they own a car they have a God given right to park it exactly where they want to whenever they want to. Own a car and there are some downsides. When we used horses there were downsides as well – those little gifts they would leave on the streets – remember?
The city is going to take over the administration of the parking fines. If you don’t feel you were ticketed fairly you still get to go to the First Attendance room at city hall and argue for a reduction. The new set up – and you are going to like what the city is doing – will have that First Attendance office re-named and called a Screening Hearing.
If you’re unhappy with the results you can get a Court date – but you will not have to go to the Court house. You will be able to go to city hall and plead your case.
It gets better.
The city is looking into holding Night Courts.
 The city will run its own parking offence courts – might see a Night Court as part of the new Customer Service philosophy working its way through city hall. It gets better still. They are looking into holding these Parking fine sessions in different parts of the city. Now if they hold these Parking Offence Courts in different parts of the city and hold a Night Court as well – gosh you might leave the Court Room with a smile on your face.
More yet. Under the old system, if you wanted to dispute the parking ticket you were given a Court date and off you went – and you waited and waited and sometimes waited far longer than you think you should have.
The new system, courtesy of city hall, will send you a court date and give you a time frame to attend so you don’t have to spend a day waiting around.
THAT is customer service.
This new system applies to offences for which the fine is $100 or less. Thus if you park in a handicapped space you are still going to the real Court House – the fine for that infraction is $400.
 Free parking is not one of the options that comes with a car. You park – you pay. At this point the city gets somewhere between 100 and 200 situations where people demand a hearing. Any offence before July 3rd comes under the old system – which means dispute the ticket and you go to the Court House on Plains Road.
New provincial legislation allowed a municipality to choose to handle the administration of parking ticket offences and Bruce Zvaniga, Director of Transportation Services convinced the city to do things differently. On his LinkedIn page Zvaniga says he delivers innovative, sustainable transportation solutions that nurture livable communities. That doesn’t translate directly into making it easier to pay a parking ticket but this kind of innovation at city hall I welcome.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON July 16, 2012 The Alton community took another step on the weekend to becoming a complete community. The Norton Park complex was officially opened and the public got to see just what the kids do on skate boards and mountain bikes. It is not something for those over fifty.
 Residents of the community find a shady spot to sit in on the official opening ceremonies of the Norton Park. With the politicians done – the kids headed for the skate board section. There was a decent turn out. I’m never sure why the city holds these “official openings” – photo ops for sure, but is that it? The comments made don’t make any impact – we didn’t lean much other than the size of the facility and that it would tie in very nicely with the Alton Community Centre under construction across the street.
 Jennifer Johnson, Coordinator of Project Management for the city is the hands on person for the development of the Alton Community Centre across the street form the park. Tim Dobbie Drive, the road that runs from Dundas north into the community will get a softening with trees planted and humps – that isn’t a speed bump, but it will slow traffic. The idea is to create a setting where people are able to easily walk back and forth between the two locations.
 A helmeted youth listens patiently as Ward Councillor Blair Lancaster talks about the Norton Park and what it will mean to the community. She fortunately didn’t talk for very long. The skate board park on one side and the community centre that will consist of a school, a sports complex and a library on the other side has the potential to become a focus at the top of the suburban part of the city. Community building is more art than science but if all the ingredients are in place there is the potential to create something distinctly different than what Burlington’s suburban feel has been in the past.
 Ward Councillor Blair Lancaster and Mayor Rick Goldring put their political reputations on the line and stand on skate boards. Is there one foot on the ground there? The skate board part of the Norton Park is superb and there are all kinds of soccer fields in place. At some point they might add some tennis courts and maybe even a community garden. But these things take time. Give the area another five to seven years and the shade trees in place now will have matured and it will be a very pleasant place to spend time.
The library and the sports complex have wonderful potential. The sports part has a gymnasium layout that is flexible with very high ceilings. The long term thinking was to create a location where provincial level sports events could be held.
The high school will create an identity of its own, one that reflects the community and at the same time takes on the competitive nature of inter-high school rivalry.
One thing that was missing from the official opening event, and that was someone from the Norton family after whom the park was named. That family started a ‘bus’ system in 1936 and used a seven-passenger Pierce Arrow Limousine to take a group of kids to school. Norton recognized that every child, regardless of circumstances, needed and deserved an education and without his transportation, many students in the rural communities in north Burlington would not have been able to attend school. Over the next several decades, the Norton bus business grew into a fleet of 500 buses, transporting 15,000 students each day.
The company exists today as a charter bus service.
The present day location of C. H. Norton Public School is located several hundred yards from Cecil Norton’s former home. The Norton Community Centre is named for Cecil Norton who lived in the Headon Forest area.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON July 19, 2012 Here’s one the environmentalists and community garden advocates might want to tuck away until city budget time. (Note that with Our Burlington you can find any story simply by typing what you are looking for into the search box on the HOME page.)
Hamilton set aside funds for a community garden coordinator that has paid large dividends, and may have silenced councillors who were once adamant that no tax dollars be provided for the position. Just six months of bridge funding to the Hamilton Community Garden network now has resulted in 15 new gardens and substantial fundraising success.
Pause and think of which Burlington city council members would have been on the “not a dime” part of that request.
 This is something Amy Schnurr just might choose to run with. Here she speaks at the opening of Burlington’s first community garden on public property. More to follow? City General Manager Scott Stewart is on the left with Rob Peachey on the right. At the end of last year, council approved $15,000 in bridge funding to keep a community garden coordinator employed while additional financial support was sought from other sources. Since February Clare Wagner has secured over $25,000 of in-kind donations and “at least $50,000 worth of funding” for local community gardens, while overseeing the establishment of 15 new gardens and the expansion of two existing ones.
The expansions have added 16,100 square feet of plots and are expected to produce 16,000 pounds of food per year. There are now 58 community gardens in all parts of the city including 1000 square feet in the Binbrook fair grounds, and a set of raised plots in Waterdown managed by Bethel Christian Reformed Church.
A report to the Hamilton city council noted “there are 150 people on a waiting list who wish to acquire space in current community gardens with 20 – 40 more inquiries from sites that do not keep a list of potential new gardeners.”
Lloyd Ferguson said he had “real trouble hiring a staff person” and suggested that organizing the gardens “should be part of the gardening experience” and not utilize taxpayers’ money.
 The Lutheran church in east Burlington has had a community garden for some time. It was a pattern for the community gardens now established in Central Park Former Hamilton councillor Dave Mitchell said he had complaints of weeds in a garden in his ward where there were “some nice homes”, and contended the gardens weren’t feasible. “You can’t have 50 different people in a small garden and expect them to get along together. I don’t think it will work very well.”
The community gardening network is managed by Green Venture. The coordinator can be reached at Clare.wagner@greenventure.ca.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON July 13, 2012 Project Update # 16 and comments the Mayor made at the Wednesday Community Services committee meeting aren’t as aligned as things are going to have to be if THE pier is to open as planned in 2013.
General Manager Scott Stewart in his 16th report to Council committee on the pier said: Total completion remains as reported April 2013, with deficiency close out and occupancy by June of 2013.
 It is a truly attractive pier which will have cost the citizens a fortune but will open in 2013. Exactly when depends a lot on the kind of winter we have. The Mayor, for the first time, began to hedge his bet and said the important thing was to have the pier done right – which now means without the wind turbine that was to be an “iconic” element of the pier.
“If we don’t open for the Sound of Music in 2013, then we can open on Canada Day. And if not then, well during Rib Fest – maybe even Thanksgiving. The thing we need to focus on is getting it right and doing it properly”, said the Mayor. Those of us at the media table could not see if he had his fingers crossed as he spoke.
Councillor Meed Ward has been around this track before shot a hard look at General manager Scott Stewart and asked: “Is there any reason for delay that is not in this report?” You know everything I know” replied Stewart.
 These beams didn’t meet the specifications called for in the original contract for the pier and had to be taken out and put in storage while lawyers argue who was right and who was wrong. New beams that have passed more tests than an army recruit will arrive later in the month. Then the sound of jackhammers will fill the air. Quality assurance and quality control is being used throughout every step of the way. “We test when the steel arrives, we test during fabrication and we test when it comes out of the processes.”, said Stewart.
Councillor Dennison wanted to know if there were any changes in the pier? “absolutely none” said Stewart, which is not quite true. The win turbine isn’t in place and isn’t going to be. There are structural changes that came out of the re-tendering process when new plans had to be prepared.
The expectation is the first of the steel beams will arrive the week of July 23rd. During the week ahead the city will begin to mobilize equipment that is needed to offload the steel beams and to get them in place. That probably means cranes and other heavy lifting equipment. If there is a crane out there that is guaranteed not to fall over – Burlington has it on order.
This project is now a race to get to the point where concrete can be poured before temperatures dip to the point where concrete cannot be poured.
 Walkway to the “instant beach” that just sort of appeared on the west side of the pier site has been put in place. There are dozens of small jobs that can be done now while the city waits for the arrival of the steel beams that form the base of the pier deck onto which concrete will be poured. The focus now is on how much can be done now and how much can be done while the beams are being put in place. Large contractors now have software that allows them to juggle things the way a guy in a hard hat couldn’t. But the one thing no one can juggle is the weather and those who have worked on the water at this end of Lake Ontario will tell you that the lake changes late in September and with the wild temperature swings we have been experiencing all the software in the world isn’t going to help.
The tender fruit people in the Niagara region saw an early frost damage a lot of crop resulting in very few cherries on the market and peaches and pears getting close to harvest but not very much on the fruit trees. If you’re going to enjoy peaches this summer – you’re going to pay for them.
The project remains on budget. It’s just that this time it is a much bigger budget. Costs are being monitored in a detailed cost tracking log. The project has more minders than a Russian spy who has defected.
Thanksgiving eh? Better late than never – not everyone would agree with that statement.
While the contractors involved in the project watch the weather and move as quickly as they can, another group of people pore over documents as the legal people get ready for what the lawyers call “discovery”, which is when each side of the argument exchange documents and get ready to examine witnesses under oath. Director of Engineering Tom Eichenbaum will be a vital part of the city’s case, he is basically the only person left on staff who was heavily involved in the project. Eichenbaum will spend many days in a room with lawyers asking question after question and producing document after document. The city will want to maintain it did everything right and the contractors will want to use the documents to prove that the city made significant errors.
There are some who assume the city has a solid case and will win their claim for damages. There are many in the construction community who will tell you that the case is not all that solid.
And if Eichenbaum’s presentation at a city council committee meeting recently, where he took Council through a who did what and when during the wind turbine decision, is any example of the testimony he is going to give – we might be in more trouble than we were prepared for when we sued the contractors and designers of the pier.
We might also never know who has to pay what. Most people in the construction industry believe that once the discovery process is over the city will review what came out and might find themselves willing to accept an offer from the contractors. That offer to settle will have a gag order attached to it and we will never know who paid what to whom.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON July 13, 2012 Burlington is going to pull out all the stop for this second car free Sunday. The first car free day was in the east end of the city where large parts of Appleby Line were closed to cars. Turnout was good – could have been more but it was far from a disaster.
Now that the city administration knows the public can be gotten out of the houses and onto the streets to have fun and mingle – this second effort in the downtown core will leave officials know if this kind of thing can be done more frequently.
There wasn’t all that much opportunity for the retail market to experience all that much of a boost on Appleby Line – but Brant Street has a much different commercial makeup. Merchants can take advantage of larger crowds and perhaps even see more in the way of traffic than they see on a good Saturday with cars on the street. It’s a gamble but something has to be done to get people out on the streets.
 Streets that will be car free Sunday July 15th. Read the detail carefully. Full lane closure on Brant Street between Blenheim Street and Lakeshore Road.The north two lanes on Lakeshore Road between Brant Street and Locust Street will be closed and the northbound lane on Locust between Lakeshore Road and Blenheim Street will be closed.
The stretch of city streets that will be closed on Sunday between 2 and 7 pm will include: full lane closure on Brant Street between Blenheim Street and Lakeshore Road.
The north two lanes on Lakeshore Road between Brant Street and Locust Street will be closed and the northbound lane on Locust between Lakeshore Road and Blenheim Street will be closed.
The initiative came about when Councillors Dennison and Sharman took the idea to Council where the Mayor who is an environmental advocate bought into it and while Councillor Meed Ward didn’t buy into the idea at first she was big enough to admit that she hadn’t gotten it right the first time but knew a good thing when she saw one and dug out her blades and joined the parade.
The Downtown event will feature different groups with their tents out on the street one of which will be the Community Engagement Charter crowd – and they need help. This is a group that has the right idea but has not managed to attract nearly enough people to their cause. If things continue the way they are going this city might find itself with a Community Engagement Charter written by a group of less than 50 people.
The group will have a table and a tent at Caroline and Brant – drop in and hear what they have to say. They are talking about your city and how it can work better.
The Country & Blues BBQ Festival will be taking place in Spencer Smith Park
The Burlington Teen Tour Band will parade during the event.
There will be food and drink vendors out on the street, there will be a Marketplace and Pony rides.
There will be live music from Tori Sutherland, Harrison Kennedy, Michelle Titian, Mary Simon and the Hill Brothers.
One of the Mayors favourite city’s, Portland Oregon, has been doing things like this for years and our Mayor is convinced events like this can work and are good for the city. Let’s see if he is right. What matters most with this event is this – will is draw people from Aldershot and the communities north of the QEW hump? If it does, it will be a great success.
Getting people from all over the city, not just those who live in the core and can ride safely to the stretch of streets that will be closed.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON July 13, 2012
The Halton Region Health Department monitors the water quality at public beaches throughout Halton.
 Hundreds of families used Beachway Park on Canada Day – they had no way of knowing if the water their children were swimming in was safe to use. That weekend the water to the left of an imaginary line was safe, the water to the right wasn’t. There was no signage telling the public about water conditions. Beach water monitoring on July 10 revealed the following beaches are safe for swimming:
Milton – Kelso Conservation Area
Halton Hills – Prospect Park Old Beach
Oakville – Coronation Park East
The following beaches are unsafe for swimming:
• Burlington – Beachway Park
• Oakville – Coronation Park West, Bronte Park Beach
Burlington Beachway Park North and Burlington Beachway Park South have been combined and will be reported as one beach: “Burlington Beachway Park”. Samples and monitoring will be done along the entire length of the beach and an average of all the bacteria samples will determine whether the beach is considered safe or unsafe.
Up until this change the Region had chosen an arbitrary line in the lake and called one part Beachway South and the other Beachway North.
 Up until very recently this imaginary boundary in the lake defined parts of the lake that were safe or unsafe for swimming. That boundary has been discarded. Now all the Region needs is signs along the Beachway Park to tell the public if the water is safe or unsafe. Some confusion was created over figuring out how the water on one side of a line could be safe while water on the other side the water wasn’t safe.
The Region solved that problem by removing the imaginary line and telling us that all the water is unsafe.
Now, all they have to do is post signs along the Beachway Park so those who don’t read Our Burlington, maybe don’t even know about us yet, can know if the water they swim in is safe.
On Canada Day there were hundreds of families in water the Region described as unsafe.
The Regional Municipality of Halton serves more than 500,000 residents in the City of Burlington, the Town of Halton Hills, the Town of Milton, and the Town of Oakville. Halton Region is committed to meeting the needs of its residents through the delivery of cost-effective, quality programs and services, including water and wastewater; Regional roads and planning; emergency medical services; waste management; public health; social assistance/Ontario Works; children’s and seniors’ services; social/non-profit housing; heritage programs; emergency management and economic development.
Effective signage, in more than one language would be an effective way to communicate public safety.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON July 13, 2012 Burlington’s Seniors made it big time Thursday morning. Joe Lamb, a member of the Seniors’ Centre negotiating team that has been meeting with the city for some time to create a revised Memorandum of Agreement (MOU) that will keep everyone happy while the seniors enjoy using the centre and the city pays most of the bills.
Lamb asked the crowd of close to 150 people to vote for the MOU that had been approved by the Centre’s Board of Management (BOM)
It was hard not to vote for the agreement – which the members in the room did unanimously.
 Lead negotiator for the seniors was Joe Lamb on the left talking to city manager Jeff Fielding on the right. The agreement they hammered out was approved unanimously by the seniors Centre membership. Lamb kind of liked being back in harness. On the far right are Parks and Recreation Director Chris Glenn and general manager Scott Stewart. They now have to make the agreement work once it is passed by city council. The city insisted that the Centre’s Board of Management incorporate, not something they were all that keen on doing – but the city slid $5000 across the table to help out and it took about a Nano second for the BOM to take up that offer. Lamb explained that “some of you felt that incorporation meant the BOM was going to start running the Centre in its entirety and the City was going to have very little to do with the centre. I want to assure you that nothing could be further from the truth. Your Board has no desire to venture down that road whatsoever.”
The city wanted to see the Centre with the appropriate liability insurance – city wanted that in place badly enough that they said they would pay that as well.
Things were looking really good for the Seniors and Lamb certainly proved his mettle as a negotiator. There really wasn’t anything he didn’t get.
The Centre runs a small kitchen which has been a significant point of contention with the city – when you can’t resolve a problem – put it off for a year and agree to continue to talk about it – which is just what Lamb and the city Manager Jeff Fielding agreed to do.
Sales at the Bistro, the small kitchen at the Seniors’ Centre, should have had HST applied – the Centre hadn’t been doing that for the past three years and the number crunchers came to the conclusion that the Centre owned the government close to $20,000 – not to worry the city is going to pick up half of that amount.
Clearly the people at city hall wanted an agreement in place with the seniors and were going to throw as much money as necessary to get the Seniors’ to vote for the Memorandum of Agreement agreed upon.
The Seniors are really feeling their oats. They’ve realized they have real political clout. When they don’t get what they want they pick up their phones and call their Council members – and when 3000 seniors make phone calls you know what happens to a Council member who now has to deal with these people. They call the administration and howl – fix this problem.
The seniors can tie up a phone line for 15 minutes – most probably has their Council members’ phone number on speed dial.
As Lamb got into the meat of the agreement he explained to the 150 people in the room that the arrangement with the city was going to be a “collaborative and cooperative partnership between the city, members, and the Board of Management”.
The revised MOU gives the seniors exclusive use of the space from 8 am to 5 pm, Monday to Friday. They can’t just be bumped out of a program because the city wants to use the space. There will be occasions when the space is used by others – elections is one of those occasions. Lamb explained that the revised MOU will set out what has been practice in the past but is now on paper and in writing. So when the seniors have exclusive use of the space is now clear.
 The Bistro, the heart of the Seniors’ Centre and the focal point for many of the administrative problems. The new agreement with the city didn’t resolve this problem but they have agreed to give it a year to come up with a solution that works for everyone. The biggest problem area has been the kitchen. In many ways it is the heart of the Centre. They call it the Bistro and is run jointly with the city. The one employee, Maria, is on the city payroll, mostly because the Centre doesn’t have anyone who can process a payroll and ensure all the proper deductions are made.
But with Maria on the city payroll – the city needs to ensure they have the required oversight and that was the problem – the seniors didn’t want the city getting involved in the running of the kitchen and the city didn’t want to be in the kitchen either. When there is any food handling involved the city out sources the work. The seniors began to have vision of a pair of Gold Arches appearing in the building. They had a neat little kitchen operation and they wanted to keep it that way. Fine said the city but if the employee is on our payroll there is some liability that lands on the city’s desk and if there was going to be liability – the city wanted control, or at least enough control to be able to manage the problems when they crop up.
You can begin to see how the two sides to this one were shaping up.
And that is where the working relationship between Lamb and Fielding, the city manager came into play. They agreed that an agreement was necessary but they didn’t have one – so they would agree to work together with the revised MOU for a year and during that time let experience and time get put to use to find something that works for everyone.
The reality of this is that the employee is on the city payroll in a building the city owns – that boils down to the city having the final word. That is something the seniors are going to have to accept. Fielding just has to find language that keeps the seniors happy. The seniors all recognise the phrase “a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down” and they have a year to figure out just how much sugar is going to be needed. The city doesn’t appear to have too many problems spending money on seniors.
Five thousand for incorporation, $9,000, give or take a couple of hundred for insurance – tasting pretty sweet at this point.
The BOM owns some of the equipment in the kitchen, the city owns the rest. BOM reimburses the City for Maria’s costs and any profit or loss for the kitchen goes to the BOM
The kitchen is rented out many times in the evening and weekends by the city. Both parties share keeping the place clean and for the most part the city is responsible for bigger maintenance and capital items. It is a unique arrangement which seems to work.
BOM doesn’t want to take over the operation of the kitchen; to do so would mean taking on the same contingent liability. The Board turns over quickly with only 2 year terms, and although have some kitchen knowledge there are no assurances that this will continue in the future.
Insurance is such a critical part of this joint venture the city will be arranging and paying for the insurances required by the BOM, which Lamb said was “very much appreciated” .
BOM and the city agreed to give it some time for the kitchen issue to be worked through and to use the positive tone of their discussions to get to a conclusion everyone can live with .
Because of the liability involved the city wants to ensure that during the next year the kitchen meets government standards, which means oversight. It’s a delicate dance – but both parties want to be out there on that dance floor, so they will work something out – unless the seniors get cantankerous and then they will lose everything.
Currently 10% of all rentals, program fees and membership fees go into a special Reserve fund to support capital improvements at the Centre. The fund has grown to about $222,000. The Board can access these funds for projects or emergencies with the permission of the Director of Parks and Recreation.
Communicating has consistently been the problem and along with it some sensitivity to the different roles each group plays. The city has responsibilities, the centre has people it wants to care for. The city runs programs, takes care of facilities and has different supervisors handling these things. The BOM people would like there to be one point person for them to deal with at city hall. The best Lamb could do on that was plant the seed and hope for the best.
 More than 150 members showed up to learn about the new agreement with the city and to vote for it unanimously. Quite a difference between this meeting and the 300 members who were angry at a February meeting. The MOU has provision for the city and BOM to me at least once a year to develop plans and get feedback and input from the members It is easy, said Lamb to blame the other party when problems crop up; we need to ensure that this type of divide never exists again.
Joe Lamb’s wife, Cathy, used to be the liaison between the city and the seniors’ Centre. She retired and the person put in as her replacement didn’t bring quite the same touch to the task. Things went downhill from there which brought forward the need to revise the working arrangement.
Having a document in place is one step – finding the right people who can and want to bring the needed level of professionalism and care to a task is something else. Burlington has one growth industry – seniors. The city already has the largest seniors population in the Region.
The city struggles with getting some commercial growth in the downtown core; it doesn’t have to struggle for the growth in the seniors population.
What it does have to do is find the kind of people at city hall who can work with seniors and then begin giving some thought to operations in different parts of the city. What is there for people between the QEW and Dundas other than programs run at different churches? Is Aldershot adequately served?
There is no strategy for serving the growing seniors population. Councillors Sharman and Dennison have held workshops with different seniors groups but we’ve not seen any initiatives come out of these meetings. Data has been gathered, opinions recorded – time now for some action. It is time for Burlington to come up with a strategy on how they are going to serve these people.
They seniors want taxes to be kept low and they want better service – those two don’t complement each other. While many seniors don’t want to use public transit, partly because we have a poor transit system, not one geared to their needs. The time however is going to come when many if not most of those seniors will not be able to drive. The city is going to have to find ways to allow them to get about the city and bicycles aren’t the answer.
The seniors won much of this last scuffle. But there is a bigger challenge looming out there and it has to be met.
Ultimately the city is responsible for the Centre and unless the newly incorporated BOM wants to indemnify the city, and the insurance for that would be stiff, this is a city operation with all the input the seniors want to make – as long as they are reasonable.
Times have changed and the seniors need to move along with the change.
Some things though just won’t change.
Before the meeting started the seniors were asked to stand and sing O’Canada, which they did with strong voices – and did a much better job than city council members do at council meetings.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON July 12, 2012 This is one of those “local boy does good” stories – except that the story is about two brothers and one of their best friends who lived just up the street – still does. The three of them, along with a fourth person – a woman, are involved in the production of Harold Pinter’s major dramatic work play Betrayal, which involved just two men and a woman who all betrayed each other. The play itself is complex, but the Burlington group involved in the production of the Pinter play are not in the least complex.
They are an energetic serious bunch of young people who are either out of university or close to graduation and doing something they all want to do.
Mischa Aravena is the actor and producer, his brother Mel is the producer of the play. Friend Tom Hart is the assistant director while Jeanette Hicks is the set designer. Jeanette is a professional artists and has worked on a number of films, a Toronto Fringe show. She has exhibited her work at the Art Gallery of Ontario Gift Store.
The play is part of Hamilton’s Fringe Festival – with productions talking place July 21 at 9:45; July 22 at 6:15; July 23 at 9:30; July 25 at 6:30; July 26 at 6:00; July 28at 2:30 and July 29 at 6:00. Arrive on time – no entry no matter who you are, once the play has begin. All Betrayal shows are at the Citadel Studio Theatre in Hamilton. The Studio Theatre is built every year specifically for the Fringe event. The tickets are very modestly priced at $9 each. The Fringe is there to give young actors and set design people an opportunity to gain some experience and public exposure. A number of Fringe productions have gone on to New York and then into film production.
 The Aravena brothers, Mel out front in the centre with Mischa peeking out at the top, with Tom Hart giving advice on where the set piece should be placed. The Aravena brothers tried to get into the Toronto Fringe Festival where the approach is to take all the entries that come in and draw names out of a hat. They didn’t make the draw, but they were well enough prepared to get their application into the Hamilton people, where they were selected on merit.
Now to get the lines learned, the feel of the way they want to do the play and the set painted and ready for placement on the stage.
Mischa is the more intense of the two brothers; he will play one of the three characters in the production. His brother Mel is the director and has basically worked with Mischa on most of what he has done on stage.
The play was inspired by Pinter’s clandestine extramarital affair with BBC Television presenter Joan Bakewell, which occurred for seven years, from 1962 to 1969,. The plot of Betrayal exposes different permutations of betrayal and kinds of betrayals occurring over a period of nine years, relating to a seven-year affair involving a married couple, Emma and Robert, and Robert’s “close friend” Jerry, who is also married, to a woman named Judith.
 Jeanette Hicks: set designer. That apron is worn when she paints, she doesn’t cook or feed the others. For five years Jerry and Emma carry on their affair without Robert’s knowledge, both cuckolding Robert and betraying Judith, until Emma, without telling Jerry she has done so, admits her infidelity to Robert (in effect, betraying Jerry), although she continues their affair. In 1977, four years after exposing the affair (in 1973) and two years after their subsequent break up (in 1975), Emma meets with Jerry to tell him that her marriage to Robert is over. She then lies to Jerry in telling him that, “last night”, she had to reveal the truth to Robert and that he now knows of the affair. The truth however, is that Robert has known about the affair for the past four years.
Pinter’s articular usage of reverse chronology in structuring the plot is innovative: the first scene takes place after the affair has ended, in 1977; the final scene ends when the affair begins, in 1968; and, in between 1977 and 1968, scenes in two pivotal years (1977 and 1973) move forward chronologically. As Roger Ebert observed, in his review of the 1983 film, based on Pinter’s own screenplay, “The ‘Betrayal’ structure strips away all artifice. It shows, heartlessly, that the very capacity for love itself is sometimes based on betraying not only other loved ones, but even ourselves.”
Pinter was one of the “angry young men in the 70’s and had a significant impact on dramatic theatre both in London and New York. For a young actor embarking on a career on the stage, which tends to include a lot of taxi driving or waiting on tables, this play is a courageous step.
This year’s Hamilton Fringe Festival will be at four venues in Downtown Hamilton for eleven days between July 19 and 29, 2012. The full listing of productions is here. This year is the 9th Fringe Festival in Hamilton.
Online Tickets for the 2012 Hamilton Fringe are now on sale! Click here for box office. 50% of all tickets are held to be sold at the door – they go on sale one hour before the show! In order to access any fringe venue, you must be wearing a “fringe backer button” – (a one time $4 cost).
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