By Pepper Parr

October 26, 2014

BURLINGTON, ON

 

If the incumbent in ward 2 is beaten October 27th – it will be the upset of the year.
There are two challengers; one who we suspect has been put up to running and the other should find a new hobby.

Marianne Meed Ward is what the commercial people call a “disrupter” – she wants to change the way the city operates and she wants to get people involved. She doesn’t have much time for the social groups who feel they have influence and clout and she has no time for the vested interests.

Meed Ward cannot avoid a microphone and is like a moth to a flame when the television cameras appear. Some think she talks too much – and she does. She spoke longer than the candidate when Katrina Gould was being nominated as the Liberal choice for Burlington in the next federal election.

She drives her council colleague’s bananas – Councillor Taylor rolls his eyes frequently when Meed Ward is going on and on – and he is her friend.

However, when Meed Ward is going on she is asking the questions that need to be asked; she is asking the questions that no one else bothers to ask.

 

She, along with Councillor Blair Lancaster, saved Freeman Station from destruction.

Council will consider a Code of Conduct which Councillor Craven wants to see in place hoping that it will keep Meed Ward out of his territory. Craven goes close to ballistic when Meed Ward talks about ward 1 issues. Craven takes the old approach to local politics – each Councillor is responsible for their ward and they keep their noses out of the others. Meed Ward sees herself as on Council to represent ward 2 specifically but she feels free to speak about issues in every ward.

She is by far the most aggressive member of Council, aggressive in a positive way; but that doesn’t make it any easier for her council colleagues to cope with. They don’t share her approach to municipal politics – she works for participation and inclusion. She is usually quite comfortable delegating and letting the people, who are going to be impacted by a decision, be part of the decision making process.

Meed Ward does have problems with her understanding of economic fundamentals. She wanted the Maranatha project on New Street to be much smaller than economics of development make necessary.

Meed Ward doesn’t think the city has to change it rules so that developers can make a profit. The people developing Maranatha are certainly not your classic developer; this is a Christian organization that looks for ways to create housing that meets the needs of different groups.

The economics of buying property don’t seem to matter to Meed Ward, but they are a reality for anyone wanting to build anything. The people whose property is being bought want the best price they can get. The prices paid for the property assembled determine to a large degree what the cost of the units being offered will amount to – that economic fundamental seems to go right over Meed Ward’s head.

While Meed Ward talks about a collaborative approach to solving problems and arriving at solutions – collaboration means creating groups that can work together and it would be difficult to point to an occasion, when she has been able to work closely with her colleagues. The Freeman station cooperation was more of an exception than a rule.

It is often her against them. Like it or not, Council is made up of seven people and Meed Ward needs to work with all of them. We did not see much of that in her first term of office.  She has worked closely with Councillor Lancaster on saving the Freeman Station from destruction – so it can be done.

Meed Ward also worked closely with the Molinaro’s on their Paradigm project on Fairview next to the GO station. So she can and has worked with developers.

Mayoral candidate Peter Rusin however pointed out that there are going to be just five affordable housing units in the five structure complex: “who negotiated that deal” he asked. Good question – who did negotiate that deal and was that the best that could be done.

There is a lot of fuzziness around affordable housing – how it works and where the responsibility lies for the creation of affordable units and then assuring that they remain affordable. Some leadership is needed on this – Meed Ward is the logical one to take this on – so far we’ve not seen the kind of leadership this issue needs.

According to the Meed Ward Newsletter web site: “…a number of developers have agreed to meet with residents before submitting development proposals, and in several cases they’ve modified their plans based on your input, most notably the Molinaro “Paradigm” project on Fairview. More than a dozen changes were made to that project after two public design workshops, all voluntary since the project has already been approved by the OMB.

On Section 37, she spearheaded a community conversation about the risks and benefits of using this tool, and secured a review of our Section 37 protocol which was changed to require consultation with the ward councillor to ensure public input on any benefits negotiated in your name. Meed Ward effectively took that issue out of the hands of the Planning department and put it into the hands of the residents – at least in ward 2.

Meed Ward believes “we can reach our provincial growth targets through jobs or residential units” and adds that “we need to focus on jobs downtown, so more of our residents can live and work here.
City Council approved the downtown as one of five hubs in the city for focused economic growth through the Burlington Economic Development Corporation.

This same Council actually thought about closing the transit station on John Street – a mixed message if there ever was one.

And “mixed message” is the best that can be said of the ongoing efforts to create a downtown with more buzz. Shutting down traffic for car Free Sundays was a nice idea but it didn’t work in ward 2.
Meed Ward wants to see a retail attraction strategy developed.

Right on sister – now get the Burlington Downtown Business Association to do the job they are in place to do and make downtown more people friendly. They could start with a better job of getting the retailers on Brant Street to gussy the place up a bit during the holiday season. Last year’s effort was pathetic.

Meed Ward wants to “explore the feasibility” of a year-round farmer’s market downtown.” Make sure the Rotarians are involved in that discussion. They operate a very healthy market at the Burlington mall and they don’t want to see tax payer dollars taking their customers away from their event.
In the next term of council, Meed Ward said she “will get a report back on the possibility of setting up incubators for start-up businesses, including downtown.”

There is a start-up incubator downtown. Meed Ward attended its flashy opening – and that was it. The city hasn’t given it an inch of support. Meed Ward argues that the city cannot favour a private venture. Rubbish. The HiVe uses a “membership” model and there is no reason why both the BEDC and the city could not have bought a couple of memberships and used them for people who are in the city and need a place to work with their computers.

It would be interesting to see the reports on the meetings between the Downtown Business Association and the Economic Development Corporation – were there any? The EDC doesn’t seem to have figured out how to push the clutch so they can get their act in gear. Don’t hold your breath for those two organizations to come forward with a cohesive well thought out plan. There are people at city hall who have gone grey trying to develop policies and guidelines for something in the way of downtown commercial growth.

The number of new business enterprises is about the same as the number of people who either ran out of money or just plain gave up. Not very promising numbers.

The development community see Meed Ward as dangerous and describe her as such. Former city manager Jeff Fielding once said that if she had a decent handler she would be a very strong Mayor. The idea of Meed Ward being “handled” is one that is not easily embraced.

Meed Ward got herself into office by creating an organization focused on a single issue: Saving our Waterfront. That group had representation in every ward. She showed her community that she knows how to listen and they have embraced her approach.

Meed Ward brings a significantly different approach to municipal politics in Burlington. She has shown a willingness to share the power and authority she has. She gets called a “populist” for that approach.

We were never sure just what was meant by that word “populist”. Meed Ward certainly doesn’t set out to be popular. She has forced her council colleagues to stand for recorded votes; her best evening was when she forced them to stand four times.

Why every vote taken by this Council on everything at both Standing Committees and Council meetings is not recorded boggles the mind. Those men and women are chosen to lead and paid to do so. The public has a right to know what they decide and they have a responsibility to ensure the public knows what they have done.

Ward 2 is the smallest in the city which makes the task of organizing quite a bit easier. There are pockets that are not getting the attention they need. The Queensway community is an example. There is an opportunity to get some playground space for that community

Meed Ward has spoken out strongly against the shameful Ghent Street development that took out more than 100 mature trees and then filled the property that had 8 houses with 58 units that are crammed in like sardines. Great for the developer – bad for the city overall. In time the city will come to see that the Ghent development was a serious mistake.

Meed Ward has a true sense of what a public needs to hear from a politician. During her kick off campaign event at the Art Gallery she asked people not for just their votes but for their trust. Politically that was a close to brilliant choice of words.

When she was running for office in 2010 there were a number of former politicians who were prepared to work with her, but she wasn’t prepared to listen to them. In 2010 her objective was to win the seat and position herself for a run against Cam Jackson who she thought was going to win in 2010.

Full disclosure here: I sat in on several of those early campaign meetings and was asked to play a leadership role in her campaign. I decided against playing a role – not because I didn’t think Meed Ward was a winner – it was clear that she had the potential to win. What wasn’t clear then, and still isn’t clear yet, is this: Does Meed Ward have what it takes to serve as the Mayor of Burlington? Can she develop the skills needed to serve as Mayor?

She is not there yet, but that isn’t going to stop her from trying. Could she beat Rick Goldring in 2018 – based on what Goldring did during the 2010-14 term of office her chances of winning in 2018 are better than even.

Meed Ward was more right than most people give her credit for on the pier issue. The city could have settled for much less than it did – but some smart political spin when the settlement was reached, allowed the city to come out looking like the winner.

The pier is just one part of the waterfront. There is a patch of land that is referred to as the “football” that is bound by Lakeshore Road and Old Lakeshore Road and has a reported 18 different property owners.

When the Waterfront Advisory Committee was in place they had plans to hold a design competition for some ideas as to what could be done with that part of the city. It was a good idea then (it was given to them by former Toronto Mayor David Crombie) and it is a good idea now. Meed Ward needs to find a way to move this from an idea into a reality. It would certainly position her very well for a run at the top job in 2018.

While that committee got shut down – they did produce some good information. They identified who the property owners were and what was possible and not possible from a planning perspective. Members of that committee learned all about “top of bank” which limits severely what can be done with the properties that line the lake along Old Lakeshore Road.

There are significant limitations as to what can be done – but there is also significant opportunity – but nothing is going to happen without real vision and leadership from city hall. That hasn’t come from the Mayor nor has it come from Meed Ward.

Her very strong position on the possible sale of waterfront land makes it clear how she feels – there is an opportunity to put those feelings behind some concrete action in her second term.